[Senate Hearing 112-20]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
2011
S. Hrg. 112-20
PROPOSED BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2012 FOR THE FOREST SERVICE
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
TO
CONSIDER THE PRESIDENT'S PROPOSED BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2012 FOR THE
FOREST SERVICE
__________
MARCH 3, 2011
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico, Chairman
RON WYDEN, Oregon LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont MIKE LEE, Utah
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan RAND PAUL, Kentucky
MARK UDALL, Colorado DANIEL COATS, Indiana
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
AL FRANKEN, Minnesota JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
JOE MANCHIN, III, West Virginia BOB CORKER, Tennessee
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
Robert M. Simon, Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Chief Counsel
McKie Campbell, Republican Staff Director
Karen K. Billups, Republican Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS
Page
Bingaman, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator From New Mexico................ 1
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, U.S. Senator From Alaska................... 2
Poling, Jan, Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate
Secretary, American Forest & Paper Association................. 34
Tidwell, Tom, Chief, Forest Service, Department of Agriculture... 3
APPENDIX
Responses to additional questions................................ 37
PROPOSED BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2012 FOR THE FOREST SERVICE
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THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 2011
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:36 a.m. in room
SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jeff Bingaman,
chairman, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF BINGAMAN, U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW
MEXICO
The Chairman. Why don't we go ahead and get started.
Senator Murkowski is on her way here but asked us to proceed
without her.
Today's hearing is to consider the President's proposal for
the Forest Service's fiscal year 2012 budget. We welcome Chief
Tidwell, who has been before this committee many times before.
We welcome him back. We appreciate him coming to testify.
The budget is tight. This proposal would cut the Forest
Service's discretionary budget by nearly $180 million. It would
significantly impact a number of important programs and cut
staffing levels to the lowest level in decades.
I commend the Administration for its proposal to fund the
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program and also the
FLAME Wildfire Suppression Fund which are important programs
that were recently enacted with strong support of this
committee. The proposal to create an Integrated Resource
Restoration Account has been improved from last year and would
be a positive step to increase land management efficiency and
effectiveness.
I also support the Administration's commitment to the Land
and Water Conservation Fund, which will enable high-priority
land acquisition projects to proceed with broad local support
in the large majority of the States that are represented on
this committee. However, I also have concerns with some of the
proposals in the budget. One of those is the proposal to use
discretionary program funds for County Payments instead of
mandatory funding which we, of course, have had in recent
years.
I'm also concerned about the cut to the chronically
underfunded Land Ownership Management program, which funds work
on land exchanges, on boundary surveys, rights-of-way for
electric lines and pipelines and communication lines and other
critical infrastructure.
I have a number of questions related to some of these
issues which I will hope to get to during the question period.
Let me see if Senator Murkowski wanted to make any statement
before we call on you, Chief Tidwell.
STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI, U.S. SENATOR
FROM ALASKA
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning,
Chief. My apologies for being tardy this morning.
I want to welcome you to the hearing, Chief Tidwell. I must
tell you how glad I am that you came through your medical scare
and apparently are doing well. Hopefully we won't chase you out
of here too hard. I know that your job is not an easy 1. I know
that the challenges that face the Forest Service and your
leadership team are fairly daunting.
Once again your agency is recommending some changes to the
budget structure including the combination of a significant
number of programs in an integrated resource restoration
account. But, given the difficulty the Forest Service seems to
be having accomplishing work under the existing FY10 and FY11
budget formulation, perhaps I can be persuaded that this year's
proposed formulation makes sense.
I'm concerned that the proposal to take seven line items
and turn them into one called the ``IRR'' will make it much
more difficult to figure how or where the funding is spent.
I'm concerned about preeminent reauthorization of the
stewardship contracting, which last year you proposed to
replace commercial timber sales, and your failure to provide
the four 10-year timber sale contracts in Roscoe that were
promised.
I'm also concerned about your proposal to combine the
forest planning and inventory and monitoring line items
together into one line item that may facilitate your draft
Forest Plan rule but will make forest planning more expensive
and perhaps more unworkable.
We know that since 1997 over 41 million acres of national
forest land has been damaged or destroyed by insect activities.
Your science advisors expect that activity to continue, I
understand, for the next decade. That equates to 19 percent of
all the forested acres within the 13 intermountain States and
as high as 33 percent in some States.
We know that in FY10 the Forest Service treated less than
two-tenths of 1 percent of the bark beetle impacted areas.
Spending over $101 million of funding to treat 59,000 acres
makes me question whether the Forest Service is ready to be
trusted with a ``big bucket'' approach like that which is
called for in your integrated response restoration proposal.
Considering the apparent difficulty the agency is having
responding to the bark beetle epidemic, I would suggest that
now is not the time to be acquiring new lands while cutting the
fire assistance program and other programs that rural
communities depend upon. The last thing your agency needs is
the added burden of having to manage yet more lands during
periods of declining budgets.
In a number of places your budget recommends zeroing out
entire programs but suggests that the work done in the past in
those programs will be accomplished through other budget line
items. But the budget provides no additional specifics. Given
the difficulty most of the programs have had meeting the
accomplishment goals in the past year, I hope that you'll have
an opportunity this morning to more fully explain which
employees and programs will cover the work of the programs you
are recommending to be eliminated.
In your testimony that was presented, the written
testimony, you have a portion titled, ``Jobs in Rural
Communities''. As you know I was born down in Ketchikan in the
Tongass Forest. I was down in Ketchikan in January again
visiting, and I would suggest to you that there's a level of
cynicism and certainly skepticism about the promises there.
In Southeast, as you know, the big mills were gone years
ago. But this year the second largest remaining mill in
Southeast closed. It's gone from over 600 employees down to 6.
The sole remaining large mill is desperately worried about
its timber supply. The second largest timber related
construction company is gone. The largest is now down to 4
employees. So I can tell you, Chief, they do not believe in the
``Jobs in Rural Communities'' program and the 6 point vision
plan for growth. They're not buying into it anymore.
We recognize that in Southeast, 98 percent of Southeast
Alaska is owned by the Federal Government--98 percent. The vast
majority of that is in the Tongass National Forest. Income is
declining in Southeast. It's the only region of our State where
the population is declining and getting older. That is a direct
result of what we have seen from the policy and management
changes coming out of the Forest Service.
I want to work with you to reverse these trends. We've had
a chance to discuss it. I look forward to your comments on the
budget here this morning. But please know that I remain very,
very concerned about the sustainability of our communities
within the Southeastern region and how within the Forest
Service we can work to revive them.
Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the testimony this morning
and again, thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Chief Tidwell, why don't you go right ahead with your
testimony and then we'll have some questions?
STATEMENT OF TOM TIDWELL, CHIEF, FOREST SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE
Mr. Tidwell. Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee,
once again it's a privilege to be here today to discuss the
President's 2012 budget request for the Forest Service. I'm
joined here today with Kathleen Atkinson, our budget director.
I want to thank this committee for the support you've shown
the Forest Service in the past. I look forward to continuing to
work with you to provide more of the things that American
people need and want from their national forests and
grasslands. The President's budget is designed to support the
Administration's priorities for maintaining and restoring the
resiliency of America's forests.
Additionally this budget request reflects our commitment to
fiscal restraint with significant reductions to some very
important programs. But that is to ensure that we are spending
efficiently and focusing on the priorities of the American
public. The budget supports these priorities through 4 key
objectives.
First is to restore and sustain the forests and grasslands
by increasing the collaborative efforts to build support for
the restoration activities and create jobs. The budget requests
full funding for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration
Fund. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to thank you again for your
leadership with this program.
It also increases the emphasis on protecting and enhancing
watershed health with a request for 80 million for a new
priority watershed and job stabilization initiative that will
fund large scale projects that will focus on watershed
restoration and job creation. It does propose a revised
integrated resource restoration budget line item to align our
budget structure with the work that's being done on the ground.
This will facilitate a much more integrated approach to
developing project proposals that will result in more work and
in more jobs.
We will continue to track our traditional targets such as
board feet, stream miles improved. But we will also track the
overall outcomes of restoration so that we can show that we're
making a difference on a landscape scale. Then we'll continue
to incorporate climate change adaptation and mitigation
strategies to determine how our management needs to change to
increase the ecosystem's resistance to the increased frequency
of disturbances like fire, insect and disease outbreaks,
invasives, flood and drought.
The second objective is the budget provides for funding for
our wild land fire suppression. This includes a level of
preparedness that will continue our success to suppress 98
percent of wild land fires during initial attack. It calls for
a realignment of preparedness and suppression funds that more
accurately displays costs. It provides for the FLAME fund to
increase accountability and transparency and reduce the need to
transfer funds during large fires. It also increases the
emphasis on hazardous fuel projects to reduce the threat of
wild fire to homes and communities by doing more work in the
wild land urban interface.
The third objective is to increase support for community
based conservation with the America's Great Outdoors
Initiative. We'll do this by helping America reconnect with the
outdoors by increasing conservation education programs and our
volunteer opportunities through our youth programs. It'll build
on the success of our 28 job corps centers by supporting a
creation of a 21st century conservation service corps program
to create more skills, to build skills, provide work
experiences for more of our youth.
We'll continue to work with our States to use our State and
private forestry programs to promote conservation and to help
keep private forests forested. The budget requests an increase
in our LWCF funding in our Forest Legacy program to use
conservation easements and acquisition to protect critical
forests but also protect public access that's being threatened
by land conversion.
The fourth objective is to further support the economic
opportunities in rural America by supporting the recreational
opportunities that not only add to the quality of our lives,
but support these communities with an annual expenditure of
about $13 billion that is spent by our recreation visitors
every year in these communities. We also would encourage
biomass utilization and other renewable energy opportunities
and continue to explore ways to process oil and gas permit
applications and energy transmission proposals more efficiently
than we have in the past.
Then it also proposes a framework for a 5-year
reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools Act with $328
million in our budget request to fund the first year. Now we
want to work with the committee to consider options for
mandatory funding for this program and also for the legislative
proposal. Our goal is to increase the collaborative efforts to
encourage greater public involvement in management of our
national forests and grasslands.
We want to maintain and restore healthy landscapes. We need
to take care of the ecosystem. But we also need to support
healthy, thriving communities and provide jobs in rural areas.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to address the
committee. I look forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tidwell follows:]
Prepared Statement of Tom Tidwell, Chief, Forest Service, Department of
Agriculture
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, it is a privilege to be
here today to discuss the President's Budget request for the Forest
Service in fiscal year (FY) 2012. I appreciate the support this
committee has shown the Forest Service in the past, and I look forward
to working together in the future to ensure that stewardship of our
Nation's forests and grasslands continues to meet the desires and
expectations of the American people. I am confident that this budget
will allow the Forest Service to support this goal, while also
reflecting our commitment to fiscal restraint and ensuring we are
spending efficiently.
As the Secretary testified earlier this week, we need to take some
serious steps to reduce the deficit and reform government so that it's
leaner and smarter for the 21st century. The FY 2012 budget USDA is
proposing reflects the difficult choices we need to make to reduce the
deficit while supporting targeted investments that are critical to
long-term economic growth and job creation. To afford the strategic
investments we need to grow the economy in the long term while also
tackling the deficit, this budget makes difficult cuts to programs the
Administration cares about. It also reflects savings from a number of
efficiency improvements and other actions to streamline and reduce our
administrative costs. It looks to properly manage deficit reduction
while preserving the values that matter to Americans.
A healthy and prosperous America relies on healthy forests and
grasslands and the benefits they provide: clean air and water, carbon
storage, renewable energy, food and fiber, fertile soils, wildlife
habitat, and recreation opportunities. The Forest Service delivers
incredible value to the public by protecting and enhancing these
benefits through forest health restoration, research, and financial and
technical assistance to partners. Our national forests and grasslands
help to sustain 224,000 jobs in rural areas and contribute an estimated
$14 billion to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) each year through
visitor spending alone.\1\ In addition to managing 193 million acres on
155 national forests and 20 grasslands in 44 States and Puerto Rico,
the Forest Service helps improve stewardship of lands outside the
National Forest System. The agency partners with and provides technical
assistance to other Federal agencies as well as Tribal, State and local
governments; private landowners; and non-profit organizations for the
betterment of the Nation's forests and grasslands. Furthermore, the
agency is a leader in cutting-edge research on climate change,
bioenergy, wildfire management, forest pests and diseases, ecological
restoration and other conservation issues. The agency works to
efficiently maximize limited resources and create a high return on
investment for the American taxpayer.
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\1\ USDA Forest Service. National Visitor Use Monitoring Results.
http://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/programs/nvum/
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The FY 2012 President's Budget request for the Forest Service
totals $5.1 billion in discretionary appropriations, a $178 million
decrease from the FY 2011 annualized continuing resolution, and a $239
million decrease from the FY 2011 President's Budget request. This
decrease is achieved through several program re-combinations that
streamline operations and increase efficiency and through major
reductions in programs, including Roads, Facilities and National Fire
Plan programs and associated State and Private Forestry Programs. In
addition, the FY 2012 budget includes $44 million in targeted cost
saving measures for the Forest Service through reduced travel and
improved acquisition management procedures. These actions will allow us
to focus limited resources on programs where we can achieve the
greatest impact and that are of highest priority to the American
people. Our budget priorities respond to the public's desire to make
smart Federal investments that will allow us to pass on to future
generations the beauty, wildlife, water and natural resources that we
have today.
The FY 2012 budget for the Forest Service supports President
Obama's America's Great Outdoors (AGO) initiative, the goals of the
USDA's strategic plan, and Secretary Vilsack's ``all-lands vision.'' It
aims to maintain and enhance the resilience and productivity of
America's forests through four funding priorities: Enhancing Water
Resources, Responding to Climate Change, Community-based Stewardship,
and Jobs in Rural Communities.
Climate change, severe wildfires, disease and pests have all
contributed to declining forest health. With the current forest health
crisis threatening the future of our forests, ecological restoration\2\
is a key component to our FY 2012 strategy. We need to ensure that our
forests are resilient in the face of future uncertainties. To most
effectively address this forest health issue, we must work across
landscapes and ecosystems, as well as across ownership boundaries. The
Forest Service also aims to create jobs in rural areas, more actively
involve local communities in caring for their land, and improve access
to natural areas. Ensuring the sustainability of rural communities and
increasing community collaboration in natural resources management are
critical to the success of restoration efforts and the continued
provision of goods and services from forest ecosystems. Finally, using
forest biomass byproducts from ecological restoration activities as a
source of renewable energy can help enhance U.S. energy security,
economic opportunity, environmental quality, and global
competitiveness. In FY 2012 we aim to strengthen biomass utilization
efforts through our work with other agencies and our programs that
encourage market development for woody biomass.
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\2\ By restoration, we mean the process of assisting the recovery
of resilience and the capacity of a system to adapt to change if the
environment where the system exists has been degraded, damaged, or
destroyed. Ecological restoration focuses on reestablishing ecosystem
functions by modifying or managing the composition, structural
arrangement, and processes necessary to make a terrestrial and aquatic
ecosystem sustainable and resilient under current and future
conditions.
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Our four key funding priorities highlight how we as an agency are
continually working to ensure that we are responding to the needs of
the American public.
enhancing water resources
One of the most important services that the American people receive
from forested landscapes is the provision of clean and abundant
drinking water. An adequate supply of clean water is integral to the
health and prosperity of the United States. Over half of the Nation's
freshwater supply originates on public and private forest lands, and is
the source of drinking water for more than 200 million people. The
National Forest System (NFS) alone provides fresh water to
approximately 66 million people, or one in five Americans. In addition,
healthy rivers, lakes and streams are crucial to sustaining aquatic
life, supporting terrestrial ecosystems, and providing high-quality
recreation opportunities. Maintaining an adequate supply of clean water
will be one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century as our
forests and communities continue to deal with climate change, severe
wildfires, invasive pests, severe storm events, and development
pressures.
In June 2009, the Administration implemented the High-Priority
Performance Goal (HPPG) initiative, asking agency leaders to deliver
results on a limited number of priorities that are of high value to the
American public. Ensuring that our national forests and private working
lands enhance our water resources and are conserved, restored, and made
more resilient to climate change is a USDA HPPG. In order to achieve
this goal, the Forest Service in collaboration with the Natural
Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Farm Services Agency (FSA)
will be working to implement high-impact targeted practices that are
expected to have the greatest impact on protecting water resources on
over 6 million acres in priority landscapes. These priority areas
include targeted acreage on national forests and private working lands
in the Chesapeake Bay Basin, Great Lakes, Mississippi River Basin/Gulf
of Mexico, and California Bay Delta/Sierras.
The Integrated Resource Restoration (IRR) budget line item, first
proposed in the FY 2011 budget request, will allow us to effectively
integrate interdisciplinary restoration treatments that will protect
and improve our water resources. The FY 2011 budget request proposed to
combine the Forest Products, Vegetation and Watershed Management, and
Wildlife and Fisheries Management budget line items from previous
years. In addition to these programs, Collaborative Forest Landscape
Restoration, Legacy Roads and Trails, road decommissioning, and post-
fire Rehabilitation and Restoration have also been added to IRR for the
FY 2012 request. Moreover, the portion of hazardous fuels management
funding work outside the wildland urban interface (WUI) has also been
added to IRR for the FY 2012 request as the agency works toward
restoring historic fire regimes on the non-WUI portion of NFS lands.
Restoration projects require the integration of various stewardship
activities. Thus, combining these programs will allow us to use
resources more efficiently and will also create the vehicle that will
allow the Forest Service to move toward restoring watersheds as a top
priority. A new watershed condition metric will be used to evaluate
improvements in watershed health using a national standard and provide
clear accountability for the IRR program area. Specifically, we are
proposing an $80 million Priority Watershed and Job Stabilization
initiative that will use the Watershed Condition Framework, State
Forest Assessments, costs, and input from local communities to
prioritize projects to fund to make progress toward improving watershed
condition class. Proposed projects will be developed by the Forest
Service and will come from the Action Plans created for the priority
watersheds identified as part of the Watershed Condition Framework. We
will also continue to use some of our established targeted measures, as
well as continue to track outcomes related to past measures. FY 2012
restoration projects will maintain and improve water quality and
watershed function, improve fish and wildlife habitat, and integrate
forest products production into stewardship and watershed restoration
activities.
RESPONDING TO CLIMATE CHANGE
Climate change jeopardizes the benefits that the public receives
from America's forests and grasslands, including clean air and water,
forest products, and recreational opportunities. Many of the management
challenges that we have faced over the past decades have been
exacerbated by climate change, including catastrophic wildfires,
changing water regimes, insect infestations, and disease. In FY 2012,
the Forest Service will continue to focus on incorporating climate
change adaptation into multiple program areas, which includes making
ecosystems more resistant to climate-related stressors, increasing
ecosystem resilience to disturbance driven by climate change, and
facilitating landscape-scale ecological transitions in response to
changing environmental conditions. This priority is again tightly tied
to restoration and our IRR budget line item. Restoring key functions
and processes characteristic of healthy, resilient ecosystems allows
them to withstand future stressors and uncertainties. Examples of IRR
projects include decommissioning roads to reduce the risk of erosion
from severe storms, reducing fuels outside the WUI to reduce the risk
that severe wildfire will damage resources near important watersheds or
critical habitat, and reforestation to stabilize critical watersheds
and soils impacted by natural events and to increase long-term carbon
sequestration capacity.
The Forest Service has developed a Roadmap for Responding to
Climate Change in order to guide the agency in achieving its climate
change goals. The Roadmap focuses on three kinds of activities: 1)
assessing current risks, vulnerabilities, policies, and gaps in
knowledge; 2) engaging internal and external partners in seeking
solutions; and 3) managing for resilience, in ecosystems as well as in
human communities. The agency has implemented a scorecard to measure
progress made by each national forest and grassland. The scorecard
assesses agency capacity, partnerships and education, adaptation,
mitigation, and sustainable consumption.
Our commitment to responding to climate change is underscored in
the proposed Planning Rule, published for comment in the Federal
Register on February 14, 2011. The Forest Service will begin to operate
under the proposed Planning Rule in FY 2012 after it is finalized,
emphasizing citizen collaboration and an all-lands approach to
management planning, ecosystem restoration, and climate change
mitigation. A new budget line item, Land Management Planning,
Assessment and Monitoring, has been proposed for FY 2012. Combining the
previous line items Land Management Planning and Inventory & Monitoring
highlights the clear tie between gathering information through
monitoring and making management planning decisions. This combination
better aligns program funding with the objectives of the proposed
Planning Rule, ensuring that planning, monitoring, and conducting
assessments are coordinated across the landscape.
Our climate change research program will continue to help clarify
how climate change is expected to affect our ecosystems and the
services they provide and to inform decision-makers as they evaluate
policy options. With two decades of climate change research, the USFS
is the authority on how forest and range management can be modified to
address the challenges of global change.
COMMUNITY-BASED STEWARDSHIP
Working with local communities is critical to the success of
restoration efforts and increasing ecosystem resilience across the
landscape. Increasing collaboration with stakeholders can move
conservation efforts from a scale of thousands of acres to hundreds of
thousands of acres. Most importantly, working together with
stakeholders from project planning to implementation helps build
citizen support for ecosystem restoration projects. The importance of
getting citizens and communities more connected and involved with the
outdoors has been emphasized in AGO. AGO seeks to empower citizens,
community groups, and local, State and Tribal governments to share in
the stewardship responsibility for protecting, improving, and accessing
natural areas and their resources, with the end result of a healthy,
vibrant outdoor legacy for generations to come. The agency is committed
to achieving greater community-based stewardship in pursuit of
resilient forests as outlined in the America's Great Outdoors Report.
The FY 2012 budget strategically allocates resources to support
exemplary local stewardship models and to catalyze new partnerships and
innovations. The Forest Service will work towards the goals of AGO
through multiple program areas.
Building on the sentiments of the American people, the AGO
initiative seeks to maximize use of the Land and Water Conservation
Fund (LWCF), which directs a portion of revenue from offshore oil and
gas leases to conservation projects. The LWCF funds the Forest
Service's Forest Legacy and Land Acquisition programs and provides
local communities the opportunity to cost-share the conservation of
priority forest land. The FY 2012 budget request funds LWCF at the
fully authorized amount, which constitutes an increase of $59 million
for the Forest Legacy program and an increase of $26 million for the
Land Acquisition program from the FY 2011 annualized continuing
resolution. Forest Legacy works with States, private landowners, and
other conservation partners to protect environmentally critical forests
threatened by land conversion through conservation easements. Project
funding is based on a nationally competitive process. To date, the
Forest Legacy program has leveraged more than $630 million in non-
federal matching funds to conserve over 2 million acres of non-Federal
forest land. In FY 2012, 48 projects have been proposed for funding in
38 states. Forest Legacy projects keep working forests working, which
keeps jobs in rural areas. Forest Legacy projects also provide public
access to recreation in many areas. Land Acquisition supports a similar
function. Its primary focus is on land acquisitions and donations on
land adjacent to national forests. In FY 2012, 38 nationally
prioritized lands have been proposed for funding. Recreation on
national forest lands results in a boost to local economies and the
creation of jobs. This budget request includes an increase of $5.4
million for Recreation in support of AGO.
Protecting land that borders NFS lands and acquiring in holdings
abates the threat of development. Subdivisions and houses being
established immediately adjacent to our wild areas increases costs to
the agency, particularly for programs such as fire suppression. We have
invested in protecting wildlife for over a century. By fully funding
LWCF, our budget will maintain our historic investments for the
American people. In addition to LWCF, we also have other tools to
increase our management efficiency and become better neighbors with our
adjacent landowners and will use these as well. I would like to also
draw the Committee's attention to the pilot land exchange program
proposed in the landownership management budget line item, which will
accentuate the benefits of consolidated land tenure on one of our
National Grasslands.
In FY 2012 the Forest Service will commence implementation of the
2008 Farm Bill's Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program.
This program provides eligible Tribal governments, local governments,
and qualified non-profit organizations cost-share grants for creating
community forests through fee-simple acquisition. This budget request
includes an increase of $4.5 million for the Community Forest and Open
Space Program. These forests will be able to provide public access and
recreational opportunities, as well as protection of vital water
supplies and wildlife habitat, demonstration sites for private forest
landowners, and financial and community benefits from sustainable
management.
The Forest Service will continue to expand community engagement in
restoration efforts on National Forest System land through the
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLR). Under the
IRR budget line item, CFLR will provide for the continued
implementation of the ten long-term projects selected in FY 2010 and
will provide for the selection of additional long-term projects. CFLR
projects are proposed through multi-stakeholder collaborative planning
at a local level, and priorities are suggested by a Federal Advisory
Committee. In 2010, CFLR funded 10 community restoration projects in
Idaho, California, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, Washington,
Oregon, and Florida.
Conservation education and volunteer opportunities will be a
priority for the Forest Service as we implement AGO recommendations. We
already have a variety of programs that have successfully connected
youth to the outdoors, and we will continue to find opportunities for
engaging youth in conservation efforts in FY 2012. The Lake Tahoe
Generation Green program works with local community groups to engage
at-risk high-school students in outdoor leadership and forest
management activities. The Kids in the Woods program at the Apache-
Sitgreaves National Forest is another example of a successful locally-
based outdoor education program that has taught over 5,000 participants
about a wide range of topics, including invasive species, water
conservation, and responsible off-road vehicle use. The Chugach
Children's Forest in Alaska connects village, rural and inner-city
youth with a nearby national forest, while motivating local District
Rangers to work alongside community officials and school
superintendents, integrating community youth challenges with outdoor
solutions. Volunteer opportunities will also expand across the Forest
Service, including wilderness stewardship, trail clearing, restoration
of historic structures, and campground host duties.
Finally, the proposed Planning Rule establishes a framework that
emphasizes a collaborative approach to land management planning,
assessment, and monitoring. The Forest Service will work with the
public, Tribes and other partners to develop, revise and amend land
management plans, conduct assessments and develop and implement
monitoring programs. Collaborative approaches build citizen support in
identifying needs, establishing desired conditions, crafting
alternatives for future management, and identifying information and
monitoring needs.
JOBS IN RURAL COMMUNITIES
In August 2009 in Seattle, WA, Secretary Vilsack spoke of the need
for a ``shared vision'' that not only focuses on forest conservation,
but also on supporting a forest economy that creates jobs and vibrant
rural communities. The Forest Service is not only committed to
providing benefits to the American people in the form of clean air and
water, fish and wildlife habitat, timber, and recreation opportunities,
but also in the form of jobs and sustainable rural communities.
Forests and grasslands are an important source of employment and
rural development. More than 2.5 million Americans have forest-related
jobs in fields ranging from ecological restoration to outdoor
recreation services to the forest products industry.\3\ The Forest
Service provides service contracts for many types of activities
including tree planting, timber harvesting, noxious weed control,
culvert replacement, and road reconstruction. Recreation on national
forest lands also bolsters local economies and creates jobs. The 2010
National Visitor Use Monitoring Report found that spending by
recreation visitors in areas surrounding national forests amounts to
nearly $13 billion each year.
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\3\ USDA, Forest Service. 2010. Draft National Report on
Sustainable Forests. http://www.fs.fed.us/research/sustain/
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Over the past year the Forest Service has worked to create and
retain jobs in rural communities through the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. The Forest Service received funding
for two programs. Capital Improvement and Maintenance received funds to
restore infrastructure that supports public, administrative, and
recreation uses, while minimizing impacts to ecosystem stability and
conditions. In addition, Wildland Fire Management received funds to
protect communities from large fires and to contribute to the
restoration of fire-adapted landscapes. Final completion of all ARRA
projects is expected to occur in the next two fiscal years. However,
the agency will continue to have a jobs focus. Job creation and rural
development will be a priority in FY 2012.
One of the highlights of the IRR budget line item is creating job
opportunities in rural areas. Creating job opportunities through
landscape-scale restoration projects is a key component of the Priority
Watersheds and Job Stabilization Initiative under IRR. Stewardship
contracts and agreements will be a significant method for carrying out
restoration efforts, and attention will be given to new and emerging
markets for the wood removed during restoration activities, as well as
the traditional uses for these products. Building a forest restoration
economy will create new jobs in rural communities and help diversify
the forest products industry to support the sustainability of local
communities and the forest contractor infrastructure needed to perform
restoration work. Also, we are working to further build a forest
restoration economy around wood utilization by targeting grants to
assist small businesses. Since 2005, the Woody Biomass Utilization
Grant Program has awarded a total of $30.6 million to 123 grant
recipients in 21 States, including small businesses, non-profit
organizations, Tribes, and State agencies, to further innovations in
the wood products sector that lend to job creation.
The Forest Service has also invested in job creation for youth
through Job Corps, a partnership with the Department of Labor. This
program helps people ages 16 through 24 improve the quality of their
lives through technical and academic career training. With Department
of Labor funding, we operate 28 Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers
across the country that provide approximately 6,200 students per year
with the skills they need to become employable and independent so that
they can find meaningful jobs or further education. In March 2010,
Secretary Vilsack unveiled a green Job Corps Curriculum that will help
train underserved youth for jobs in the emerging green economy using
national forests and grasslands as training sites for solar, wind and
biomass energy demonstrations.
America's Great Outdoors hopes to build on the success of programs
like Job Corps by creating a 21st Century Conservation Service Corps
program that will remove barriers to employment and improve career
pathways to jobs in natural resource conservation. This includes use of
the Public Lands Corps Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2005, which
expanded youth service opportunities while addressing important
conservation and societal objectives. The Forest Service has a long-
standing commitment to recruiting employees that contribute to
workforce diversity; providing opportunities for disadvantaged youth to
pursue natural resource careers; and creating the next generation of
land conservationists. The Forest Service will expand on AGO Goal A (to
develop conservation jobs and service opportunities that protect and
restore America's natural resources) through the Youth Conservation
Corps (YCC). This summer employment program aims to accomplish needed
conservation work on public lands, provides gainful employment for 15-
through 18-year olds from diverse backgrounds, and develops in them an
understanding and appreciation of the Nation's natural environment and
heritage.
To continue supporting the communities that we work in, the FY 2012
President's Budget proposes a five-year reauthorization of the Secure
Rural Schools Act, named Payments to Communities, and includes $328
million of discretionary funding for FY 2012. This Act provides annual
payments to counties for schools and roads, forest restoration/
protection, and fire assistance. The proposal modifies the existing
framework to emphasize enhancing forest ecosystems, improving land
health and water quality, and increasing economic development
activities. The Administration is open to working with Congress to fund
either through discretionary or mandatory appropriations.
WILDLAND FIRE MANAGEMENT
The FY 2012 budget request continues to reflect the President's
commitment to responsibly budget for wildfires, ensuring fire
management resources are used in a cost effective manner in high
priority areas. The 10-year average of suppression costs is fully
funded, and the allocations between Preparedness and Suppression funds
have been adjusted to ensure that readiness needs are fully funded for
this fiscal year. The budget request includes a two-tier system for
fire suppression. The Suppression account will be the primary source of
funding for responding to wildfires, covering the costs of initial and
smaller extended attack operations. The FLAME reserve account will
provide better accounting of funds to cover fires escaping initial
attack that are large and complex, as it did last year. This system
ensures that funds are available to fight fires without diverting funds
from other critical Forest Service programs and activities.
CONCLUSION
This President's budget request for FY 2012 takes a comprehensive,
all-lands approach to conservation that addresses the challenges that
our forests and grassland currently face, while also taking into
consideration the need to reduce spending and to find the most
efficient way to do our work.
The future of our country's forests and the valuable ecosystem
services they provide depend on our ability to manage for an uncertain
climate and uncertain market. This means landscape-level restoration,
working across ownership boundaries, relying upon a foundation of
strong science to guide decisions, and collaborating with Tribal,
State, local, private, and other Federal stakeholders to achieve common
goals. A comprehensive approach to restoring unhealthy ecosystems will
help make our forests more resilient to stressors and disturbances
related to climate change and protect our vital water resources. At the
same time, we can significantly contribute to economic recovery and job
support by building a forest restoration economy. Greater involvement
of citizens and communities is key to successfully implementing
restoration efforts at large geographic scales. Our vision in creating
healthy landscapes not only includes creating healthy ecosystems, but
also creating healthy, thriving communities around our Nation's forests
and grasslands and providing jobs in rural areas. The FY 2012 budget
request highlights these priorities.
I look forward to sharing more with you about our FY 2012
priorities and working with you in shaping the proposals laid out in
this budget. Thank you for your time and attention, and I look forward
to answering any questions you may have.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. Let me start with a
couple questions.
One is on the whole issue of fighting fires which is a big
part of what your agency winds up having to do each year I
understand. We've had a circumstance over many years where in
order to get the funding needed to fight fires you had to go in
and steal the money essentially or borrow the money from other
accounts. According to the figures I've got there's about $417
millions that over the years was borrowed from other accounts
to fund emergency wild fire suppression operations.
This budget proposes to rescind $192 million in unobligated
balances from previous years which I gather is essentially
saying that $192 million of the money that was borrowed from
these other accounts we're now going to rescind and never spend
and since they restore that to the Federal treasury. Shouldn't
that money be used for the projects that were funded by
Congress and the Administration rather than just rescinded at
this point? It seems to me that the action or the proposed
action by the Administration is contrary to what Congress
already voted to do and the President agreed to.
Mr. Tidwell. Mr. Chairman, first I want to once again thank
you for your leadership and support of the FLAME fund. That act
now will do a lot to reduce the need for us to borrow funds in
the future from our other accounts to pay for suppression.
With our budget request to rescind $192 million that's to
help offset our current budget request. Based on the last
couple years of a fairly light fire season we have not needed
all the suppression funds that you've provided over the last
couple years. So we have not only the FLAME fund, but we also
have suppression carry over accounts. We believe we don't need
that money at this time and we feel that a better opportunity
would be to rescind some of that money to basically offset our
budget request for 2012.
The Chairman. Let me ask also about the proposal you have
there to prevent new capital construction starts. General
Accountability Office and others have reported concerns that
the agency is spending more on high lease and maintenance costs
than it would have to spend if it went ahead with some
construction of new facilities. Does it make any sense to have
a blanket policy that prevents the agency from constructing
facilities when the facts in particular cases would indicate
that the taxpayer would be better served if we did?
Mr. Tidwell. Mr. Chairman, our budget represents some
really tough decisions that we had to make as far as our
request in realizing we needed to reduce spending in some
areas. One of those is our construction of new facilities. So
we feel that the best use of the money that we're requesting in
2012 would be to complete the ongoing projects before we start
any new projects.
No doubt there's some expensive leases that we have that we
would like to be able to provide different opportunities there
to reduce our overall costs. But at the same time we feel that
the best use of these funds is to finish up the work that's
started now and not do any new starts in 2012.
The Chairman. Let me ask one other issue here. Your budget
proposes to eliminate the budget line for a number of programs.
One is in my State, the Valles Caldera National Preserve. You
propose to eliminate that.
You propose to eliminate the budget line for international
forestry and also for some subsistence programs in Alaska.
With regards to the Valles Caldera National Preserve, as I
understand it the budget proposes that you maintain the same
level of funding that you had in fiscal year 2010. But you do
it through 4 different accounts and eliminate the particular
line item account for the Valles Caldera which has been there
for quite some time now.
What's the justification for that?
Mr. Tidwell. Mr. Chairman, you're correct that we
anticipate to do the same level of funding for all 3 of the
programs that you've mentioned with our 2012 budget. But by
eliminating separate line items it just reduces the accounting
that has to be done on relatively small budget line items. Each
of these have a treasury symbol that we have to track to that
line item.
By eliminating the line items, but still fulfilling our
responsibility and commitment to fund these programs, it just
reduces some of the accounting part of our business that we
need to do.
The Chairman. But you're still going to be able to
demonstrate through your accounting. I assume that you have
spent the level of funding that you indicate you're planning to
spend on these items? Right?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, we'll be able to show you how much money
we spent in these 3 areas through our accounting system. We
just will not have to have a separate treasury symbol for each
budget line item.
The Chairman. I don't really know how it simplifies things
to have to keep track of how much is being spent from 4
different accounts to achieve the purpose which otherwise would
be achieved by maintaining one account. But maybe there's some
alchemy here that I'm just not understanding.
Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. I'm not sure I'm understanding it
either, Mr. Chairman.
Chief, I want to ask you a couple questions relating to the
Tongass Timber Program. Back in 2008 the Forest Service
committed to preparing an offering for 10-year timber sales
with volumes of 150 to 200 million board feet each in the
Tongass National Forest. We both know the history behind it and
why this action was taken. Congress has repeatedly made
available pipeline funds to allow for the Forest Service to
prepare these 10-year sales and other 10-year sales.
Now we're told that the agency plans to convert 2 of the
10-year timber sales to stewardship contracts, to offer only
half of the promised volume and to offer that reduced volume,
in small parcels. The question to you is: what has happened to
the commitment to four 10-year sales?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, our commitment is to be able to
sustain the communities in Southeast Alaska. An integrated wood
products industry is just essential for that. So when I look at
what we've been doing in the past in Alaska, it has not worked.
We spent more time in court than we have actually been out on
the ground getting work accomplished.
So we've changed our approach to be able to work with the
communities, work with the villages, work with folks there in
Southeast Alaska to build support around the work that we can
get accomplished. Our first stewardship contract that we'll be
awarding later this spring is a step forward. I recognize we're
not getting enough work done.
But I look at what we we're doing in 2008 and 2009, and I
look at what we accomplished in 2010, and what we plan to
accomplish in 2011, what we plan to accomplish in 2012, and the
trend is in the right direction.
We're building support so that we can actually move forward
and get the work accomplished on the ground. Right now, as you
well know, the industry is almost on its last legs. I just
don't feel we can take a risk on maybe some large projects that
we can end up being in court over verses being able to get work
through that we can go ahead and implement.
So that's our focus. To be able to ensure that we can
continue to provide work, continue to provide timber sales so
that the existing infrastructure can stay in place. Then over
time, to be able to build some credibility that through this
program, through our stewardship contracts, through our timber
sales, that folks will feel better about investing in the
future.
Senator Murkowski. We've had this conversation before.
Investing in the future makes it very difficult if everybody
who has been a participant in this industry is no longer
around. We keep talking about this transition to second growth.
I have suggested that there's not going to be anybody left to
conduct that transition.
I mentioned this in my opening comments. You say that the
trend is improving. Going from 600 employees to 6 employees is
not a trend that I want to see. Recognizing that we have only
one remaining large mill, the second largest timber related
construction company is gone. These are not trends that I want
to continue. I want to reverse these trends.
I'm concerned because we had a commitment from the
government, particularly from the Forest Service, to have these
four 10-year contracts. Now we're down to 2. These are
stewardship contracts, as you stated.
I don't disagree with you that we've been hung up in
litigation. But I'm also not certain that this new approach
frees us from the litigation and puts us on a better track.
Again, I've got to speak for the people of Southeastern Alaska
who feel that they've been given a promise, given a commitment,
and the Federal Government has not kept that promise. It's been
to the detriment of the people who live in the region, live in
the Tongass.
Let me ask you whether it is correct that the timber sales
that involve any old-growth timber have to be approved
personally by the Secretary of Agriculture and his staff.
I would also like to confirm whether or not any timber
sales that involve the inventoried roadless areas have to also
be approved by the Secretary of Agriculture.
Is that true in both of those cases?
Mr. Tidwell. With timber sales that involve old growth, no.
Those decisions are made at the forest level or at the region
level as they always have been.
Secretary Vilsack does have an interim directive in place
when it comes to road less due to the current situation with
the ruling in the 9th circuit and the 10th circuit. So until
that's resolved he does consider those and we recommend the
projects. So far we've been able to move forward with the
projects that reach him.
Senator Murkowski. What does that do to cause delay in the
process? The Secretary is very busy. How tuned-in is he to
looking at a sale in a particular part of the country? How much
of a delay does this create by having to run everything all the
way up to the Secretary of Agriculture?
Mr. Tidwell. It usually takes about an hour to brief me.
Then we take the information across the street to his staff and
have a briefing on it. Usually we get these through in a
relatively short period of time.
Senator Murkowski. I don't know that we do that so
effectively anywhere else in the Federal Government. If it's
actually a matter of hours, who am I to complain? But I worry
about the fact that we are taking an issue to the Secretary
level, when it should be able to be resolved within the
regions.
My time is expired. I'll wait for round 2. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Wyden.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chief, good to have you here. Let me pick up on this point
that Chairman Bingaman began with. With respect to the Timber
Payments Law which as you know was written here in this
committee, written twice.
What troubles me about the Administration's approach now is
you all are turning a historical obligation into a year to year
gamble. That's essentially when you strip down what's going on.
What's going to happen?
I think that is very troubling. It is exactly the opposite
of what the President rejected when he was in Oregon and other
places in 2008. I know Colorado and a number of States heard
essentially exactly the same thing.
So my first question to you is what are you all going to do
to address what the President talked about which is getting
these rural communities off this roller coaster of uncertainty?
Because what I get out of this budget now is the historical
obligation which is 100 years old, which was, as you know,
right at the heart of creating the National Forest system. The
country would enjoy parks and places like the wonderful
communities I represent to get help for schools and roads and
basic services seems that it's not only being chipped away.
It's being replaced, literally taking the historical obligation
and making it a year to year gamble.
What are we going to do to help honor what the President
talked about in 2008?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, I share your concern. You know, the
importance of reauthorization of this act. As you well know
it's something that's just essential. This is not the time to
be eliminating this program.
So that is why we have put $328 million of our
discretionary funding to dedicate that to the first----
Senator Wyden. Taking a program that was mandatory. It was
part of a historical obligation and as you've said, made it
discretionary.
Mr. Tidwell. Yes. Senator we want to work with you on
finding options for mandatory funding. We understand the
concern.
I've worked with counties throughout my career. I've worked
on the original act. I understand the importance of being able
to provide that certainty so that counties can plan over a
period of time and not have to be dependent on what happens
each year.
So we want to work with you on finding mandatory funding.
We want to work with you on those considering that. Then also
we need your support to be able to put together the legislative
proposal that will also be essential for how this will actually
work over the next 5 years.
Senator Wyden. You aren't going to have any trouble getting
me to work with you to do a 5-year proposal. As you know,
Chairman Bingaman, Senator Murkowski, many of us put together
the last one. It certainly required a little bit more
creativity than people might have thought. It now, of course,
includes PILT and other approaches and we'll do it.
But we just cannot put rural communities in this place
where a, I don't think a lot of them are going to survive.
They're simply not going to make it. They're walking on an
economic tightrope today. They're just not going to make it.
But second, the inability to be able to plan or predict
what's going to happen is just devastating to them. That gets
me to the second area that I touched on. It's almost the flip
side of the Timber Payments legislation is that as you look at
the historic obligation and recognizing that times have
changed.
The question is what are we going to do to get these
communities into areas where they can be more supportive of
activities in the private sector? Grow their private sector
economy which is why we want a lot of the mills to be able to
do more thinning? Now you all are cutting the hazardous fuels
accounts by my calculation somewhere in the--overall about $10
million. It's a little bit hard to kind of follow the way the
money is moving.
But perhaps more troubling is according to those charts
that you all gave the staff. We're not hitting the targets now
for the thinning that needs to be done. This goes back to when
this committee basically saved the Healthy Forest Restoration
Act.
As you know the bill came over from the House. It was dead.
A big group from this committee largely worked pump new life
into it. We said one area we agree on is we've got to have more
thinning.
Not getting the thinning done that's needed today to hit
those targets. The budget is going to go down. So how we going
to see anything other than less thinning this year compared to
last year based on your own chart?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, you know, I share your concern about
the amount of work we're getting done. Last year we did exceed
our timber target. We've actually increased that for this
coming year.
Senator Wyden. You exceeded your thinning target last year?
Mr. Tidwell. We exceeded our forest products target.
Senator Wyden. I'm looking at a chart. I guess it is goal
one. Key performance measures. I can't tell what page it's on.
It says 3-9.
But it looks like it terms of acres you're at 59 percent.
So you're saying that exceeded the previous year? That was less
than 59 percent the previous year? You got it up?
Mr. Tidwell. The board feet target that we had is what I
was referring to. There's no question there is a need to do
significantly more thinning. That is one of the things we're
going to continue to focus on.
It's one of the benefits that I hope to achieve through the
Integrated Resource Restoration budget line item to be able to
create more efficiencies within the way we design projects. Be
ableto actually get more work accomplished.
Senator Wyden. I'm over my time.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Barrasso.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to the committee. It's good to see you again.
Appreciate you being here. I just wanted to talk about a couple
things.
I'm concerned about the Administration's infatuation with
limiting multiple use on public lands and obtaining more land
at the same time. There seems to be a general theme of
expanding control within the America's Great Outdoors
Initiative, the Treasured Landscapes and the BLM Secretarial
Order designated de facto wilderness. The rush to acquire more
Federal land seems to be in evidence by the Forest Service's
proposal to increase land acquisitions by 42 percent from last
year.
So I'm just curious in these times of debt and deficit does
it just make more sense to reduce the deficit enable the Forest
Service to concentrate on properly managing its existing lands
rather than continue to go out and acquire additional lands?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator I understand your concern with this
additional request for more LWCF funding. But that request is
based on what we've heard from the public. When we did, I
think, close to 50 listening sessions around the country last
year on America's Great Outdoors this was one of the things
that we heard across the country that there was more and more
support for the land conservation and support for full funding
for LWCF.
The way that we use these funds and the majority of our
increase is in our Forest Legacy program that is for
conservation easements. The purpose there is to be able to help
people stay on the land, for those folks that are in a
situation where they're having trouble to make it on their
land. Often a conservation easement can allow them to stay on
their land, that ranch, that farm, their forested lands, to
stay productive and be able to continue to have working open
space.
The other advantage of it is for access. As it just seems
like there's a trend across the country for folks that have
private land to start to lock gates and to keep the public from
crossing their land to be able to get to public land. So this
is another key focus for both the Legacy program and our
Acquisition program.
The other thing is that both, especially the Acquisition
program, help reduce the cost by eliminating land line
locations that have to be maintained. It makes it easier for us
to manage if you have a consolidated block of land. It's easier
to do projects on that verses if you're dealing with these
small parcels of private land. It also provides benefit for
wildlife habitat.
I understand these are difficult decisions. But as I look
at the benefits of this program and especially in the economic
times that we have, it seems to be more and more folks that are
really struggling to be able to stay on their lands. So by
increasing the opportunity for conservation easements there's a
direct benefit to not only help them to stay on the land, but
also provide the other benefits for the public.
Senator Barrasso. You're talking about letting people stay
on their land? I'm looking at what the Forest Service draft
planning rule is. It quotes, ``planning for landscape scale and
broader landscape.'' The definition, when you take a look at
how you define these things: ecosystems, land forms, plant
communities across a defined area irrespective of ownership or
other artificial boundaries.''
So following up on that last answer. How do you envision
the Forest Service managing at the landscape level and under
your definition, ``irrespective of ownership or other
artificial boundaries?'' Do you believe the private property
lines are artificial boundaries? How does that all fit in?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, I respect private property boundaries
and we all do in the Forest Service. The concept behind taking
a landscape scale approach within our planning rule is that any
decisions that are made in a forest plan revision is for the
National Forest System lands only. But what we want to do and
when we start the assessment to really consider the changes we
need to make in current management, we need to factor in what's
going on on the adjacent landscapes.
We need to work with the States. We need to work with the
counties to understand what their needs are so that our
management is in alignment more with what's going on with their
lands. So that we can work together.
For instance, when we're dealing with, as you're well
familiar with, bark beetle. The idea to stop a project at a
boundary line verses having the opportunity to be able to look
at the entire landscape and be able to work together with the
States, maybe the private landowners so that we do one project
that maybe covers all of that at the same time. That's the sort
of thing that we want to do more of.
It's to be able to understand what's going on with the
adjacent lands. Then factor that into the management decisions
that we're making on the National Forest System lands.
Senator Barrasso. I appreciate your comments on the bark
beetle because I have a Good Neighbor Forestry act to allow
people to do that. We met with a little bit of resistance in
getting additional hearings and having that as part of
additional discussion. But I think it's critical.
I do want to recognize the work and the research and the
funding that the Forest Service has dedicated to bark beetle
infestation. It seems that the problem is getting ahead of us
though in terms of the resources that we've had verses the now
3.6 million acres of mountain pine beetle infestation in
Wyoming alone. We see what they were able to do in Alberta. It
made a big difference.
So with such a success story in other places we're hoping
that we can get some more actions planned for the treatable
acres to help restore resilience to our forests here. I'd love
to hear what your thoughts are on that.
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, we share your concerns of course
about what's going on with the bark beetle infestation
throughout the West. Traditionally we have infestations that
come and go. It's part of our pine types and a native pest. But
we have never seen this level of infestation before. We've
never seen the spread occur at this level before.
So we recognize that we need to move forward with this and
dedicate additional resources. We have--the process of
completing a bark beetle strategy that will lay out our plans
for the next few years. I'm hoping that's in final clearance
now. We should be able to share a copy with you in the
foreseeable future, in the near future.
One of the things that that strategy calls for is an
increase in the dedication of our current budgets to deal with
this problem. That we plan to dedicate over about $100 million
a year to focus on dealing with bark beetle in these States.
This is expanding. With the current environmental conditions,
the current climate that we have, it's just very, very
favorable for bark beetles.
I tell you until we get an extended cold winter, especially
early winter, we're not going to see this infestation really
slow down until we run out of trees. So we recognize we need to
increase our current efforts. So that's one of the things
you'll see in the strategy is that that's going to be the level
of dedication of our funding to deal with this problem.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Udall.
Senator Udall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me pick up, if I might, Chief, on Senator Barrasso's
comments and before I go there, welcome and thank you for
taking the time to come to the Hill today.
As you know, Colorado's forests have been severely affected
by the beetle infestation. I think we have more acres than any
other State infested at this time. The bad news is that other
States are going to reach the level of infestation we're
experiencing.
As you know, it's not just about dead trees, but it's about
the safety of those who travel and recreate near our forest.
Falling trees can affect the safety of those who travel on
roads and trails, power lines are at risk, campgrounds, and of
course they stand there as potential fuel for forest fires.
One report suggests it's a phenomenal number. But I've had
it confirmed a number of times that 100,000 trees a day are
falling. It's a number I can't quite wrap my mind around.
But we need funding to mitigate these affects. I understand
that it may be possible for the Forest Service to reprogram
existing funds to address bark beetle mitigation in Region Two,
the region that Senator Barrasso and I both are a part of. Do
you support reprogramming funds to address the bark beetle
epidemic in Region Two?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, we did send a request up late last
year to reprogram $70 million of carryover suppression funds
that we believe would have been better used to be able to
increase our response to the bark beetle. The last time we had
a serious infestation it was--and this one is much larger than
what we had, you know, in Southern California a few years ago.
But at that time Congress was able to appropriate significantly
more money outside of our strain. I think we received close to
about $130 million additional dollars to address that
infestation.
As much as I'd like to be able to say we can deal with this
one within our current budget constraint, we'll not be able to
do all the work that we need to do. So that was one of the
reasons that we sent up the reprogramming request. We
appreciate the Senate Appropriation Committee's support of that
request.
Senator Udall. I would hope the other body would take note
of what's happening in the West. That the wiser and cooler
heads would prevail there as well. Because these are moneys
that are, in effect, in hand and would be put to very good use.
If our focus in the Congress should be on jobs and our economy,
these dollars have a direct connection, particularly in our
Western economies.
On that note let me turn to another subject since Senator
Barrasso has stepped out. But he and I have worked along with
many members of this committee on legislation that we've
recently reintroduced that would clarify your authority when it
comes to permitting non-snow and summertime sport activities on
Forest Service land. This would be focused particularly at the
ski industry.
As you know, the bill--I think I can use these words--
wildly popular, passed this committee unanimously last year.
Passed the House. We were within a few inches of the goal line
here in the Senate as the year ran out.
With this in mind will you be prepared to begin permitting
summertime activities when the bill is passed in the coming
months? What action can you take in the interim to prepare for
that eventuality?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, thank you for your leadership to
provide this legislative solution to a situation where we need
your help. Our current authorities do not allow us to permit
summer activities that we feel would be a much better use to
the infrastructure that exists at our ski resorts. So I just
want to thank you for your leadership.
What we're working on right now is to be positioned so that
we'll have our manual direction in place so that when this
legislation passes we can quickly move forward and provide the
direction on how to follow this to the field. Normally it takes
anywhere from a year to maybe 2 years for us to complete our
process. So one of the things we want to do is to expedite that
and actually get working today.
Depending what comes out of the final legislative process
we'll be able then to amend. But we're working on it right now
so that we can move much quicker than we have in the past to be
able to get the direction to our field.
Senator Udall. That's excellent, and again, as you know,
there was no real objection to the bill. It was in a package
that we were characterizing as an Omnibus Public Lands package.
There were objections to other legislative initiatives in
that package. But we must be ready to go. Again, if our focus
in this Congress ought to be on jobs and the economy, this
helps rural communities that have shoulder seasons where people
are laid off and where the activity level isn't what it should
be to maintain those economies. This would be very helpful.
If I might on my remaining few seconds, I just--Senator
Barrasso has stepped out. He and I have worked together on the
previous 2 topics I raised. He and I may have a slightly
different points of view on LWCF.
I want to commend you for the work that you've done. I also
want to remind the committee that those LWCF dollars which are
a form of a payback to taxpayers for assets that are developed
that are finite. They have never been fully directed into
protecting our public lands and our urban parks and our urban
forests, all the various areas in which LWCF operates.
I think we would keep faith to the taxpayers if we saw all
of those dollars directed into LWCF needs. There is a
significant backlog. It's a place where Senator Barrasso and I
might agree when it comes to conservation easements, existing
infrastructure and the like with those dollars, could be
directed.
Finally I don't think you intended to suggest that the
government is going to tell private property owners what to do
when it comes to conservation easements. What you were saying
was that whether it's another tool that could be made available
to private property owners to maintain open spaces, wildlife
and the like, if those private property owners want to take
advantage of those funds and those resources. So I just wanted
to put that point of view on the record.
I thank you for being here. Thank you for your service.
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Mr. Tidwell. Senators, thank you for, you know, correcting.
If I misspoke it's with both of our----
Senator Udall. No, I don't think you did. I just wanted to
speak my mind as well.
Mr. Tidwell. OK.
Senator Udall. But I don't think you did.
Mr. Tidwell. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Franken has been here since the
beginning. Let me call on him and then Senator Hoeven and then
Senator Johnson and then Senator Manchin.
Senator Franken. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you,
Chief for your testimony.
One of the funding increases in this budget is for the
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration fund. There have
been some really good projects funded under this program. So I
don't mean to discredit any of the projects that were funded in
2010.
But I'd like to ask about how you determined the geographic
distribution of these awards because I notice that none of the
awards went to the upper Midwest. The Minnesota Chippewa and
Superior National Forest submitted a proposal under this
program last year. I'd like to see that funded in the next
round of funding.
Can you tell me more about what you consider when decided
which of these projects to fund?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, Senator. We have an advisory committee
that's in place that the project proposals first go to. Then
they look at multiple factors as far as what's being proposed,
the level of support, the matching funds that are required.
Then they make recommendations to me as to which projects
should go forward.
Then I take a look at their recommendations. Also we take a
look at their projects again and then based on that we go
forward with the selection. The problem we had, and which is a
really good problem, is this is such a popular program because
it will allow folks to be able to do work on much larger
landscapes, be able to have more assurance that funding will be
there for multiple years so that they can really take on more
of a long term contracts, etcetera.
So the response just exceeded what our capability was with
the first year's funding. It's one of the reasons we've asked
for full funding. So that we'd not only be able to maintain the
projects we selected last year, but be able to then look at the
new proposals and especially the one that you refer to. It's an
excellent project.
In fact every project that was submitted ideally should be
funded. But there's just competition for it. So we look forward
to hopefully getting----
Senator Franken. You spoke to my next question which is
should Congress fund this program at $40 million for FY2012, as
you've requested, will it fund ongoing projects only or will
you be able to fund new projects like the one in Minnesota?
Mr. Tidwell. If we receive full funding we'll be able to do
both. We'll be able to continue funding with the projects we
selected plus be able to have funds available for new projects.
Senator Franken. Thank you.
One of the 4 priorities you mentioned in your testimony is
creating jobs in rural communities. We've been talking about
that. I'm glad that you've prioritized the research on biomass.
I was just up in Morris, Minnesota where they have a
biomass gasification combined heat and power pilot project.
They use a direct energy system to heat the whole campus and
provide electricity. It's a great system. We need to do more of
this kind of biomass projects around the country.
I think woody biomass has an important role to play.
Because when you manage forests sustainably woody biomass is a
huge opportunity for renewable energy and job creation. We've
got a lot of this up in northern Minnesota. I just think we
need to do more R and D and more pilot projects like this one
in Morris at the university there to figure out better and more
efficient ways to use woody biomass.
Can you tell me more about the Woody Biomass Utilization
Grant program and what you plan to do with the proposed
increase in this budget for FY2012?
Mr. Tidwell. In our budget request we're asking for $5
million for our Woody Biomass Utilization Grant program to be
able to provide funding for these various facilities you're
referring to to be able to get some additional infrastructure
in place. We need the ability to be able to make use of this
material that needs to be removed. I'm not talking about the
saw log material. I'm talking about the residual material that
often we have the choice of either paying someone to pile it
and then burn it verses being able to remove it and make
beneficial use out of it.
So converting biomass to energy is one of the areas that we
feel will help not only make use of the material. But it will
offset the cost of the work that needs to be done. So we feel
that this grant program is one way that we can encourage some
additional infrastructure.
We're also working on 48 different facilities with the
Department of Energy and Rural Utility Service and Rural
Development to be able to put packages together to help
encourage additional infrastructure.
Senator Franken. Thank you. I agree that we should be using
this. I mean, it is really, you know, has a zero carbon
footprint because the CO2 that it takes to grow the
stuff is what it releases, so. The gasification plants are
very, very efficient. So thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Hoeven.
Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chief, thank you for being with us today.
In North Dakota we don't have quite as many trees as some
of our sister States like Minnesota, although good wind like
Minnesota as we were discussing yesterday.
[Laughter.]
Senator Hoeven. But fewer trees than many other States. But
we do have the National Grasslands and not sure how in the
course of history the Forest Service ended up with the
grasslands rather than perhaps some other division of USDA. But
there's some unique challenges in managing the grasslands.
As you know we have ranchers out there. Certainly that
creates, I think, a different situation for you than you would
face in terms of managing forests. One of the questions I have
for you is the--clearly you manage for multiple uses. But the
ranchers feel that when there is a dispute with Forest Service
that they'd like to be able to go to ag-mediation.
Our farmers and ranchers are used to going to ag-mediation
services. They feel that that would be a good way to have
arbitration or dispute resolution and management with the
Forest Service. They feel that would be a fair venue.
Please give me your thoughts on using the ag-mediation
service for that process.
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, our decisions on the grasslands are
covered by our appeals process. If we're making a decision that
results in the suspension or a cancellation, a reduction in the
number of cattle that's being grazed then we do go--we do use
the mediation procedures. But if our decisions are not of that
level of significance than we go through our appeals process
and that's available to the ranchers.
So on more significant decisions definitely we go through
mediation before we move forward with that. But on more of the
routine decisions then we use our appeals process that's
available for the ranchers if they disagree with the decision.
Senator Hoeven. So you say you are going through North
Dakota ag-mediation services for some of the decisions?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes. If it's a decision that results in a
suspension or a reduction in the number of cattle that's being
grazed we do go through mediation.
Senator Hoeven. I think the concern--and from the rancher's
standpoint they're out to make they live there. They work
there. They're making a living there. They recognize multiple
use. They're good stewards of the land.
Their concern is if they go through your internal process.
How is that in essence, an arbitration or a fair hearing
process, where both sides are, you know, have the same relative
standing? So that's their concern with going through a
mediation service rather than through an internal service of
the Forest Service.
The other thing is since USDA has a national appeals
division why not use the national appeals division that
everyone else throughout USDA uses? That would certainly
provide a fair venue and a venue again, where you have both
parties feeling like they're getting fair treatment. What about
that approach?
Mr. Tidwell. You know, Senator I feel our current approach
is the mix of the 2 processes. That there's been a lot of
support for our appeals process from everyone that we deal with
because I think it's proven to be a fair process. If a decision
is made by the Grassland Supervisor, his decision is appealed
then to the regional office. So it's a different set of people
that look at it. So I feel that our appeals process is very
fair.
When we're talking about a more significant decision that
would have an effect on the rancher's operations as far as
reducing the number of livestock they can run, then we do use
the mediation process. We also, before we make decisions, want
to focus on working with folks up front.
So we actually can reach agreement on what needs to be done
ahead of time before we make that decision. I mean, that's what
we really want to focus on so that there's actually less time
spent after the decision has been made but more time making a
better decision. That's where we want to just focus our time.
Senator Hoeven. Chief, are you telling me you're willing to
use either ag-mediation services or the national appeals
division for all of these decisions? Are you willing to do
that?
Mr. Tidwell. I'm just willing to use the mediation process
for decisions that result in any reductions or temporary
suspensions or changes to the number of livestock that they
operate. But the other decisions that we make I feel that our
current appeals process is a better way to address those.
Senator Hoeven. I'd like to follow up with you on this
because the perception is that's an internal process so it's
not a fair hearing process. So I'd like to do some more work
with you on that process.
Then also and I may have to save this for the next round,
but talk to you a little bit about using range scientists for
some of these determinations too. I'll go into that on a follow
up round then.
The Chairman. Senator Johnson.
Senator Johnson. Welcome to Chief Tidwell. Until the last
century our bark beetle problem was kept in check by periodic
burning, all intensity burning. Have you got the funding
available for thinning to keep the pine beetle in check?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, you are correct that in the past
we've had more success to reduce these infestations through
thinning and actually some harvest and prescribed burning.
There in South Dakota in the Black Hills we are in a little
better position than we are in some of the other States.
Because your Ponderosa Pine type there allows us to be able to
get out in front of the infestation. So that's one of the
things that we're currently focused on is as soon as we start
to see a new outbreak occur there to be able to quickly jump on
that to remove the infested trees in trying to reduce the
spread.
The other key part of it is the burning, prescribed burning
that we need to use and then thinning of the forests. So you're
correct that those are the right tools that we need to go
forward with.
I feel that the budget request that we put in front of you
will provide an adequate level of work for us to be able to
continue along with the additional resources we are going to
dedicate from all the various budget line items that we can use
when it comes to bark beetle.
Senator Johnson. There is both good and bad involved in the
Black Hills. It's true that Ponderosa Pine is predominant
although there is a high level of interface between the
population and the trees.
I was pleased to see the emphasis on conservation and
outdoor recreation in the Forest Service budget. I was
especially pleased that the budget request would include a
forest blazing program funding for the Blood Run site in
southeastern South Dakota.
On the National Grasslands the checkerboard mix of
ownership can complicate and add cost for both Federal and
private landowners. A key tool that the Forest Service has to
address these challenges is exchange of public and private
lands. This has a benefit of consolidating both public and
private lands without the expense of acquiring new Federal
lands.
Your testimony highlights a proposed pilot land exchange
program to demonstrate the benefits of consolidating land
ownership within a National Grassland. Could you elaborate on
how such a program might work your National Grasslands as
efficient resources to address other management challenges like
noxious weeds?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, in our budget request we include a
new concept of a pilot approach there on the grasslands where
we could take a very focused effort to see if we can't improve
the efficiency of our land exchanges. They normally take many
years to complete and what we want to look at through your
pilot idea is to be able to take a focused effort to see if
that couldn't really make a difference by focusing on different
geographical areas in the country instead of our current
approach where we're trying to do it everywhere at the same
time.
So I'm optimistic that with this pilot idea that we can
actually show a way to increase our efficiency to get these
done quicker for everyone. It benefits not only the private
landowner and their management, but it definitely reduces our
costs, our Administrative costs, the cost of our project
development if we can consolidate these lands across the
country. The grasslands is one of the areas where we still have
quite a bit of a checkerboard land pattern.
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Chief Tidwell.
The Chairman. Senator Manchin was here. If Senator Lee does
not mind, I'll have him go ahead with his questions and then
have you.
Go ahead, Senator Manchin.
Senator Manchin. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman.
First of all let me thank you for being here and I
appreciate it very much. I come from West Virginia which is
probably the most forested State per acre of any State in the
Nation. It's a tremendous hard wood.
With that being said, you know, we have some concerns. I've
been working with the Forestry division on that. But I think as
a broad question I would ask with the continuing resolution
what effect does that have on you being able to commit and
complete and be able to plan for the jobs you need to do as far
as what Congress has asked you to do? How is it affecting your
mission?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, for us to operate under a continuing
resolution we're constrained to basically the amount of funding
that we used for the same period of time during 2010. The way
that most of our work occurs it's the larger projects that
occur later in the year during more of the summertime. So under
a continuing resolution it inhibits us to be able to put
together our projects, actually start to award contracts even
for work that will be done later on because we can't go forward
with it.
We cannot go forward with any of our large construction
projects. We can't go forward with any of our Forest Legacy
projects that we proposed. So we do everything we can to kind
of minimize the impact.
But the reality of it is that it really reduces our ability
to do the planning we need to do. Get the project prep done so
that contracts can be awarded later this year and people can go
to work.
Senator Manchin. You've shared that with, I'm sure.
Mr. Tidwell. I have when I get asked.
[Laughter.]
Senator Manchin. Hopefully we can resolve that for you.
Also in West Virginia we had a tremendous problem with
Gypsy Moths. I think you know about that. Ours is we don't have
the public lands that some States have.
Most of ours is all fee simple. But the aerial program it
just moves through our entire State, especially eastern. Has
there been more of an effort to work with the States on that?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, Senator. You know, the approach to a pest
like Gypsy moth we have to take this all lands landscape scale
approach and especially in places like your State where we work
together not only with the States but all the other Federal
programs. So we can bring all the resources together. With the
Gypsy moths we've been having some success by taking this
approach.
It just doesn't work for any one land owner.
Senator Manchin. Right.
Mr. Tidwell. Or for the Federal Government to just deal
with the issue on their lands when you have the infestation
that's just across the boundary.
Senator Manchin. Also we had in a lot of our pines and I
can't think of the blight that hit the pines, but I'm sure you
might know about. We were having problems with that also. I
don't know if you all have been involved in that process of
working with our States?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes. We talk a lot about the bark beetles out
West. But we definitely have bark beetles in the South and in
the East too.
We've been having a little more success in this part of the
country because of our restoration work that we're doing in the
forests. We've been able to kind of stay ahead of it. That's
one of the things when I get asked about well, could we move
funding from some of our Eastern forests out to our Western
forests to deal with the bark beetle infestation out there?
The problem with that is that if we slow down the work that
we're currently doing in this part of the country you'll see
the bark beetle infestations that occur on the East and the
South start to increase. I know some would like to see us have
that level of flexibility, but we're not about to slow down
what we're doing right now because we're at a good maintenance
level.
We're getting the restoration done. We're being able to
kind of hold the beetles in check. So that's just one of the
challenges that we have because we have these problems
everywhere. I don't want anyone to believe that we don't have
pest issues here in the East.
Senator Manchin. Thank you, sir.
The Chairman. Senator Lee.
Senator Lee. Welcome, Chief Tidwell.
It's my understanding that you had a role in changing the
way that recommended wilderness areas on the forest lands, the
way that they're managed in Region One before you became Chief
that you had a role in that. Would explain how Region One dealt
with the recommended wilderness areas? Tell us what plans the
Forest Service at the Headquarters level has, if any, to
address recommended forest areas--wilderness areas?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, when I was the regional forester in
our Northern region we continued with some guidance. It was
just guidance to our forest supervisors that when they were
going through the planning process to consider which areas
should be recommended to Congress for consideration as
wilderness. Our guidelines encourage them to look at the
current ongoing uses and to factor that into their decisions.
If you had a lot of established motorized use, a lot of
snowmobile use that was in that area, and even though there
were strong wilderness characteristics for those lands, that
you should factor in those current, ongoing uses into your
recommendation. Then based on a decision and based on the
public input that if the recommendation was for certain lands
to be considered by Congress for wilderness that we're required
to be able to maintain those wilderness characteristics until
some time when Congress would act.
So we want to do a better job on our recommendations to
make sure that what we are recommending was something that not
only Congress should consider. But definitely held wilderness
characteristics and then to be able to maintain those. To the
point not to encourage non-compatible use until Congress can
act.
I've seen some situations where we've made decisions that
there was in some cases quite a bit of motorized activity in
these areas. We went ahead and made a decision to recommend
that. Then by the time Congress has the opportunity to look at
it the controversy is so great you really don't have a lot of
decision space left.
I think it's a better approach to factor that into the
front end in our recommendations. Then we make a recommendation
to be able to discourage non-compatible uses until Congress can
have the opportunity to consider these recommendations.
Ideally, and it would be my desire, that as soon as the forest
completed their Forest Plan revision that those recommendations
would come to Congress. Congress could act on that.
I think by having a lot of areas that are recommended for
wilderness, lot of areas that are under wilderness study areas
that go on for years, I think it just adds to the overall
controversy about wilderness. I think if we could find a way to
be able to work in a way that it would be a little bit, I
guess, earlier for Congress to be able to consider these I
think it would go a long way to resolve some of the conflict
around these recommendations.
Senator Lee. So as to allow the decision to be made by
Congress rather than at the Administrative level, in other
words?
Mr. Tidwell. Only Congress can designate wilderness.
Senator Lee. Great.
The Forest Service's proposed budget includes $90 million
for additional land acquisition. This is very troubling to me
because I come from a State where the Federal Government owns
two-thirds of our land. Then exempts itself from taxation on
those lands.
So this proposal raises some consternation. Especially at a
time when we're running an annual deficit estimated to be in
the range of $1.6, $1.7 trillion in the hole. But it raises
additional concerns in my State given that as you acquire more
land that's even less land that we can tax.
We are 51st in the Nation in terms of per student school
funding and there are a number of causes for that. But one of
the biggest contributing factors, if not the biggest is that we
can't tax two-thirds of our land because it's owned by the
Federal Government. So how many additional acres is the Federal
Government proposing to purchase?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, I'll get you that number what we
would plan to accomplish with our request.
[The information referred to follows:]
The Forest Service plans on acquiring 33,156 acres with the fiscal year
2012 budget request of $90 million for the Land Acquisition program.
Senator Lee. But you've got to have an acreage figure in
mind because you've got a specific dollar amount in mind.
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, we also include a list of projects that's
part of our request. So we submit a list of projects for
Congress to consider. We don't move ahead with any of those
projects unless Congress agrees on that.
Senator Lee. Can you tell me on average how much it costs
for the Forest Service to maintain an acre of land?
Mr. Tidwell. You know we manage 192 million acres of
National Forest System lands along with our, you know, State
and private programs. So and we do that with the budget that we
receive each year. So I guess, if there was a--I think as far
as to how much the cost per acre. It varies depending on the
activities.
It's not, you know, it's more of what occurring on that
land, the level of restoration activities, the construction
activities that are occurring, you know. That's what
determines, you know, the price.
Senator Lee. Sure. Sure. I understand.
Just like land generally. The price of land is going to
vary from one acre to another. Not all acres are created equal.
It's going to cost a different amount of money to manage one
acre than another.
But I would like to know. It may take you some time. You
can respond later if you'd like. Would like to know what the
average management cost is so if you take into account the
total management related budget that you've got verses how many
acres that you manage. That would be good to know.
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, we'll get back to you with that.
[The information referred to follows:]
In fiscal year 2010, we spent an average of $26 per acre to manage
national forest lands. This figure takes into consideration the total
fiscal year 2010 appropriation minus research and development, state
and private forestry except forest health, land acquisition, and
unspent FLAME funds. This figure is only the amount spent in fiscal
year 2010 and is not the total amount needed to manage national forest
lands on a per acre basis.
Senator Lee. Thank you. I see my time is expired.
The Chairman. Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a few
quick follow-ups, if I may.
Chief, I had asked about the delay in decisions. The fact
that things go up to the Secretary level as they relate to
inventoried roadless areas. My staff has reminded me that even
though you've indicated it only takes a couple of hours
possibly to make decisions, in Alaska we've seen 2 situations
recently: it took about a year to win a simple permit for a
microwave tower that was to be placed by a phone company in the
Chugach National Forest, and then a similar period of time for
a mine outside of Juneau to get approval for a permit in a
roadless area.
It used to, apparently, take a couple weeks which I think
would be reasonable. But I'm told it's taking longer. I think
that that is the point that we were trying to make. We don't
need continued delays. If it has to go up to yet another level
it causes varying degrees of complication and frustration.
I wanted to ask you about the Alaska Subsistence Program
the Chairman had mentioned in one of his questions. This was
one of those programs where the program is being defunded in
your budget here. Can you explain to me how and by whom the
work within the Alaska Subsistence Program will be performed if
we're eliminating the program? How are we going to do this?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, the same people that have been doing
this work in the past will continue which are many of the folks
I mean, not only Forest Service folks, but then we also hire
folks to help, you know, local people in the villages to do
this work. So the program implementation will stay the same.
The only difference is that there just wouldn't be a budget
line item for the program.
So all this is is an accounting process that just helps our
accounting system a little bit better. But as far as on the
ground activities they will not change the people that worked
in this program last year, the year before, the year before
that. We'll continue to do that. As you well know this is an
essential program that we will continue to provide the level of
funding.
The other advantage of not having a separate budget line
item is if something occurs that's unforeseen at this time, and
we need to actually use more funding. In the past having a
separate line item we'd have to then--we could spend right up
to that zero amount and then we could use some of our other
funds to do the other work.
It just creates an additional accounting process for--we
cannot overspend $1 of any budget line item even on these
relatively small ones or we're subject to anti-deficiencies. So
it just provides some accounting flexibility. We can work with
a budget line item like we always have in the past. We could
make that work. But, you know, as far as on the ground there
will be no changes.
Senator Murkowski. Let me ask you this because you gave
that explanation to the Chairman. His inquiry was about the
Valles Caldera. There are 3 programs that are defunded, so to
speak. But you're telling me that the work will still get done,
and it's just an accounting situation.
Will the funds that I hope to be directed for the Alaska
Subsistence program come from Senator Bingaman's Valles Caldera
operational account? It seems to me that the funding has to
come from somewhere. It must be reflected somewhere.
I don't want to get bogged down in the weeds here on
accounting issues. But if it means that this is a little bit of
smoke and mirrors when it comes to the budget I think that's
important for us to know. If it means that we're going to be
robbing from Peter to pay Paul, or robbing from Jeff to pay
Lisa, for programs within our States, I think we need to
understand that as well.
At this point in time I'm still not clear as to how this
would actually work. Perhaps you can work with our staffs a
little bit to provide a little more clarification.
I wanted to ask one more question related to access. In
response to Senator Barrasso's question on land acquisition,
how can you as an agency, when you're not able to maintain the
lands that you have currently, acquire additional lands?
You spoke about the issue of access, saying you want to be
providing access. We have problems in Alaska regarding access
and my constituents are contacting me about it.
We've got some small placer miners in the State that have
been informed that the Forest Service is planning to restrict
motorized access to some mining claims that are located in the
Chugach, and also within the Tongass. While some of this may be
the result of closing some old logging roads that aren't needed
any longer, some of the complaints appear unconnected to
budgetary concerns.
I guess I would like to hear from you what you believe the
reason is for denying these mining operators within the Chugach
their opportunity to access their lands. Because this is, as
you know, this is a big deal for these smaller operators within
the State there.
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, I will look into that situation there
in the Chugach and get back to you.
[The information referred to follows:]
Land Management Plans are completed under authority of the
requirements of the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning
Act of 1974, as amended by the National Forest Management Act of 1976.
The Chugach National Forest closed a number of roads and trails to
motorized access in 2002, as directed by the unit's Land Management
Plan, which was revised that year. Those roads and trails were closed
based on environmental and economic concerns and were done so with the
appropriate level of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
compliance. Motorized access to mining operations in areas otherwise
closed to motorized use on the Chugach National Forest is routinely
allowed for mining purposes by written authorization under a Mining
Plan of Operations, per 36 CFR 228.4.
Prior to mining activities, the miners must develop and submit a
Plan of Operations, which will address access needs. The Plan of
Operations requires NEPA compliance and will enable the Forest to
identify reasonable access pursuant to the proposed mining activities.
Stipulations may include restrictions seasonally to protect resource
values such as road or trail improvements with due consideration of the
particular and unique needs of the mining operating plan.
Forest visitors are subject to the same motorized access
restrictions, including those engaged in nonprofit recreational mining.
However, the Forest has provided maps to the Gold Prospectors
Association of America (GPAA) showing locations open to the public that
are easily accessible near open roads and/or that can be accessed with
off road vehicles. The Forest has also provided hundreds of GOLD
PANNING brochures (2010 version) to the association.
But, you know, we recognize we have a responsibility to
provide reasonable access. Whether it's to a mining claim
whether it's to the private property, you know, we have a
responsibility to do that. So I'll look into this situation and
get back to you.
It's, I mean, access is important. It's essential to
private landowners. It's essential to mining operations. But
it's also really essential to recreationists.
What I was referring to with our LWCF acquisitions is that
there's a lot of places in parts of this country where the
private landowner, for whatever reason, and sometimes they have
good reason, that they shut the gates and don't allow people to
cross their property to get onto the National Forest system
lands. That's what we try to focus on is to be able to work out
with a conservation easement to be able to work with the
landowner. Or sometimes it's just that it takes acquisition to
be able to acquire that property so that the public can still
have access to the National Forests.
So all access is important. We hear just constant requests
for us to be able to do more to be able to maintain the access
along with our legal responsibility to provide it for private
landowners and for mining operations.
Senator Murkowski. I'd like to follow up with you on this
to make sure that we're not embarking on a policy now or what
would appear to result in a policy where we're further
restricting access. As you point out we're obligated to provide
that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Shaheen, we're into the second round and you have
not yet asked a first round of questions. So go ahead and ask
any questions you have. Then we'll continue with the second
round.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chief Tidwell, I apologize for missing your testimony this
morning and much of this hearing. I had another hearing. But I
did want to be here to ask some questions that I think are
important to my home State of New Hampshire.
Because New Hampshire is the second most heavily forested
State in the country biomass and our timber industry are very
important to the State. They are becoming increasingly
important as we look at what options we have in New Hampshire
and Northern New England to replace oil. We have about 50
percent of our households that are dependent on oil to heat.
It's even higher in the State of Maine.
So we're looking at what alternatives we have. So I'm
particularly interested in what your department is doing about
biomass and how you're working with other agencies to address
that. I was pleased to see the budget proposal was not the deep
reduction that I thought it might be.
But particularly if you could address the Community Wood
Energy program that was established in the 2008 Farm bill and
it's designed to help local communities with using wood energy
systems. We have a number of communities in New Hampshire that
are very interested in that. So can you talk about what you're
doing and whether the proposed budget that the President has
requested meets the needs that you're seeing out there in the
States and communities?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, our request, our budget request does
include $5 million under this program that was provided in the
2008 Farm bill. This will be the first year that we've been
able to use that authorization. So these funds along with our
other programs that provide grants to help encourage new
facilities to help make use of the biomass.
The biomass that you so well know is that we're not talking
about the saw logs. We're talking about the residual material
that we have to find a way to use it or just pay somebody to
pile it and burn it and put smoke in the air. That's what we're
really focused on.
So any way that we can make better use of that material and
thus offset some of our demand on fossil fuels. But at the same
time it also reduces the cost of the restoration work that has
to occur to be able to maintain these forests that your State
enjoys.
Senator Shaheen. Can you also talk a little bit about how
or if you're working with other agencies to encourage looking
at the uses for biomass?
I had the opportunity to talk to Secretary or to question
Secretary Chu when he was here talking about programs within
the Department of Energy. It wasn't clear to me that there was
real coordination going on around potential uses of biomass. It
seems to me that it's a huge resource that we could really be
using much better.
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, Senator.
We work with the Department of Energy, the Rural Utility
Service and Rural Development and also with Farm Services to be
able to put together proposals that we're using all the various
government programs that are available right now to be able to
kind of put that together in a package. We're currently looking
at the opportunity for 48 different facilities around the
country with the Department of Energy so that we can find the
best way the government can work together to help support,
encourage the establishment of this additional infrastructure.
So we can show people that this is a good thing to do and to be
able to help them to get started on it. So that's the effort
that we're doing together.
It's one of the things that we recognize we need to do more
of. It's just essential that we bring all the Federal programs
together at once. Whether it's the Forest Service working with
one community or it's the Department of Energy.
Whoever has that lead needs to be able to bring all the
programs together to make it a lot easier on these communities
instead of having five or six different meetings. They should
have to have only one. We should be able to deliver all the
programs.
Senator Shaheen. Good. So if we call your office, you can
tell us how to get to that.
Mr. Tidwell. Yes.
Senator Shaheen. That coordinated effort.
Mr. Tidwell. Yes.
Senator Shaheen. OK. Thank you.
Let me just ask one final question. The Androscoggin
Headwaters Land Conservation project in Northern New Hampshire
is very important to the watershed throughout the State. It's a
key priority for our conservation community.
There is funding in the current budget request for that
project. But as I'm sure you know that the continuing
resolution that we've seen passed in the House would make
significant cuts to the Land and Water Conservation program
that will help fund that. Can you just talk about how the cuts
that are being proposed to LWCF what impact that would have on
local projects like our Androscoggin Headwaters project?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, thank you for your leadership with
this project. This is another example of multiple Federal
agencies working together, not only with the Forest Service but
some of the Interior agencies are a partner along with the
communities in this project. For the FY11 Forest Legacy
priority list it was ranked at No. 8. So it's ranked very high.
Again for 2012, the second phase it is ranked No. 9.
If there's significant cuts to Forest Legacy it will not be
able to go forward with these projects. As you are well aware
under a CR we're not able to move forward with it even in FY11
until we do have a budget.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Hoeven.
Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just following up on using ag-mediation services in the
national appeals process and USDA, our mediation service people
indicate that under the Forest Service rules it doesn't allow
you to go to ag-mediation when you're negotiating long term
grazing agreements. Are you willing to look at your rules so
that you can and will go to ag-mediation when negotiating those
long term grazing agreements?
Mr. Tidwell. You know Senator, I do believe that our
process that we have in place does work very well if there is a
disagreement with a decision, especially with our grazing
agreements. It's just essential that we're able to work
together. With the Grazing Association to be able to sit down
with the Forest Service and we'd reach agreements about what
needs to be in that agreement and then they'd be able to move
forward.
Grazing agreements do not have any effect on the number of
cattle that are run. It doesn't result in any reductions and in
livestock that are permitted out there. It's just more of a
basically, an agreement about how we're going to work the roles
and responsibilities of the Grazing Association, the
expectations, what the association can expect from the agency.
So it's essential that we have those in place especially with
our Grazing Associations.
But I do think the best approach on that is to be able to
insist that people come together. They work out their
differences before the agreement is put into place verses to
have another process--because I think that would just
discourage people from working together on the front end of it
if you have another process that you can go to. So that's where
I feel our current process works.
I would just want to continue to encourage our ranchers to
be able to come together. If it takes a little more time to sit
down and work out those differences of opinion that's the best
place. That's the best time verses having anything whether it's
going through an appeal process or going through mediation.
If you really want folks to be able to work together I
think they just need to take the time to work it out. Then we
can reach agreement. Then we can move forward in a way that I
think it will be much more productive for everyone involved.
Senator Hoeven. I appreciate that. No question that's what
should be done on the front end. Then if they're not able to
reach resolution are you willing to go to either mediation
services or to the appeals process that USDA has? That's my
question to you.
Mr. Tidwell. We'd have to change our regulations to do
that.
Senator Hoeven. Are you willing to look at doing that or
that something that we would have to try to do legislatively
then?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, I'd like to work with you on this and
maybe to gain a little more understanding. I have a lot of
experience dealing with ranchers throughout my career. I worked
in the northern region. I'm very familiar with grazing
agreements and the Grazing Association.
But I would like, if you'd be willing to, I could work with
you to have a better understanding of this issue. Then we could
maybe based on that be able to move forward.
Senator Hoeven. I would very much appreciate that including
extending an invitation for you to come out to our State as
well and visit with some of the ranchers and so forth. That may
be helpful too. But let's do that including perhaps--would you
be willing maybe to come out to the State and even discuss this
issue with our ranchers?
Mr. Tidwell. I'd love the opportunity to get out into the
field. That's why I started work in the Forest Service. It
seems it's pretty rare now the days I ever get to go out. So
I'd appreciate an invitation to come out.
Senator Hoeven. Great. That'd be good. I hereby extend that
to you. We'll work with you on that.
The other thing is in going through the scientific process
for rangeland management the other thing I'd like to, I guess,
to put out there for you to respond to is at North Dakota State
University we have incredible rangeland scientists. Talk about
using those individuals in the process with your own experts. I
think that brings credibility and help and maybe a feeling of
reaching out to our ranchers when you include our rangeland
scientists. Obviously, I mean, they're experts.
Your reaction to that?
Mr. Tidwell. I agree with you that's an excellent approach.
I mean we do a lot of work not only at your universities, but
also throughout the country the universities and colleges. I
think that that is the best way to be able to bring people
together. So that we have the science there and if it's the
folks that are from North Dakota, often there is additional
benefits that if they're hearing it from people that are there
in North Dakota that it often helps resolve some of these
issues.
Senator Hoeven. I appreciate that.
The other thing is working with NRCS. I think, you know,
given that this is ranchland. That this is the grasslands
rather than a forest both from the standpoint of our farmers
and ranchers as well as bridging with your own people, NRCS can
be helpful as well.
Your thoughts?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes. Just another example of where the Federal
Government needs to do a better job to work together. So like
your ranchers whether it's the Forest Service or NRCS that
they're visiting with or working with whoever it is from the
Federal Government should understand all the programs that are
available. So we're working together because especially up in
your State those ranching operations they're not solely
dependent on just the grasslands.
It's also on their own private land. So we've got to be
able to work that together so that it works for them over time.
That means we've got to have the flexibility as if we had a
fire that goes through either their private land or through the
National Forest, we've got to be able to work together to have
that flexibility so that they stay in business.
You know one of the greatest benefits we have from our
ranching community is the wildlife habitat, the open space that
they provide verses having their lands being converted to some
form of development. So it's just essential that we work
together to keep those folks on the landscape.
Senator Hoeven. Appreciate that, Chief. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Murkowski, did you have additional
questions?
Senator Hoeven, did you have anything else you wanted to
ask before we adjourn the hearing?
Senator Hoeven. The only other thing I would just comment
on, Chief, is I think the other helpful aspect of perhaps
having you come out and having that dialog is that I think
ranchers, county commissioners and others that live out on the
grasslands can also come up with ideas that you may agree with
that can help you save dollars too in these times of tight
budgets. So I think that may be an added benefit of that whole
discussion.
Mr. Tidwell. I would appreciate that. Thank you.
Senator Hoeven. OK. Thanks, Chief.
The Chairman. Chief Tidwell, thank you very much for your
time. We appreciate your good work. That will adjourn our
hearing.
[Whereupon, at 11:15 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[The following statement was received for the record.]
Prepared Statement of Jan Poling, Vice President, General Counsel &
Corporate Secretary, American Forest & Paper Association
INTRODUCTION
The American Forest & Paper Association is the national trade
association of the forest products industry, representing pulp, paper,
packaging and wood products manufacturers, and forest landowners. Our
companies make products essential for everyday life from renewable and
recyclable resources that sustain the environment.
The forest products industry accounts for approximately 5 percent
of the total U.S. manufacturing GDP. Industry companies produce about
$175 billion in products annually and employ nearly 900,000 men and
women, exceeding employment levels in the automotive, chemicals and
plastics industries. The industry meets a payroll of approximately $50
billion annually and is among the top 10 manufacturing sector employers
in 47 states.
Declining federal timber harvests have adversely affected many
rural communities, resulting in thousands of jobs lost. Actions are
needed to restore and increase federal timber harvest to help ensure
adequate fiber supply and address forest health priorities. Within the
jurisdiction of this committee, we urge you to direct the U.S. Forest
Service (USFS) to help sustain the forest products industry and the
vital jobs it supports. Specific suggestions follow.
NATIONAL FOREST SYSTEM, FOREST PRODUCTS
The President's Budget Request for the National Forest System (NFS)
again proposes to create an ``Integrated Resource Restoration''
account, incorporating NFS programs previously funded under a slew of
line items into a single $864 million dollar line item. AF&PA
understands the Administration's desire to ``accelerate the refocusing
of national forest management to forest ecosystem restoration project
work, including global climate change adaptation and mitigation.''
However, we do not feel that specifically delineating $80 million from
IRR for Priority Watershed Projects is appropriate without further
explanation of how this fund would be used. We also question why the
Administration has designated $40 million for the Collaborative Forest
Restoration Fund (CFLRF); the CFLRF originally was intended to be
funded with ``new'' money, not through diversion from other program
funding.
To create forest industry jobs, more federal timber should be made
available for sale.--At a time when most Americans are concerned about
jobs and the economy, studies indicate that the USFS timber sale
program could produce over 6,000 direct and indirect jobs with an
annual infusion of $57 million into the forest products line item while
improving the health and reducing the fire risk of forest ecosystems.
FOREST INVENTORY AND ANALYSIS
Targeted research and data collection is needed to support forest
productivity, forest health, and economic utilization of fiber. The
Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program within Forest Service
Research and Development (R&D) is the backbone of our knowledge about
the nation's forests, and is a vital technical resource that allows
assessment of the sustainability, health, and availability of the
forest resource. FIA is utilized by a large swath of stakeholders
interested in the state of America's forests: forest resource managers
at mills, land managers, conservation groups, and State and Federal
agencies all look to the program for data about our nation's forests.
The Administration has demonstrated an interest in a sustainable
renewable biomass industry through actions in many agencies. With an
increased focus on utilizing woody biomass, we do not understand why
the administration is proposing to cut funding to the very program that
allows managers to determine sustainability of the forest resource? We
oppose these unilateral cuts to this valuable program.
The Forest Resources Information and Analysis (FRIA) program under
the Cooperative Forestry budget compliments the FIA by providing cost-
share assistance through State contributions to the FIA program. This
assistance allows states to improve the ongoing FIA assessments offered
through R&D by improving sampling resolution, increasing sampling
frequency, and tailoring assessments to address State-specific forest
resource needs. Reducing FRIA would hinder the abilities of States to
implement Renewable Portfolio Standards while ensuring the
sustainability and productivity of forests.
The full funding level needed for these programs is $76 million for
the FIA program and $5 million for the FRIA program, which would allow
the Forest Service to cover 100 percent of U.S. forest lands, expedite
data availability and analysis, and support our growing data needs in
the areas of bioenergy and climate mitigation.
INTERNATIONAL FORESTRY
AF&PA's believes that full and effective implementation and
enforcement of the 2008 Lacey Act amendments will reduce the
destructive impacts of illegal logging on tropical forests, enable
American forest product companies to compete on a level playing field,
and contribute to one of the least expensive ways of cutting global
greenhouse gas emissions--reduced deforestation and unsustainable
forest management. A 2005 AF&PA report on illegal logging found that up
to 10 percent of global timber production could be of suspicious origin
and that illegal logging depresses world prices for legally harvested
wood by seven to 16 percent on average. The report also calculated that
if there were no illegally harvested wood in the global market, the
estimated value of U.S. wood exports could increase by over $460
million each year.
The USFS International Forestry program lends critical technical
assistance for Lacey Act implementation and to improve sustainable
forest management practices in developing countries which help reduce
illegal logging overseas. The International Forestry program has been
completely cut from the Administration's FY 2012 budget. Although the
Administration claims the Forest Service will conduct its highest
priority international work under existing Forest Service authorities,
it is unclear if funding for Lacey related activities will continue to
be available and where it would be derived. Despite a budget allocation
for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Lacey Act
account in the President's FY 2012 for the first time ($1.5 million),
AF&PA believes cuts to the International Forestry accounts could be
detrimental to full Lacey Act compliance and enforcement efforts.
STATE AND PRIVATE FORESTRY
AF&PA applauds the Committee's sustained support for USFS State and
Private Forestry programs. With ongoing droughts, invasive species
infestations, and significant forest health problems, private forest
resources remain vulnerable to damage from threats that do not respect
public/private boundary lines.
As you know, private forests provide the bulk of the nation's wood
fiber supply, while also sequestering huge amounts of carbon from the
atmosphere, providing millions of acres of wildlife habitat, and
supplying clean drinking water for millions of Americans. USFS State
and Private Forestry programs protect these resources from threats
beyond the capability of small landowners to effectively combat.
Therefore, we urge funding at no less than their FY2010 enacted levels
of $49 million for Cooperative Forest Health, $39 million for
Cooperative Fire Assistance, $29 million for Forest Stewardship, and
$76 million for Forest Legacy.
APPENDIX
Responses to Additional Questions
----------
Responses of Tom Tidwell to Questions From Senator Barrasso
Question 1. Managing grazing allotments and completing NEPA
analysis on grazing allotments is vital to grazing permittees. Last
year only 53% or 248 of the targeted 460 allotments received NEPA
analysis. This year the Forest Service target is to complete 360 NEPA
allotments. However, the proposed budget is cutting $5.2 million from
Grazing Management. Given the backlog of allotments needing NEPA
analysis and the difficulty in completing them, why are resources being
cut?
Answer. a)``Given the backlog of allotments needing NEPA analysis
and the difficulty in completing them, why are resources being cut?''
Tough budget times call for tough budget choices. The FY 2012
President's Budget proposes $45,445,000 for Grazing Management. Funding
at this level balances multiple public priorities that are provided by
the Forest Service. Range Management maintains two activities: managing
livestock grazing on approximately 90 million acres of national forest
system land and completing National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
analysis on grazing allotments in accordance with the NEPA schedule
established under the provisions of the Rescissions Act of 1995 (P.L.
104-19, section 504).
b) ``Do you believe you will complete the 360 targeted NEPA
allotments?''
Answer. In FY 2010, the Forest Service completed National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis for 248 allotments of the
targeted 460 allotments. Several factors contributed to the shortfall
in NEPA accomplishments, including increased complexity of analysis,
increased workload associated with appeals and litigation, and
increased costs of gathering comprehensive resource condition and trend
data to support decisions.
Based on field input and past performance the NEPA analysis target
was realigned in FY 2012. The target is to complete NEPA analysis for
360 allotments in FY 2012. We believe we can achieve this target, but
this will be impacted by challenges similar to those the Forest Service
has previously faced and are likely to continue in FY 2012.
Question 2. The President's recent speech and press release
promoting his Great Outdoors Initiative included comments to provide
more ``access'' for the public to reconnect to the outdoors. Yet, the
Administration's budget proposal calls for a $3 million reduction in
the Trails budget and $79 million to decommission 2,185 miles of road.
These two proposals do not appear to be consistent with the Initiative.
Why reduce the trails budget and decommission more roads--thus
eliminating access--when the stated objective is increased public
access and connectivity to our public lands?
Answer. A reduction in funding does not equate to a reduction in
``access''. The discussion around access in the Great Outdoors
Initiative is focused on land acquisition, the forest legacy program,
and community forests and open spaces. Your question specifically
addressed the type of access provided by roads and trails. The FY 2012
President's Budget request provides funds to continue to operate and
maintain our network of National Forest System (NFS) trails. The
regions and forests work together to set priorities for maintaining and
improving trails. We understand the importance of Forest Service trails
to provide access for the public to the national forests. We continue
to seek opportunities with partners to leverage resources to maintain
trails in order to establish a new generation of trail stewards.
Currently the Forest Service has approximately 370,000 miles of
system roads. Each year, we decommission less than 1% of this total.
Many of the roads we decommission are user-created routes that are not
part of the designated system, or are not needed for access to the
national forests, and are causing significant environmental damage.
Decommissioning unneeded roads and trails eliminates adverse
environmental effects and actually contributes to keeping our ability
to maintain other access points. Decommissioning is essential to
operating a safe and sustainable transportation system.
Question 3. Wildland fires are extremely detrimental to watersheds
and local communities. Increased erosion, loss of habitat, species and
economic opportunities are the result. There are currently millions of
acres of dead and dying timber in the west due to the bark beetle. With
such a perilous scenario, what is the justification for cutting 19% or
$396 million from Wildland Fire Management?
Answer. The Forest Service is committed to redeeming its wildland
fire management mission and responsibly budgeting for wildland fire
management. The agency's Wildland Fire Management budget request
provides sufficient funding to manage wildfires and maintain prior-year
readiness levels, and provides funding for other high priority projects
in the federal government. The President's budget is formulated to
balance the important activities of different program areas, with some
program reductions necessary to exercise appropriate fiscal prudence.
The budget also recognizes the importance of integrating fire as a
critical natural process in land and resource management plans and
activities, reintroducing fire into ecosystems, managing wildfire
across landownership boundaries, and applying the best available
science. To this end, a portion of the $396 million reduction (22%) is
actually due to the shift in non-WUI hazardous fuels and Collaborative
Forest Landscape Restoration funds to the Integrated Resource
Restoration (IRR) account. The bulk of the remaining reduction amount
is due to the cancellation of prior year unobligated suppression funds.
Because the FY 2009 and FY 2010 fire seasons were less severe than
usual, significant funding was carried over from suppression and FLAME
into FY 2011. Carryover may also occur in FY 2012 and, as such, this
budget proposes a rescission of some of the anticipated carryover in FY
2012 to help provide funding for other high priority projects in the
federal government. Even with the proposed reduced funding in
suppression and FLAME, and the proposed rescission, the suppression and
FLAME levels proposed in FY 2012 fully fund the 10-year average.
Since the submission of the President's Budget bills specifying a
rescission of $200 million in Suppression carryover from P.L. 112-6 and
a rescission of $200 million in FLAME carryover in the C.R. funding the
government for the remainder of the year (P.L. 112-10) have been
enacted. Funding in Suppression and FLAME for FY 2011 and the new
appropriations requested in FY 2012 remains sufficient to cover the 10-
year average.
Response of Tom Tidwell to Question From Senator Bingaman
Question 1. The acquisition of the Vallecitos High Country Ranch
has been a high priority for New Mexicans and the Forest Legacy Program
in recent years. The project is a three-phase project, with phase I
already completed using FLP funds and Phase II proposed for funding in
your FY 2011 FLP budget as the #16 project in the nation (out of 38
total). Yet, with a proposed programmatic increase in FY 2012 of $59
million and an increase in the total number of projects funded to 46,
completing the Vallecitos High Country Ranch is not listed on your
priority list for FY 2012. Can you explain why completing that project
is not a priority for the Administration and how the Administration
plans to work with the landowner if the project is suspended before it
is complete?
Answer. The Forest Legacy Program project priority list is
developed each year through a national competitive process. The
objective of the process is to identify the best projects in the
country submitted for consideration in a given year. Previous funding
is not a guarantee of future funding as new phases of a project must
compete with different projects than the previous phases. Another
consideration that could impact where a project is on the list is that
the scoring guidance, which guides how projects are ranked in the
competitive process, is adjusted each year based on lessons learned
from the previous year's competitive process. This adjustment and
clarification of scoring criteria could have an impact on how
competitive a project is.
The Vallecitos project is a State and not a Federal project. The
funds are provided to the State through a grant, and it is the State
that has the lead in working with the landowner to bring the project to
completion if that is the State's objective.
Responses of Tom Tidwell to Questions From Senator Murkowski
Question 1. Tongass Timber Program: In 2008, the Forest Service
committed to preparing and offering four 10-year timber sales with a
volume of 150 to 200 million board feet each in the Tongass National
Forest. The purpose of these timber sales was to provide sufficient
assured volume for a single-shift at four medium size manufacturing
facilities. Without the volume assurance, the industry cannot make the
investments necessary to upgrade their existing mills or to construct a
facility that could process the low-grade timber in the region.
Congress has repeatedly made available pipeline funds to allow the
Forest Service to prepare these 10-year sales and other timber sales.
Now we are told that the agency plans to convert two of the 10-year
timber sales to Stewardship contracts and to offer only half of the
promised volume and to offer that reduced volume in small parcels. Do
you realize that when the Forest Service walks away from the
commitments that it makes to Congress, you risk Congress walking away
from funding many of the priorities the agency hopes to pursue?
Answer. In response to Under Secretary Mark Rey's direction in
September 2008 to develop a work plan and proposed budget to offer four
ten-year timber sales, each averaging 15-20 million board feet per
year, the Tongass National Forest identified several areas to analyze
for 10-year sale programs. The agency shares the same objective in
keeping a viable forest products industry in place in southeast Alaska,
a necessary ingredient to achieve the Secretary's restoration goals and
the Transition Framework.
The agency will work to provide viable levels of board feet over
the course of five years to ensure the industry remains solvent. In
both FY 2009 and FY 2010, the Alaska Region received appropriations
sufficient to fund two of the four timber sale projects. The two 10-
year timber sales funded by pipeline funds are currently in the
planning stages, including NEPA compliance, and will continue to move
forward in FY 2012 and FY 2013. Opportunities to incorporate
restoration activities within the project areas are being explored and,
where it is economically and logistically feasible, a stewardship
contract may be used to implement those harvest and restoration
activities. Stewardship contracting is one of the available tools that
managers have at their disposal to implement resource management
activities and to meet the resource objectives. The volume of timber to
be sold with these two projects, including volume from stewardship
contracting, is currently being estimated as a part of the NEPA
analysis that is ongoing. These two projects are part of the overall
Transition Framework for Southeast Alaska announced by the Department
of Agriculture in May, 2010.
ALASKA SUBSISTENCE PROGRAM
Question 2. How will the work that those individuals performed in
recent years be impacted by the new duties they will be expected to
take on?
Answer. At this time, there are no changes being implemented for
the Alaska Subsistence Program. The Subsistence Program delivery in FY
2012 would be similar to that implemented in FY 2010. The Subsistence
Program is a Federal inter-agency responsibility administered by the
Forest Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management,
National Park Service, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Forest
Service will continue to meet its Subsistence Program management
responsibilities under Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
(ANILCA). The same people will be performing the same work, just with
different funds.
SECURE RURAL SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITY SELF-DETERMINATION ACT
Question 3. As I understand it, you are proposing to take on the
Bureau of Land Management's payment responsibilities for their lands in
Western Oregon under the Secure Rural Schools program. Is the BLM going
to make contributions to the Forest Service to help cover the cost of
the program and if so, how much? If not, are they planning to turn over
management responsibilities on those lands to your agency so that the
Forest Service can help generate the revenues it will need to cover the
cost of the payments to the O&C Counties from the O&C Lands timber
program?
Answer. The Administration's proposal for reauthorizing the Secure
Rural Schools Act would not transfer the Bureau of Land Management's
(BLM) administration of the O&C lands currently administered by the
BLM, and would not transfer the responsibility for BLM's payments to
counties. The proposal is shown in the budget under the Forest Service
merely for the simplicity of showing it in one place. Inter-agency
transfers would be made to ensure that both the Forest Service and the
BLM continue covering their respective share of the payments. The
proposal would not fund payments from receipts generated from these
lands, continuing the current arrangement under the Secure Rural
Schools Act.
RESOURCE ADVISORY COMMITTEES
Question 4. About two weeks ago, we sent a bipartisan letter to the
Secretary of Agriculture urging him to give final approval to the
Resource Advisory Committees for the 14 remaining Resource Advisory
Committees that have not been finalized. Can you tell me if the
Secretary has approved the candidates that were nominated by the
counties?
Answer. We are pleased to report that as of March 11, 2011 the
Secretary of Agriculture has appointed members to all of the Secure
Rural Schools Act resource advisory committees chartered under the 2008
re-authorization.
FOREST LAND ACQUISITION
Question 5. The Department has testified to Congress that the
Forest Service has 60-80 million acres of unhealthy productive
forestland at risk to insects, disease, and wildfire. It has become
increasingly apparent through missed targets, reduced outputs,
increased reliance on managed fire (leaving more acres vulnerable to
wildland fire damage), and a shift away from active forest management
that the Forest Service cannot take care of the 193 million acres it
already has.
a. Can you give me any reason to use land acquisition rather
than land exchanges to acquire important parcels inside
National Forests?
b. Several of your LWCF acquisition recommendations appear to
include lands outside the National Forests. Can you provide the
Committee with detailed descriptions for each of the proposed
acquisitions that show where the lands are relative to other
nearby Forest Service Lands?
c. Also, what is average cost per acre expected to be? Could
you have your staff provide a list of lands considered
``excess'' in the most recent forest plan document for each
forest involved in each proposed acquisition?
Answer a). Land acquisition can reduce management costs by
consolidating landownership, avoiding further fragmented development
within forest boundaries which can exacerbate fire, insect, and disease
management challenges. Land acquisitions sought by the Forest Service
have broad support by stakeholders at the local level and ensure water
quality, recreational access, wildlife habitat, and other public
benefits. The Forest Service actively engages in land exchanges where
there are opportunities to adjust federal ownership patterns while
conveying lands to non-federal entities. However, land exchanges are
not always viable options, either because suitable lands are not
available or because the complexity or controversy associated with an
exchange makes the exchange impractical. Land exchanges, acquisitions,
right-of-way acquisitions, and limited sales of Forest Service
facilities and adjacent land are all important land adjustment tools to
promote the long-term health and sustainability of the national forests
and grasslands.
b). ``Several of your LWCF acquisition recommendations appear to
include lands outside the National Forests. Can you provide the
Committee with detailed descriptions for each of the proposed
acquisitions that show where the lands are relative to other nearby
Forest Service Lands?''
In total, 33 out of 38 acquisition projects requested for FY 2012
are completely within National Forest Administrative boundaries. Of the
remaining five, two are within congressionally designated areas. One of
these projects is within the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.
The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act gives the Forest
Service the authority to acquire lands in Special Management Areas (16
U.S.C. Sec. 544 G). The second of these two congressionally designated
areas is the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail. The Forest Service is
the Administrator for the Trail and has authority to acquire lands and
interests in land for the purposes of administering the trail (16
U.S.C. Sec. 1244 (a) (2)). The remaining three projects are directly
adjacent to a national forest boundary and provide important
recreational access and habitat connectivity to other federally
administered or otherwise protected lands, especially in riparian
areas. Please see the attached details below.
USDA FOREST SERVICE
NATIONAL FOREST SYSTEM
LWCF Land Acquisition List
President's FY2012 Budget Recommendation
Date: February 14, 2011
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Location of
Forest/ Recommended
Final Rank Project State National Forest Congressional Funding Amount
Boundary
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Hells Canyon NRA OR Wallowa-Whitman 100% inside $1,417,500
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Salmon--Selway ID Salmon-Challis; 100% inside $3,500,000
Initiative Area Sawtooth
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Rocky Fork TN Cherokee 100% inside $5,000,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 Shield Ranch AZ Coconino 100% inside $1,500,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5 Tenderfoot MT Lewis & Clark 100% inside $5,040,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6 Mont. Legacy MT Lolo; Flathead 100% inside $5,000,000
Completion
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7 Cube Cove AK Tongass 100% inside $500,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8 Pacific Crest CA Multiple 100% $2,939,500
National Scenic Congressionally
Trail Designated
Trail System
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9 Pacific NW OR/WA Multiple 100% inside $2,265,000
Streams
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 North Carolina NC NFs in NC 100% inside $3,576,000
Threatened
Treasures
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11 Great Lakes/ MI Hiawatha; 100% inside $1,500,000
Great Lands Ottawa
(upper)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12 Ophir Valley CO Uncompahgre 100% inside $4,040,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13 Unita-Wasatch- UT Uinta-Wasatch- 100% inside $1,200,000
Cache Cache
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14 Washington WA Wenatchee 100% inside $1,500,000
Cascade
Ecosystem
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
15 Miranda Canyon NM Carson 100% Adjacent $3,442,000
Property
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
16 Hoosier IN Hoosier 100% inside $2,100,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
17 Bonneville UT Uinta-Wasatch- 100% inside $1,600,000
Shoreline Trail Cache
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
18 Georgia GA Chattahoochee- 100% inside $2,000,000
Mountains & Oconee
Rivers
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
19 Missouri Ozarks MO Mark Twain 100% inside $1,500,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20 Mitchell Lakes CO San Juan 100% inside $1,300,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
21 Hurdygurdy CA Six Rivers 100% inside $1,750,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
22 Misty Fiords NM AK Tongass 100% inside $500,000
In holdings
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
23 Deer & Mill CA Lassen 80% inside 20% $1,500,000
Creek Project adjacent
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
24 Fleming Ranch CA San Bernardino 100% inside $1,500,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
25 Sierra Nevada In CA Tahoe; Eldorado 100% inside $2,000,000
holdings
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
26 Upper Lochsa ID Clearwater 100% inside $1,000,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
27 Pole Gulch-- MT Gallatin 100% inside $1,100,000
Greater
Yellowstone
Area
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
28 Minnesota MN Chippewa; 100% inside $1,400,000
Wilderness Superior
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
29 Mississippi IL Shawnee 100% inside $1,000,000
Riverfront
Forest
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
30 Columbia River WA Gifford 100% inside $1,230,000
Gorge NSA Pinchot; Mt. National Scenic
Hood Area
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
31 Greater ID* Caribou; 100% inside $1,100,000
Yellowstone Targhee
Area
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
32 Fiddleback Ranch WY Thunder Basin; 100% inside $1,500,000
Medicine Bow
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
33 Wisconsin Wild WI Chequamegon- 100% inside $1,000,000
Waterways Nicolet
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
34 Rockcastle River KY Daniel Boone 100% inside $1,000,000
Watershed
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
35 Alabama Tracts AL NFs in Alabama 100% inside $1,000,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
36 SC Landscape SC Francis Marion; 100% inside $1,000,000
Protection Sumter
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
37 Plum Creek Tract LA Kisatchie 100% inside $1,000,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
38 Suwannee FL NFs in Florida 100% adjacent $1,000,000
Wildlife
Corridor
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Purchase $72,500,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Acquisition $12,000,000
Management
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Critical In $5,500,000
holdings/Cash
Equalization
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total $90,000,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Correction from FS Budget Justification
c.1) ``Also, what is average cost per acre expected to be?''
For FY 2012, the approximate average purchase price is estimated to
be $2,177 per acre. Purchase price is determined by standard federal
appraisal methods. The Forest Service cannot pay more than the value
determined by the appraisal. The range among anticipated purchase price
can vary significantly based upon geographical location and market
conditions. For example, on the Land and Water Conservation Fund Land
Acquisition List for FY 2012, Shield Ranch in Arizona, riverfront
property between two national forests, is about $28,000 per acre. While
the Fiddleback Ranch within the Thunder Basin National Grassland in
Wyoming is about $714 per acre.
c.2) ``Could you have your staff provide a list of lands considered
``excess'' in the most recent forest plan document for each forest
involved in each proposed acquisition?''
Forest Service plans do not delineate lands that are considered
``excess''. National forest land is not excess to agency needs or for
public purposes of the National Forest System. When the Forest Service
sells land or facilities we do so under limited authorities for
purposes specified under Federal laws, such as the Small Tracts Act,
Education Land Grant Act, or the Forest Service Facilities Realignment
and Enhancement Act (FSFREA).
Question 6. Have you seen the Wall Street Journal article citing a
booming market for timber sales in Asia? Alaska and the Pacific NW
could be part of this. But you are not putting up sales even though
U.S. Forest Service policy now permits some export of federal timber.
Are you aware of how great the timber market is in China for Alaska
timber?
Answer. We are evaluating timber export options. In 2008 the
regional forester for the Alaska Region recognized that the decline in
domestic market demand and prices for forest products posed a
significant threat to the stability and longevity of the remaining
forest products infrastructure in Southeast Alaska. The export timber
policy for Region 10 was modified to allow purchasers to ship up to 50%
of the sale volume to the most advantageous markets outside of Alaska.
Records indicate that a majority of the Federal timber volume shipped
from Region 10 is going into the Chinese markets.
Question 7. Last year your team promised a new transition for
timber in Alaska. So far, we have seen nothing of this transition. Why
not? What is the status?
Answer. The Transition Framework for Southeast Alaska was announced
by the Department of Agriculture in May 2010 as a joint effort by the
Forest Service and Rural Development. As part of the Transition
Framework that relates to forest management, the Tongass National
Forest has developed an integrated 5-year program of work that will
facilitate transition in Southeast Alaska from a forest management
regime that depends primarily on harvesting mature old growth trees to
one based increasingly on young forest management and restoration
activities. This plan is posted on www.tongassfutures.net. The program
of work will further the goals of the USDA Transition Framework, which
is much broader than timber alone and includes the development of
sustainable diversified economies throughout the region that are based
on forest restoration, renewable energy, fisheries and marine
aquaculture, subsistence, and tourism/recreation, while sustaining and
transitioning a viable timber economy. An economic mapping study was
completed in December of 2010 and the broader strategic Transition
Framework is due later this summer, as previously promised.
Question 8. In 2008, the Forest Service committed to preparing and
offering four 10-year timber sales with a volume of 150 to 200 million
board feet each. The purpose of these timber sales was to provide
sufficient assured volume for a single-shift at four medium size
manufacturing facilities. Without the volume assurance, the industry
cannot make the investments necessary to upgrade their existing mills
or to construct a facility that could process the low-grade timber in
the region. Remember, the Forest Service has monopoly power over the
timber supply in the region. Congress has repeatedly made available
pipeline funds to allow the Forest Service to prepare these 10-year
sales and other timber sales. Now we are told that the agency plans to
convert two of the 10-year timber sales to Stewardship contracts and to
offer only half of the promised volume and to offer that reduced volume
in small parcels.
The 2008 Tongass Land Management Plan (TLMP) provided an
opportunity for the timber industry to harvest up to 267 million board
feet per year, but the most recent timber sale schedule (which has been
renamed a vegetation management schedule) indicates that Region 10 will
be preparing and offering for sale only 128 million board feet in 2012.
Does your proposed budget for region 10 provide the funds necessary to
prepare and offer this amount of timber?
Answer. The FY 2012 expected National Forest System timber output
is 2,616 million board feet based on the President's proposed budget.
The Regional allocations including, Region 10, are currently not
finalized, making it difficult to predict with certainty the expected
forest products outputs. Fluctuations in timber values and the Region's
ability to transition to young stand management will influence final
timber outputs levels. The FY 2012 President's budget proposes $854,242
million for the National Forest System's integrated resource
restoration (IRR) program. This budget line item brings together key
management resources necessary for maintaining and restoring watershed
and forest health under one umbrella and directs funding to achieve
priority work in the most important places. Established performance
measures such as timber volume, road mileages, acres treated for
hazardous fuels, and other outputs will continue to be used. Funding
for IRR is pivotal to achieving increased timber targets, as well as
other vegetation management targets. As a part of the FY 2012 proposal
for Integrated Resource Restoration we will assign specific targets to
each region. Line officers are held accountable, through performance
reviews, for meeting assigned targets. As described above, in both FY
2009 and FY 2010, the Alaska Region received appropriations sufficient
to fund two of the four timber sale projects and some may be considered
for stewardship contracting. We will continue to work through
Transition Framework to provide theses sales.
Question 9. The Region 10 5-year timber sale schedule indicated
that the agency would be preparing and offering 152 million board feet
of timber sales in fiscal year 2011, but the most recent periodic
timber sale announcement indicates that only 38 million board feet will
be offered this fiscal year. Are we likely to see a similar shortfall
in timber sales offered in FY 2012?
Answer. Timber sales offered in FY 2012 will vary due to many
factors, and the periodic timber sale volume for FY 2012 has not yet
been finalized.
The forest will focus on achieving the goals and outcomes
identified in the FY 2012 budget. This includes a more integrated
approach that involves bringing key management resources together for
maintaining and restoring watersheds and forest health. All management
activities are subject to the National Environmental Policy Act
process. The Tongass National Forest is focused on achieving FY 2012
targets and outcomes commensurate with available funding, prevailing
economic conditions, and situations at given local levels.
Question 10. The timber industry reports that the ongoing timber
sale shortfalls are due in large part to constraints on available
timber that were imposed by the 2008 Tongass Land Management Plan.
Further, the Secretary of Agriculture has withheld permission to offer
timber in roadless areas even though roadless areas comprise half of
the timberland available under the 2008 TLMP.
The Forest Service has told us that they will not be permitted to
construct any timber sale roads in Region 10 and further, they have
been directed to destroy many miles of road. These roads were
constructed at significant cost to allow access for timber harvest,
land management activities and recreation. I understand the concern
about costly road maintenance but remember, the timber industry has
traditionally provided the necessary road maintenance in Region 10 and
it is only because of the lack of timber sales that the industry is no
longer performing road maintenance. It would be unnecessary to destroy
these roads if the timber sale program in the region, and the thousands
of jobs that accompanied the timber sale program, were restored.
The Forest Service controls over 90% of the timberland in Southeast
Alaska but, as a result of ongoing timber sale shortages, there is only
one medium-size sawmill still operating in Region 10. What is your
agency doing to correct this crisis?
Answer. The Forest Service, USDA Rural Development, and the
Economic Development Administration (EDA) of the Department of Commerce
are working together on a Transition Framework, which was outlined in a
previous response. More information can be found about the Transition
Framework at www.tongassfutures.net. Domestic and international market
conditions over the past several years have made it difficult for
domestic processors to operate in a profitable manner. Costly
litigation has also added to the difficulties in successfully
delivering timber sales. A new path, beyond timber sales, is needed.
The Transition Framework, which is much broader than timber alone and
includes the development of sustainable diversified economies through
the region that are based on forest restoration, renewable energy,
fisheries and marine aquaculture, subsistence, and tourism/recreation,
while sustaining and transitioning a viable timber economy is due later
this summer.
In 2008 the export timber policy in Region 10 was changed to allow
purchasers to ship up to 50% of the sale volume to the most
advantageous markets outside of Alaska. The agency fully realizes the
importance of the forest products industry in the delivery of forest
management objectives.
The Alaska Region is working diligently to prepare and offer timber
sale volume in compliance with the 2008 Tongass Land Management Plan
and the 2001 Roadless Rule. The Secretary of Agriculture has the
authority to allow road construction and reconstruction in designated
roadless areas, per Secretary of Agriculture's Memorandum 1045-155 of
May 28, 2010. The Tongass National Forest is adapting the way it
manages roads to reduce resource impacts while allowing for future
usage. The Forest is putting many of its roads in a stored condition as
part of its travel management planning, which provides opportunities
for public input. A stored road is one that the Forest Service intends
to use again in the future, but that is temporarily closed. Placing
roads in a stored condition allows the Agency to mitigate many of the
environmental impacts that can occur due to lack of maintenance, while
making the roads available for future land management activities. The
FY 2012 President's Budget request includes approximately $158 million
for Road Construction and Maintenance, including an estimated $32
million for engineering support to vegetation projects. Of that, nearly
$9 million is specifically planned for new road construction
(approximately 4 to 6 miles) on the Tongass National Forest.
Question 11. Would you please explain ``species of conservation
concern'' as discussed in the draft Land Management Planning Rule? It
seems from the definition provided in the draft that a `responsible
official' might have overly broad latitude to deem any number of
species as a ``species of conservation concern'' without undergoing
sufficient scientific review.
Answer. The intent of the provisions in the new draft Planning Rule
is to provide for plant and animal diversity, and to keep common
species common, contribute to the recovery of threatened and endangered
species, conserve candidate species, and protect species of
conservation concern. Responsible officials would be required to
develop components in plans, using a two-pronged approach of overall
habitat (ecosystem and watershed) maintenance or restoration combined
with targeted measures designed to address the needs of specific
species. In including these requirements, the draft rule recognizes
that there will be circumstances outside of the Agency's control that
may impact particular species. The Agency believes that the proposed
approach is both more reflective of the NFMA, and more implementable
than the 1982 rule.
As part of the requirements included in the section on ``diversity
of plant and animal communities,'' the proposed rule would require
that,
(219.9) Within Forest Service authority and consistent with
the inherent capability of the plan area, the plan must include
plan components to maintain the diversity of plant and animal
communities, as follows:
(b) Species Conservation. The plan components must
provide for the maintenance or restoration of
ecological conditions in the plan area to:
(3) Maintain viable populations of species of
conservation concern within the plan area.
Where it is beyond the authority of the Forest
Service or the inherent capability of the plan
area to do so, the plan components must provide
for the maintenance or restoration of
ecological conditions to contribute to the
extent practicable to maintaining a viable
population of a species within its range. When
developing such plan components, the
responsible official shall coordinate to the
extent practicable with other Federal, State,
tribal, and private land managers having
management authority over lands where the
population exists.
(219.19) Species of conservation concern are defined in the
proposed rule as ``Species other than federally listed
threatened or endangered species or candidate species, for
which the responsible official has determined that there is
evidence demonstrating significant concern about its capability
to persist over the long-term in the plan area.''
The proposed rule requires that the best available scientific
information be considered throughout the rule-making process, and the
responsible official would have to document how the most relevant,
reliable and accurate science was appropriately interpreted and
applied, including in determining which species are ``species of
conservation concern'' for the unit. Forest Service Directives would
contain specific criteria for selecting species of conservation
concern. For example, state lists of endangered, threatened, rare,
endemic, or other classifications of species, such as those listed as
threatened under State law, may be used to inform the selection of
species of conservation concern for the unit.
The proposed rule's requirement for species of conservation concern
would be to maintain or restore ecological conditions to maintain
viable populations of species of conservation concern within the plan
area, within the Agency's authority and consistent with the inherent
capability of the plan area. Where a viable population of a species of
conservation concern already exists within the plan area, the
appropriate ecological conditions needed to maintain the long-term
persistence of that species would continue to be provided.
The responsible official would identify ecosystem-level plan
components to provide the overall ecological conditions needed by a
species of conservation concern: for example, restoration of mature
longleaf pine habitat for red-cockaded woodpeckers. In addition, the
responsible official would identify specific ecological conditions
needed by a species: for example, providing artificial nesting cavities
for red-cockaded woodpeckers while longleaf pine stands that can
provide natural nesting cavities are being restored.
At times, factors outside the control of the Agency will prevent
the Agency from being able to maintain a viable population of species
of conservation concern within the plan area: for example, some of our
southern forest units are too small to provide nesting habitat for the
number of pairs needed to provide for a viable population of red-
cockaded woodpeckers solely within the boundaries of the unit. In such
cases, the proposed rule would require that the Agency provide plan
components to maintain or restore ecological conditions within the plan
area for that species, and by doing so to contribute to the extent
practicable to a viable population across its range.
Additionally, the responsible official would be required to reach
out beyond NFS boundaries, to coordinate management with other land
managers for the benefit of a species across its range. This
requirement does not impose any management requirements or attempt to
impose management direction on other land managers--rather, it imposes
a duty on the responsible official to reach out to work with others and
to coordinate management to the extent practicable. This requirement
recognizes that species move across the landscape, and as habitat and
ecological conditions change, greater cooperation among land managers
will be necessary to conserve individual species.
Question 12. What is meant by ``Landscape Planning'' in the Land
Management Planning Rule?
Answer. The proposed rule takes an ``all-lands'' approach to
planning. What this means is that the responsible official would need
to understand the context for management within the broader landscape,
to determine the best management plan for a specific unit within the
National Forest System.
In the assessment phase, responsible officials would draw on
information from many sources to understand the social, economic, and
ecologic conditions and trends relevant to the plan area, and to
identify the distinctive roles and contributions of the unit in
providing various multiple uses or benefits to the local community,
region and nation. In the planning phase, responsible officials would
provide opportunities for other government agencies and land managers
to participate, would review the planning and land use policies of
other governmental entities where relevant to the plan area, and would
coordinate with other planning efforts to the extent practicable and
appropriate. In the monitoring phase, responsible officials would
assess information and data from monitoring on both the unit and the
broader landscape to determine whether any change to management within
the boundaries of the plan area might be warranted.
This approach recognizes that management of national forests and
grasslands can both impact and be impacted by management or conditions
on the lands that surround the unit, and that management can be
improved by understanding that context and communicating with other
land managers.
Question 13. How do you envision the Forest Service managing at the
``landscape'' level, ``irrespective of ownership or other artificial
boundaries''? And, do you believe that property lines are ``artificial
boundaries?''
Answer. While the proposed rule would require an understanding of
the context for management of NFS lands within the context of the
broader landscape, the proposed rule explicitly recognizes and affirms
that Forest Service management authority applies only within National
Forest System boundaries. Agency managers do not direct or control
management of lands outside of the National Forest System, nor will
they conform management on the unit to meet non-Agency objectives or
policies. In this way, the proposed rule recognizes the importance of
respecting ownership and jurisdictional boundaries.
Rather, the framework for collaboration, information sharing, and
engagement created in the proposed rule encourages responsible
officials to work with other land managers to address the many natural
resource and land management issues that cross ownership and
jurisdictional boundaries, for example: water, fire, wildlife, and
invasive species. The Forest Service intends to continue to work
cooperatively and collaboratively with adjoining landowners and
communities to address these issues. As described in the response to
Question 12, the proposed rule would require that responsible officials
understand landscape-scale conditions and trends relevant to the unit
and invite the participation of other land managers and members of the
public throughout the planning process for the unit.
a. How do you envision the Forest Service managing at the
``landscape'' level, ``irrespective of ownership or other
artificial boundaries?''
This ``all lands'' approach recognizes that management issues do
not stop and start on a property, political, or other boundary line.
The primary trends and threats that face our Nation's forests such as:
forest fragmentation, increased urbanization and conversion of
forestlands, the effects of climate change, severe wildfire, and the
spread of invasive species cross all jurisdictional boundaries. To be
successful in addressing these issues we must work with landowners and
interested parties to conserve, protect, and enhance the Nation's
forests.
Forest Service land management authority applies within national
forest boundaries, and the Forest Service manages lands within the
National Forest System and its authorities. Consistent with Federal
law, the Forest Service does cooperate with adjacent landowners, local
government entities, and others on a range of land management issues,
including fire suppression, invasive plant control, law enforcement,
recreational use and access, and other shared priorities. The Forest
Service, through its planning process and through project specific
management actions, consults and coordinates with adjacent landowners
to improve the health, sustainability, and productivity of national
forests and surrounding lands.
The Forest Service also provides technical and financial assistance
to landowners and resource managers to help sustain the Nation's urban
and rural forests. The Forest Service works with our State partners to
address those priority landscape-level issues that they identified in
their Statewide Forest Resource Assessments and Strategies through
cooperation and coordination across jurisdictional boundaries. The
primary trends and threats that face our Nation's forests such as
forest fragmentation, increased urbanization and conversion of
forestlands, the effects of climate change, severe wildfire, and the
spread of invasive species cross jurisdictional boundaries. To be
successful in addressing these issues we must work with landowners and
interested parties to conserve, protect, and enhance the Nation's
forests.
b. And, do you believe that property lines are ``artificial
boundaries?''
The Forest Service respects all boundaries, private property
rights, and the limits of the Forest Service's land management
authority. National Forest System employees survey, mark, manage, and
protect national forest and grassland boundaries in order to protect
the public's investment in the national forests and grasslands.
Property lines are legal landownership boundaries whose location and
extent is defined by the legal land title ownership of the United
States and the adjoining landowners. The Forest Service does not assert
Federal management authority on other Federal, State, tribal, county,
local, private, or corporate lands lying within the exterior perimeter
boundary of the National Forest System. The Forest Service does
actively seek opportunities to work cooperatively and collaboratively
with adjoining landowners and communities to protect both public and
private estates.
Question 14. How far from FS boundaries do you think your agency's
influence should extend?
Answer. The Forest Service respects all boundaries, private
property rights, and the limits of the Forest Service's land management
authority. The primary trends and threats that face our Nation's
forests (such as forest fragmentation, increased urbanization and
conversion of forestlands, the effects of climate change, severe
wildfire, and the spread of invasive species) cross jurisdictional
boundaries. To be successful in addressing these issues we must work
with landowners and interested parties to conserve, protect, and
enhance the Nation's forests.
Forest Service State and Private Forestry, Research and
Development, and International Programs provide technical assistance,
grants, and other support to non-Federal forests and grasslands
throughout the United States and internationally, consistent our
authorities and direction. Together Forest Service programs improve
forest health, sustainability, and productivity, whether in an urban
forest in Chicago, on private forest land in northern New England, or
in the rainforests of Africa, and the benefits to the American people
of these investments are substantial. Likewise, the long-term health
and resilience of national forests and grasslands directly affect
surrounding non-federal lands, communities, and waters that are
adjacent or downstream. Therefore, we implement management decisions to
improve the long-term health of broader ecosystems and watersheds as
well as respecting private property rights and the broader interests
within communities, states, and regions.
GREAT OUTDOORS INITIATIVE
Question 15. The President had a recent speech and there was a
recent press release promoting the great outdoors initiative including
a comment to provide more ``access'' to public lands. We don't
understand why the 2012 Administration budget proposal calls for a $ 3
million reduction in the Trails budget and $79 million to decommission
an additional 2,185 miles of road. These two programs do not appear to
be consistent with the Initiative.
a. Why decommission more roads (eliminating access) and
reducing the Trails program that has millions in deferred
maintenance to existing trails?
b. What impact do you believe the America's Great Outdoors
Initiative will have on the management of Forests?
c. It is clear that many of the same concepts included in the
Land Management Planning Rule are also a part of the report.
What role did you or others at Forest Service play in drafting
the report?
Answer a). ``Why decommission more roads (eliminating access) and
reducing the Trails program that has millions in deferred maintenance
to existing trails?''
A reduction in funding does not equate to a reduction in
``access''. There is much to do to ensure the public has the access
they need to public lands. The discussion around access in the Great
Outdoors Initiative is focused on land acquisition, the forest legacy
program, and community forests and open spaces. Your question
specifically addressed the type of access provided by roads and trails.
The FY 2012 President's Budget request provides funds to continue to
operate and maintain our network of National Forest System (NFS)
trails. The regions and forests work together to set priorities for
maintaining and improving trails. We understand the importance of
Forest Service trails to provide access for the public to the national
forests. We continue to seek opportunities with partners to leverage
resources to maintain trails in order to establish a new generation of
trail stewards.
Currently the Forest Service has approximately 370,000 miles of
system roads. Each year, we decommission less than 1% of this total.
Many of the roads we decommission are user-created routes that are not
part of the designated system, or are not needed for access to the
national forests, and are causing significant environmental damage.
Decommissioning unneeded roads and trails eliminates adverse
environmental effects and actually contributes to keeping our ability
to maintain other access points. Decommissioning is essential to
operating a safe and sustainable transportation system.
The Forest Service will continue to conduct travel analyses,
including working with the public to determine which roads are needed
for access, and which can be decommissioned or put in a stored
condition so that they are available for future land management
activities.
b) ``What impact do you believe the America's Great Outdoors
Initiative will have on the management of Forests?''
Answer. The America's Great Outdoors (AGO) initiative supports and
advances the ``all-lands approach to conservation'' articulated by
Secretary Vilsack and Chief Tidwell. The AGO report recognizes that
communities and partners need to work across boundaries to sustain the
landscapes we all share, including National Forest System lands. The
AGO report outlines some processes for bringing together landowners and
stakeholders across boundaries to identify common goals and long-term
outcomes for managing shared landscapes. These processes will assist
the Forest Service in meeting the challenges of ecological restoration,
invasive species, watershed degradation, fire and fuels. It will also
enable us to accomplish more work on the ground by focusing our efforts
at the landscape level, improving our use of stewardship contracts and
establishing a consistent planning framework for the agency. Through
landscape-scale conservation, the Forest Service will be able to meet
public expectations for the environmental, economic, and societal
benefits of forest and grasslands.
c) ``It is clear that many of the same concepts included in the
Land Management Planning Rule are also a part of the report. What role
did you or others at Forest Service play in drafting the report?''
Answer. The Chief of the Forest Service, Tom Tidwell, directly
engaged with USDA executive leadership on all ten of the major
components of AGO to provide advice and counsel on the Forest Service
programs that complement the AGO goals. He personally attended four
public listening sessions across the country to interact with
stakeholders about their ideas especially about connecting people to
the land via landscape scale restoration, community jobs and youth
opportunities.
Forest Service employees served on writing teams to draft the
initial America's Great Outdoors report and Forest Service Senior
Executives served in leadership positions, in conjunction with agency
leaders from across the Executive Branch, on these teams. The report
underwent several revisions which were reviewed and commented on by
members of these teams. Jim Hubbard, Deputy Chief for State & Private
Forestry, served as the Forest Service's Executive Lead for the AGO
effort.
Question 16. Access to Alaska Lands: Just recently small placer
miners in Alaska have been informed that the Forest Service is planning
to restrict motorized access to a host of mining claims in Alaska in
the Chugach National Forest and also in the Tongass National Forest.
While some of this may be the result of the Forest Service moving to
close the use of logging roads no longer needed for future timber sales
based on a 2008-09 study, some of the complaints appear unconnected to
budgetary concerns about the lack of funding for maintenance of
traditional access routes. Clearly access across lands protected by the
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act is protected by the
1980 law, but the complaints about access denial for mineral operations
in the Chugach National Forest is rapidly increasing. What exactly is
the reason for the attempt to close access, under exactly what scope of
authority is the Service moving to deny access, and exactly how can
small miners access their valid claims to minerals under national
mining law without having the right to motorized access on routes they
have used for many decades?
Answer a). ``What exactly is the reason for the attempt to close
access, under exactly what scope of authority is the Service moving to
deny access, and''
Land Management Plans are completed under authority of the
requirements of the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning
Act of 1974, as amended by the National Forest Management Act of 1976.
The Chugach National Forest closed a number of roads and trails to
motorized access in 2002, as directed by the unit's Land Management
Plan, which was revised that year. Those roads and trails were closed
based on environmental and economic concerns and were done so with the
appropriate level of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
compliance. Motorized access to mining operations in areas otherwise
closed to motorized use on the Chugach National Forest is routinely
allowed for mining purposes by written authorization under a Mining
Plan of Operations, per 36 CFR 228.4.
b.) ``exactly how can small miners access their valid claims to
minerals under national mining law without having the right to
motorized access on routes they have used for many decades?
Answer. Prior to mining activities, the miners must develop and
submit a Plan of Operations, which will address access needs. The Plan
of Operations requires NEPA compliance and will enable the Forest to
identify reasonable access pursuant to the proposed mining activities.
Stipulations may include restrictions seasonally to protect resource
values, such as, road or trail improvements with due consideration of
the particular and unique needs of the mining operating plan.
Forest visitors are subject to the same motorized access
restrictions, including those engaged in nonprofit recreational mining.
However, the Forest has provided maps to the Gold Prospectors
Association of America (GPAA) showing locations open to the public that
are easily accessible near open roads and/or that can be accessed with
off road vehicles. The Forest has also provided hundreds of GOLD
PANNING brochures (2010 version) to the association.
Question 17. Pacific Northwest Research Station Expansion: Last
year the Alaska Delegation urged the Forest Service by letter to
consider expanding the size of a co-located new Pacific Northwest
Research Station Laboratory that is being built at the University of
Alaska Southeast in Juneau, Alaska. A larger lab facility at that site
is cost effective since the University of Alaska has funded
infrastructure costs and because the lab can handle the needs of other
federal agencies in Southeast Alaska such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Park Service,
besides handling the research needs of the Forest Service's own new
Heen Latinee Experimental Forest located in Juneau. Has the Forest
Service considered, and is it willing to expand the size of the
research station's laboratory building in Juneau, perhaps either
through its FY 12 or FY 13 budget, and what is the status of funding
and construction of the facility that is already underway in Juneau?
Answer. The Forest Service has carefully considered the option of
expanding the size of the Juneau Forestry Sciences Laboratory to
accommodate related federal agencies. Our response is documented in the
letter that was sent to Senator Murkowski October 21, 2010. The
difficulties of expanding the current building are due to design
challenges, environmental concerns, and the lack of authority for the
Forest Service to build space for other agencies. Expanding the current
building would also result in delays of 1 to 2 years in construction
due to the need to redesign the foundation, mechanical systems, and
amend the environmental assessment. Nevertheless, the Forest Service is
open to consider co-location of other facilities on the Laboratory
property. Co-location with a connection to the laboratory building
would provide benefits similar to expanding the existing building.
For the currently planned structure, Congress appropriated $4.95
million in FY 2010 for construction of Phase 1 of the Juneau Forestry
Sciences Laboratory and a design build contract was awarded in August
2010. The design is in the final stages and construction is expected to
start in May 2011. The FY 2011 President's Budget requested $4.96
million for Phase 2 which will finish out the space for the Forest
Service needs, if appropriated. Neither the Forest Service or the Fish
and Wildlife Service have requested funds in FY 2012 for a building
expansion.
Question 18. Air Tankers: Would the advanced avionics that the C-
130J aircraft carry that allow them to fly night missions address some
of the concerns raised about the response to the Station Fire? Given
the liability concerns regarding flights, would you ever expect the
agency to authorize such night flights?
Answer. The C-130J does provide for the ability to fly night
missions, as do other aircraft. However, much consideration must be
given to the cost/benefit of flying large airtankers at night and the
ability to do it effectively and safely. Training and equipment
requirements must be considered. A thorough risk assessment to address
collision avoidance and safety of firefighters on the ground must be
conducted before the Forest Service would consider implementing night
aerial firefighting. This is a course of action the Forest Service is
exploring.
Question 19. Can you provide the Committee with the numbers for the
remaining operational service life of each of the large airtankers
currently in the fleet?
Answer. Over the last few years we have averaged 19 available
airtankers. Current estimates based on airtanker contractor input show
that there will be a 50% reduction in total number of legacy (P-2V and
P3 aircraft) airtankers in the next 10 years. In order to sustain these
aircraft, contractors will have to continue a strict maintenance and
inspection program approved by the Federal Aviation Administration for
the airtanker mission.
P-2V attrition is estimated to begin in 2017.
P-3 attrition is estimated to begin in 2029.
Question 20. In 2004, the Forest Service grounded the large
airtanker fleet for half of the fire season to develop better safety
protocols. Backfilling with helitankers and heavy lift type 1
helicopters added $80 million to that season's aviation costs. If you
reconfigure your current fleet to use these types of helicopters after
the large airtankers are retired, how much would that approach add to
your annual aviation costs?
Answer. It is safe to say that costs would increase, but it is
difficult to answer that question with any certainty as it all depends
on fire season conditions, the number and type of helicopter and many
other variables.
Question 21. The large airtankers are primarily an initial attack
resource. Eighty-five percent of your annual fire suppression expenses
are consumed by the roughly 2% of the fires that escape initial attack
and become expensive, large incident fires. Without large airtankers
how would your initial attack success rate change?
Answer. We believe we would be able to maintain initial attack
success provided the ability to backfill with other air resources is
achieved. A variety of factors influence our ability to contain fires.
Large airtankers provide a unique combination of speed, range, and high
load capacity which can be of critical importance during the initial
response to wildland fires. In some cases, large airtankers provide the
only tool available until other assets can be deployed to the site.
Question 22. Based upon the cost figures from previous fire
seasons, it appears that every 0.1% improvement in initial attack
success rate would save about $110-120 million in suppression expenses.
Does that sound about right to you?
Answer. In general, there is no direct link that can be established
between initial attack success and overall suppression expenditures for
a given year. A variety of factors influence our ability to contain
fires within initial attack including overall fire activity both
regionally and nationally which influences the availability of other
suppression assets: management objectives for any particular unplanned
fire; and, weather and fuels conditions.
Question 23. Since the release of the NTSB report in 2004 and the
Forest Service's response to NTSB's recommendations, it has been a
known fact that the imposition of an operational service life on the
large airtanker fleet would result in the current aircraft eventually
being retired from active service. How quickly has the industry moved
in 7 years to bring newer aircraft models into the fire fighting
mission to replace the existing large fixed wing airtanker models?
Answer. A recent request for information on next generation
airtanker platforms received over ten responses. The agency continues
to develop opportunities for the vendor community to transition to more
modern aircraft.
Question 24. What steps has the Forest Service taken that might
encourage the industry to invest money in developing such an aircraft?
Answer. The agency has transitioned from three year option
contracts to five year fixed price contracts. This has provided greater
financial stability for the vendor which allows them to make
investments in newer aircraft. The agency sponsors a biannual Airtanker
Forum to engage with the vendors in identifying obstacles to
modernization, business best practices, and collaborative efforts that
can meet the agency's needs. Agency staff members regularly meet with
contractors on these issues. The agency has worked with contractors to
perform tests to certify new airtanker capabilities.
Question 25. Do the FARS regulations allow the Forest Service to
enter into 10 year contracts when it comes to acquiring air craft
services for these planes? If not, would such authority increase the
likelihood of the current industry wanting to invest the funding needed
to develop alternative aircraft?
Answer. Current FAR regulations do not permit the Agency to enter
into 10-year contracts to acquire aircraft services. It is difficult to
ascertain what the industry might say.
Question 26. In addition to this report, will you provide the
Committee with an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each of
the options listed at the end of the large fixed wing airtanker
strategy?
Answer. This response is based on the NIAC Interagency Aviation
Strategy, Appendix 12: Wildland Fire Large Airtanker Strategy. The
airtanker options listed in Appendix 12 are contractual operational
models.
option/ model 1: government-owned, contractor-operated business model.
The USDA Forest Service (FS) would own the airtankers and contract
for operations and maintenance from private industry. Government
ownership of these aircraft will result in control over maintenance and
safety.
Strengths
Private industry reduces capital investment risk.
Private industry has operations and maintenance contracting
opportunities.
Potential for reduced operating cost over existing contracted
airtankers.
Weaknesses
Acquisition cost is very high.
Private industry would be excluded from airtanker ownership and
operations.
option 2-military-owned, military-operated business model.
UPDATE--Since this option was developed in 2008, the model has
changed based on discussion with the Department of Defense. The Forest
Service would own these aircraft and the military would operate and
maintain them. The modular retardant tank system would be upgraded to
next generation beyond MAFFS 2, which could increase retardant payload
and effectiveness.
This option would be an extension of the military C-130 program
known as the Modular Airborne Firefighting System or MAFFS. Outside of
the fire season, the Air Force/ Air National Guard would have access to
the aircraft for traditional military missions.
Strengths
Coordination between the Forest Service and the Department of
Defense.
Weaknesses
Acquisition Cost of C-130Js is very high.
Private industry would be excluded from airtanker ownership and
operations.
Operational costs would be high based on the MAFFS program
historical use and operations.
War and Homeland security issues could impact availability of
airtankers in this model.
option 3-contractor-owned, contractor-operated model.
UPDATE--Since this option was developed in 2008, private industry
has expressed the desire to remain in the airtanker business and
modernize their fleet of aircraft. A recent contract request for
information (RFI) for newer technology airtankers netted over ten
proposals. Several new technology airtankers may be operational this
year within the existing contract. The follow on contract Request for
Proposal to the RFI above is intended to contract for newer airtankers.
Private industry may be able to provide a majority of the future
airtanker fleet.
Strengths
Private industry remains a viable part of the business.
The Forest Service does not own large airtankers (low initial costs
to the government).
The MAFFS program remains a viable wildfire surge asset.
Weaknesses
Current contracts are for five years. A longer contract period
could provide reduce financial risk and improve return on investment.
Question 27. Can you help the Committee understand what other
programs you will propose to cut to pay for the C-130J aircraft that
your staff seems to prefer?
Answer. USDA and the Forest Service are still reviewing all options
for air support. It is premature at this time to speculate on funding.
Question 28. Please provide the Committee with the following
information: 1) expected total cost of the replacement aircraft; 2) how
many would need to be purchased each year and for how many years the
purchases would continue; 3) what the expected annual cost of
operations of each aircraft would be; and 4) compare those costs
against the alternatives including the re-winging of the existing P-3
Orion aircraft.
Answer.
1). The agency has not yet selected a replacement aircraft
model. Nor has it been determined whether the aircraft will be
contractor owned or government owned.
2). It has not been determined whether the aircraft will be
contractor owned or government owned. However, to, at a
minimum, replace the current fleet 19 aircraft would need to be
purchased by either contractors or the government.
3). Most aircraft models being evaluated cost about $5,000
per hour to operate and approximately $10,000 per day for fixed
costs.
4). The Forest Service has analyzed the costs of
refurbishment of not only the P-3 but military surplus C-130H
aircraft. The aviation industry estimates that complete
refurbishment costs could be 80% the cost of a new aircraft of
the same make and model. Even with refurbishment, these
aircraft will have limited operational life 60% less than a new
aircraft. Operating costs of a refurbished P-3 or C-130H could
be 60% higher than a new aircraft, but would be less capable
(i.e. speed, payload and other capability) because of their
older design, engines and flight management technology.
Question 29. 2008 Farm Bill, Biomass Crop Assistance Program
(BCAP): This program has great inconsistency, coupled with a start
(2009) stop (Feb 2010) schedule and a precipitous decline in funding
since inception. How can you provide an incentive to utilize wood by-
products for biopower and biofuels when there is no consistency and
predictability to the program? The 2011 OMB budget request for BCAP was
$196 million. The Administration's 2012 budget proposal is to slash the
Matching Payment Program to a capped $70 million. Why is this program
being singled out in the Farm Bill for major budget reductions? Why
hasn't the Guidance Document been completed and issued to local FSA
officials to implement the Matching Payment Program when the Rule was
issued Oct. 27, 2010?
Answer. The following answer is provided by the Farm Services
Agency.
The Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) was enacted as part of
the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (2008 Farm Bill). As
enacted, the 2008 Farm Bill provided the open-ended appropriation of
``such sums as necessary'' for all expenditures of the program. At the
time the 2008 Farm Bill was enacted the Congressional Budget Office
(CBO) estimated that BCAP expenditures would total $70 million over the
life of the Farm Bill. On June 29, 2010, Congress enacted the FY 2010
Supplemental Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act (P.L. 111-212) which
capped expenditures for BCAP at $432 million. While the FY 2011
President's budget included estimated expenditures of $196 million for
BCAP the only limitation on spending was the cap imposed by Congress.
The FY 2012 President's budget includes a proposal to cap the Matching
Payments portion of BCAP at $70 million (the same amount CBO originally
estimated for the entire cost of BCAP); the Establishment and Annual
payment portions of BCAP would only be capped by the limitations
previously imposed by Congress. Efforts to limit expenditures under the
Matching Payments portion of BCAP have been driven, in part, by
concerns expressed by Members of Congress and the wood products
industry regarding resultant market distortions. All guidance
documentation for the local FSA officials has been disseminated.
Instructions on applications for Qualifying Biomass Conversion
Facilities were issued to FSA county offices on December 15, 2010,
instructions for Project Proposals on December 17, 2010, and
instructions for requesting matching payments on January 7, 2011.
Question 30. State and Private Forestry: The Forest Service has
adopted an ``All Lands'' landscape scale approach to address the
insect, disease, and wildfire risk to productive forest lands on the
National Forests. Yet, both last year and this year's 2012 Budget
Proposal calls for substantial reductions to:
Forest Health Mgt--Fed. Lands and Coop Lands: $-6.3 million
State Fire Assistance: -$5.946 million
Volunteer Fire Assistance: $-7 million
Economic Action Program: $-5 million
a.Please explain how you incentivize an ``All Lands''
approach with these State & Private Forestry cuts?
b. Do you agree that these funds are the heart of
incentivizing private land, restoration, and fuels reduction
and partnering with state and local fire assistance?
Answer a). Please explain how you incentivize an ``All Lands''
approach with these State & Private Forestry cuts?
The US Forest Service is committed to the Secretary's ``All Lands''
vision for forest conservation and recognizes the need for greater
collaboration across federal, state, and private forestlands and the
importance of maintaining working forest landscapes for rural
economies. The agency will incentivize this ``All Lands'' approach by
utilizing a mix of programs to conduct work to address insect, disease,
and wildfire risk on federal lands and to expand this work on all lands
while also involving programs beyond these budget line items. We will
continue to build and strengthen our relationships with state and
private landowners and leverage those partnerships, increasing our
effectiveness by focusing funds particularly on those priorities
identified by states and territories in their statewide resource
assessments and strategies. The Volunteer Fire Assistance program is
not reduced in the FY 2012 proposal.
b) ``Do you agree that these funds are the heart of incentivizing
private land, restoration, and fuels reduction and partnering with
state and local fire assistance?''
Answer. The State Forest Resource Assessments are at the ``heart''
of the all-lands approach and are more integral than funding levels.
The US Forest Service recognizes the important work that is done in
cooperation with our State and local partners through these cooperative
programs. The President's budget is formulated to balance the important
activities of different program areas, with some program reductions
necessary to exercise appropriate fiscal prudence in these difficult
economic times.
Question 31. National Forest System: Proposal for an IRR budget
line item: Since the Chief told us that we needed more mechanical
treatments even if it means accomplishing less acres burned, why didn't
all $86 million go to mechanical thinning? (An $86 million increase in
mechanical thinning would raise the forest products target from 2.4 to
3.1 bbf)
The 2010 budget levels for vegetation Budget Line Items was:
NFTM--$336 million
NFWF--$143 million
NFVW--$187 million
Total = $666 million
The 2011 IRR proposal added:
Priority Watershed Projects--$50 million
CFLRA stewardship contracts--$40 million
The 2012 IRR proposal calls for:
An increase in Priority Watershed Projects to--$80 million
Road decommissioning 2,185 miles at $75 million
Shift non-WUI Hazardous Fuels (WFHF) to IRR--$86 million
A Total increase of $200 million over the 2011 proposal
Performance standards propose:
2.1.a--Increase the forest products target from 2.4 bbf
(2011) to 2.616 bbf (2012)
2.1.b--2.7 million green tons of by-product (obtained by
permit, contract, partnership, etc.)
a. We do not understand why the Forest Service does NOT view
2.1.b as a target. Can you help us understand what you view as
hard targets?
b. We are not sure why the NFTM, NFWF, and NFVW BLIs should
be combined; can you help us better understand why this should
be done by describing the added accomplishments that would
occur in each area that is combined in to the IRR account?
c. 2010 NFVW was $187 million; why not simply provide
performance focus on the priority watershed projects ($80
million) coming from NFVW?
d. We do not understand targeting additional road
decommissioning CMRD-$75 million) when that funding is needed
to provide engineering support to the vegetation (fuels
reduction and mechanical thinning) projects?
e. We believe adding the WFHF shift ($86 million) to NFTM
could provide the ability to increase the forest products
performance standard 2.1.a target to 3.1 bbf of solid wood and
performance standard 2.1.b target of 3 million green tons for
fuelwood and biomass thereby sending the right signal to the
Regions and Forests to step up mechanical thinning even if it
means less prescribed burning. Can you explain why this should
not be done?
Answer. In response to your question as to why all $86 million did
not go towards mechanical thinning, mechanical thinning is only one of
several tools used by the agency to restore landscapes. The IRR
structure as proposed in the FY 2012 President's budget puts forth
restoration opportunities as the best approach to increasing products
and services. This integrated approach will allow the agency to
accomplish more on the ground work that moves towards the forest health
and water quality improvement. It emphasizes collaboration and
stewardship contracting, but also recognizes the vital role traditional
timber sales play in achieving restoration goals. For example, timber
volume sold in FY 2011 is expected to increase from 2.4 million board
feet (MMBF) to 2.6 MMBF in FY 2012. These proposed activities will also
lead to improving watershed conditions, decommissioning of roads, and
restoring or enhancing streams. Increasing the forest products output,
alone, from 2.4 to 3.1 MMBF would decrease project integration, create
unnecessary conflict with user groups, and would make it more difficult
to meet our forest health and water quality improvement goals.
a) ``We do not understand why the Forest Service does NOT view
2.1.b as a target. Can you help us understand what you view as hard
targets?''
Answer.
The proposed targets identified in the President's FY 2012 budget
for Integrated Resource Restoration will also supply 2.7 million green
tons of woody biomass from Federal lands. However, because of economic
challenges such as limited access, distance from processing centers,
and profitability, it is difficult to predict if industry will have the
ability to acquire or use this material.
b) ``We are not sure why the NFTM, NFWF, and NFVW BLIs should be
combined; can you help us better understand why this should be done by
describing the added accomplishments that would occur in each area that
is combined in to the IRR account?''
Answer. The integrated resource restoration (IRR) program will
enable the Forest Service to undertake larger projects and achieve more
results. The IRR budget line item will focus on holistic results, not
resource by resource. The IRR budget line item brings together key
management resources necessary for maintaining and restoring watershed
and forest health under one umbrella and directs funding to achieve
priority work in the most important places. The proposed budget
structure will allow us to do more work and create more jobs. These
large scale projects help maintain existing manufacturing and workforce
infrastructure, support biomass facilities to meet existing capacity,
and stimulate emerging business opportunities.
IRR moves away from the traditional approaches that are centered on
localized small scale resource solutions, and moves the agency toward
evaluating and implementing environmental restoration on a broader
landscape scale. Funds will be directed to reestablish watershed,
forest and grassland health, fire-adapted landscapes, and ecosystem
function. Healthy forests provide for long term utilization of
materials while improving water quality and reducing the risk of
catastrophic fires. All of this work will support wood products
infrastructure and create by-products off of the forests.
Combing the authorities of the existing programs gives line
officers the ability and flexibility to meet a wider range of
ecological, economic and social values than possible under the current
structure. This process emphasizes collaboration with stakeholders,
internal multi-disciplinary planning and efficiency efforts, and a
well-crafted accountability system that will result in better designed
restoration projects, more community support, fewer appeals, and more
work accomplished on the ground.
Performance will be addressed through a combination of outcome
measures that reflect expected accomplishments toward IRR's restoration
and maintenance goals at the forest and regional levels over time, as
well as targets tracking current outputs and reporting items, such as
board feet, from the former budget line items. This approach will
provide consistency and transparency about the use of appropriated
funds under the IRR budget structure.
Established performance measures such as timber volume, road
mileages, acres treated for hazardous fuels, and other outputs will
continue to be used. As a part of the FY 2012 proposal for Integrated
Resource Restoration we will assign specific targets to each region.
Line officers are held accountable, through performance reviews, for
meeting assigned targets.
c) ``2010 NFVW was $187 million; why not simply provide performance
focus on the priority watershed projects ($80 million) coming from
NFVW?''
Answer.
A core tenet of the IRR framework is that we need to adapt our work
in new ways. More of the same old approaches, and line items will not
get us to more work accomplished. The FY 2012 President's Budget
request includes a number of budget structure changes designed to
increase efficiency in program administration, delivery, and to reduce
redundancy while continuing to support this Administration's highest
priorities. The FY 2012 President's Budget request will consolidate
budget line items (BLI) including Wildlife and Fisheries Habitat
Management, Timber Management, Legacy Roads, National Forest System
Vegetation and Watersheds, the non-Wildland Urban Interface part of
Wildland Fire Hazardous Fuels and road decommissioning activities.
Consolidation of these activities will facilitate a holistic
approach to landscape management. Singling out any one activity will
have the effect of minimizing product outputs. A fully integrated
approach is what is needed. Collectively four components make up the
IRR framework: 1) Restoration and management of ecosystems; 2) Priority
Watershed and Job Stabilization; 3) Collaborative Forest Landscape
Restoration program; and 4) Legacy Roads and Trails.
Consolidating the BLIs into the IRR structure improves upon
traditional approaches centered on local, individual small scale
resource solutions and will move the Forest Service toward evaluating
and implementing environmental needs on a broad landscape scale, and
concentrating activities in priority watersheds. Funds will be directed
to reestablish watershed, forest and grassland health, fire-adapted
landscapes, and ecosystem function.
d) ``We do not understand targeting additional road decommissioning
CMRD-$75 million) when that funding is needed to provide engineering
support to the vegetation (fuels reduction and mechanical thinning)
projects?''
Answer. This budget supports both; the FY2012 President's Budget
includes approximately $158 million for Road Construction and
Maintenance, including $32 million for engineering support to
vegetation projects. This includes support for the construction of new
roads, as well as maintenance and reconstruction of existing roads.
The President's Budget is proposing to move the Legacy Roads and
Trails program ($50,000,000) to the new Integrated Resource Restoration
program. The focus of the Legacy Roads funding will remain the same as
it was in previous years: urgently needed road and trail
decommissioning, and repair, maintenance, and associated activities.
This includes the restoration of aquatic organism passage and the
mitigation of other environmental impacts of roads. In addition, the
Forest Service proposes to move $25 million for priority road
decommissioning from the Roads Construction and Maintenance program to
the Integrated Resource Restoration program. Together, these funds will
constitute the Legacy Roads and Trails component of the Integrated
Resource Restoration program.
e) ``We believe adding the WFHF shift ($86 million) to NFTM could
provide the ability to increase the forest products performance
standard 2.1.a target to 3.1 bbf of solid wood and performance standard
2.1.b target of 3 million green tons for fuelwood and biomass thereby
sending the right signal to the Regions and Forests to step up
mechanical thinning even if it means less prescribed burning. Can you
explain why this should not be done?''
Answer. The FY 2012 budget proposes a shift of WFHF to a proposed
fund NFRR (Integrated Resource Restoration). IRR does emphasize
mechanical thinning while addressing larger landscape goals. For
example, timber volume harvested is expected to increase from 2.4
million board feet (MMBF) in FY 2011 to 2.6 MMBF in FY 2012. However,
prescribed burning is also a critical component for meeting many
forests' restoration objectives.
Further, a significant board foot shift such as suggested would
create unneeded conflict, appeals, and litigation. There will be time
to increase IRR outputs and this program will eventually reach higher
levels, but not in the first year. Therefore, the proposed IRR
structure balances commercial output opportunities with restoration
needs. This integrated approach will allow the Forest Service to
accomplish more on the ground work that implements our forest health
and water quality improvement goals. These proposed activities will
also lead to improving watershed conditions, decommissioning of roads,
and restoring or enhancing streams.
Question 32. Capital Improvement and Maintenance: The
Administration's FY2011 Budget proposes a $79 million reduction in the
roads program which eliminates the engineering support needed to
accomplish the vegetation projects. Why is it shown again in 2012?
Answer. The FY 2012 President's Budget request shifts funding for
road and trail decommissioning, as well as road and trail repair and
maintenance for the mitigation of environmental impacts of roads and
trails associated with restoration work to the Integrated Resource
Restoration budget line. Shifting these activities to IRR will allow
the Forest Service to accomplish vegetation projects more efficiently.
The FY 2012 President's Budget request includes $158 million for Road
Construction and Maintenance in the following activities: $124 million
for Operation and Maintenance; $25 million for Reconstruction of
Existing Roads; and nearly $9 million for New Road Construction in
Alaska. These amounts include an estimated $32 million for engineering
support to vegetation projects. This includes support for the
construction of new roads, as well as maintenance and reconstruction of
existing roads for vegetation projects.
Question 33. Wildland Fire Management: We can understand why the
Agency wants an increase in Most Efficient Level (MEL) of fire
preparedness. But we don't understand why the Administration doesn't
require the fire crews to be out doing hazardous fuels work and
accomplishing targets. Can you help us understand why under-utilized
fire crews couldn't or shouldn't be doing this type of work when not on
fires?
Answer. The agency takes fire readiness seriously and has requested
the funds to maintain an efficient level of preparedness. Fire crews
can, and often are assigned, project work that directly accomplishes
fuels reduction or other land management work. We want to take
advantage of this dual role where we can so please do let us know where
we can optimize specific fire crews on the ground. The agency manages
the Wildland Fire Management programs collaboratively and coordinates
the deployment of firefighting resources to meet fire management
objectives. Over the past few years, the Forest Service has taken steps
to improve performance and reduce costs, such as to align field units
to better capitalize on shared resources, management oversight, and
support functions.
Question 34. We do not believe there should be any increase in
Preparedness, rather Preparedness crews should be held accountable for
accomplishing fuels reduction work (WFHF) when they are on standby
waiting for the fire bell.
Answer. The FY 2012 budget does move funds from suppression to
preparedness. However, the cost burden for the restructured resources
is also shifted. There is no effective increase in Preparedness. In
past years aviation and cost pools related to preparedness were paid
out of the suppression account in order to maintain initial attack
suppression capability. Unfortunately, this procedure artificially
inflated the 10-year average cost of fire suppression. Therefore, the
Forest Service has now properly re-aligned the budget to ensure that
preparedness costs are fully identified separate from suppression. This
will affect future computations of the 10-year average.
The agency takes fire readiness seriously and has requested the
funds to maintain an efficient level of preparedness. Fire crews can,
and often are assigned, project work that directly accomplishes fuels
reduction or other land management work. We want to take advantage of
this dual role where we can so please do let us know where we can
optimize specific fire crews on the ground. The agency manages the
Wildland Fire Management programs collaboratively and coordinates the
deployment of firefighting resources to meet fire management
objectives. Over the past few years, the Forest Service has taken steps
to improve performance and reduce costs, such as to align field units
to better capitalize on shared resources, management oversight, and
support functions.
Question 35. As was mentioned under S&PF above, with an ``All
Lands'' landscape level approach to management, why is there $ 41
million of cuts proposed to NFP Forest Health, State Fire Assistance,
and Volunteer Fire Assistance?
Answer. The agency is committed to the Secretary's ``All Lands''
vision for forest conservation and recognizes the need for greater
collaboration across federal, state and private forestlands and the
importance of maintaining working forest landscapes for rural
economies. The agency will incentivize this ``All Lands'' approach by
utilizing a mix of programs to conduct work to address insect, disease,
and wildfire risk on federal lands and to expand this work on all lands
while also involving programs beyond these budget line items. However,
the President's budget is formulated to balance the important
activities of different program areas, and some program reductions are
necessary to exercise appropriate fiscal prudence in these difficult
economic times. Regarding the proposed reduction in Wildland Fire
Management State Fire Assistance program, the President's Budget
proposal of $45,564,000, while down from the FY 2010 enacted level, is
generally consistent with prior appropriated funding levels for this
account.
RECOMMENDED WILDERNESS AREAS
Question 36. Everyone is aware of the order Secretary Salazar
released regarding so-called ``Wild Lands,'' which are nothing more
than de facto Wilderness Areas designated on BLM lands without
Congressional approval. Chief Tidwell had a role in changing the way
Recommended Wilderness Areas on Forest Lands are managed in Region 1
before he became Chief. Would you explain how Region 1 dealt with
Recommended Wilderness Areas, and tell us about the plans the Forest
Service Headquarters has, if any, to address Recommended Wilderness
Areas?
Answer. When Chief Tidwell was Regional Forester in Region 1, he
implemented the National Forest Service policy (Forest Service Manual--
FSM1923.03) which states: ``Any inventoried roadless area recommended
for wilderness or designated wilderness study is not available for any
use or activity that may reduce the wilderness potential of an area.
Activities currently permitted may continue, pending designation, if
the activities do not compromise wilderness values of the area.''
Then-Regional Forester Tidwell advised National Forest System units
to carefully consider the characteristics of these, recommended or
designated areas while completing their land management plans. When a
forest system unit issued a draft recommendation for an area, the
unit's management designation of appropriate uses was to reflect these
findings. The draft recommendation for uses was then to be put forth by
the forest unit, during the public involvement process required for
land management planning, prior to the Forest Service finalizing
decisions on the plan.
The Forest Service has received letters from citizen organizations
and some members of Congress expressing concern about the management of
recommended wilderness areas. The letters have raised the issue of
whether recreation uses, such as all terrain vehicles and mountain
bikes, that would be prohibited if an area is designated as wilderness
may be allowed to continue pending Congressional action on the
recommendation. These interim recreation activities may ultimately
influence whether or not an area is available for wilderness
designation by Congress.
In order to thoroughly consider these concerns, we have assigned a
review team to analyze the implementation of the current Forest Service
policy. This team expects to complete its work by the summer of 2011.
Upon completion of the review, the Forest Service will contact
interested parties, including Members of Congress, with the results and
options for area management. The Forest Service will analyze any
proposed change in policy through a public process.
RECREATION
Question 37. The Notice of Intent to develop a Land Management Rule
mostly ignored recreation. The Draft Rule focuses much more on
recreation. Why was recreation left out of the NOI, and what emphasis
should recreation be given by the Forest Service in the final Land
Management Planning Rule and by Forest personnel?
Answer. We intended for recreation management to be incorporated in
principle five of the notice of intent (NOI), ``...plans could foster
sustainable NFS lands and their contribution to vibrant rural
economies.'' We realize now that a more explicit recognition of
recreation would have been better.
The proposed rule does recognize the importance of recreation to
the American people and require the unique needs of the recreation
resource to be addressed throughout the process of assessment; plan
development, revision or amendment; and monitoring. This process will
allow each NFS unit to identify unique recreational roles, create plans
that provide sustainable recreational opportunities and uses, and
require monitoring of progress toward meeting recreational objectives.
The proposed rule recognizes the importance of sustainable
recreation as a multiple use. Sustainable recreation is defined in the
proposed rule as the set of recreational opportunities, uses and access
that, individually and combined, are ecologically, economically, and
socially sustainable, allowing the responsible official to offer
recreation opportunities now and into the future. Recreational
opportunities can include non-motorized, motorized, developed, and
dispersed recreation on land, water, and air.
The proposed rule requires plan components designed to provide for
sustainable recreation opportunities and uses, which will contribute to
the social and economic health of communities. The proposed rule
recognizes the importance of recreation as a multiple use, and would
integrate recreation concerns and provide for the unique needs of the
recreation resource throughout the planning process, including in the
assessment and monitoring phases. The proposed rule requires that plan
components provide for sustainable recreation. It also requires the
responsible official to take sustainable recreation opportunities and
uses into account when developing plan components to contribute to
social and economic sustainability.
We look forward to reviewing input from the public on the proposed
rule in order to develop our final rule.
Question 38. As you look to the future use of our National Forests
in the next 100 years, what is your vision on how these lands should be
used by the American people?
Answer. The mission of the USDA Forest Service is to ``sustain the
health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation's forests and
grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations''. Over
the next 100 years climate change will impact forests and grasslands,
diminishing the benefits they provide. Climate change affects
individual species and the stressors and disturbances that shape
ecological processes and functions. Climate change is not the only
driver of the changes we have been seeing across America's landscapes.
Urban growth, markets for wood, a legacy of fire exclusion, loss of
open space, fire and fuels, invasive species, the spread of forest
pests and disease, and other factors are also driving change. We will
face a whole host of challenges over the next 100 years.
Our commitment to land stewardship and public service is the
framework within which the national forests and grasslands are managed.
The Forest Service's Strategic Plan specifies seven agency goals: 1.
Restore, sustain, and enhance the Nation's forests and grasslands; 2.
Provide and sustain benefits to the American people; 3. Conserve open
space; 4. Sustain and enhance outdoor recreation opportunities; 5.
Maintain basic management capabilities of the Forest Service; 6. Engage
urban America with Forest Service programs; and 7. Provide science-
based applications and tools for sustainable natural resources
management. Recently the Forest Service proposed a new planning rule
that would provide a framework to guide the collaborative and science-
based development, amendment and revision of land management plans that
promote healthy, resilient, diverse and productive national forests and
grasslands.
In 2010 the President introduced America's Great Outdoors (AGO),
which will help to shape the future of how the Nation's forests will be
used by the American people. The AGO action plan was created with input
from some 20,000 Americans, through 56 listening sessions held across
the United States, and another 150,000 comments received
electronically. The American people care deeply about their outdoor
heritage and are willing to take an active role in protecting it now
and for future generations. Our role is to advocate a conservation
ethic, promoting health, diversity, and productivity of forests and
grasslands while listening to and responding to the diverse needs of
the American people.
Question 39. How do you view motorized recreation, and how do you
see the implementation of the Travel Management Rule progressing?
Answer. Motorized recreation is a long standing and appropriate use
of National Forest System lands when properly managed and in the right
places. Implementation of the motor vehicle use maps is progressing
steadily. As of the end of FY 2010, approximately 68 percent of Forest
Service administered units had implemented Subpart B of the travel
management rule and published a motor vehicle use map (MVUM). Subpart
B, Designation of Roads, Trails, and Areas for Motor Vehicle Use,
requires each administrative unit to designate those NFS roads, NFS
trails, and areas on NFS lands that are open to motor vehicle use and
identify those designations on MVUM. The agency anticipates that nearly
all MVUMs will be completed by December of 2011. The remaining units
will implement Subpart B on a schedule determined by available
resources and competing priorities.
The Forest Service prepared a Route and Area Designation
Implementation Guide in May 2010. The purpose of the guide is to assist
Forest Service employees with implementing route and area designations
made under the travel management rule, as well as managing off-highway
vehicle use at the field level.
Question 40. Do you intend to direct Forests to dedicate the
necessary funds to adequately and fairly implement the Travel
Management Rule?
Answer. The majority of Forest Service administrative units (68%)
have already completed route and area designations under the travel
management rule and produced a motor vehicle use map. The Forest
Service is committed to funding implementation of the travel management
rule in a targeted, efficient manner.
FIRE AVIATION PROPOSAL
Question 41a. Does the Forest Service wish to acquire new C-130J
aircraft for firefighting?
Answer. The agency has not yet selected a replacement aircraft
model.
Question 41b. How much will each plane cost?
Answer. The agency has not selected a replacement aircraft model
nor has it determined whether the aircraft will be contractor owned or
government owned.
Question 41c. How many planes will you need and how soon?
Answer. To replace the current fleet 19 aircraft would need to be
purchased by either contractors or the government.
Question 41d. And in declining budget what programs are you willing
to cut to free up funding to cover the cost of acquisition?
Answer. Funding decisions will be made when a specific airtanker
proposal and type of ownership is settled upon.
Question 41e. Finally, please explain why your fire and aviation
experts have not been willing to look at other alternatives, such as
putting new wings on the existing Lockheed P-3 Orion aircraft which I
am told can be accomplished at about 1/5th the cost of a new C-130J?
Answer. The Forest Service has evaluated other alternatives
including re-winging a P-3. The Forest Service acquired 3 military
excess P-3Bs in 2006. The intent was to inspect 1 aircraft and repair
it in accordance with US Navy structural inspection requirements which
are much less stringent than those needed for the airtanker mission. It
became apparent that the aircraft would require much more repair than
originally estimated to meet airworthiness requirement for the
airtanker mission. The Forest Service has since abandoned this effort
due to the extreme costs and has transferred 1 of the 3 aircraft to
another government agency. The aviation industry estimates that
complete refurbishment costs could be 80% the cost of a new aircraft of
the same make and model. Even with refurbishment, these aircraft will
have limited operational life 60% less than a new aircraft. Operating
costs of a refurbished P-3 or C-130H could be 60% higher than a new
aircraft, but would be less capable (i.e. speed, payload and other
capability) because of their older design, engines and flight
management technology.
Responses of Tom Tidwell to Questions From Senator Stabenow
Question 1a. Chief Tidwell, I've heard concerns about the
consolidation of line items in the National Forest System budget into
the proposed Integrated Resource Restoration account. This new account
will constitute more than half of the discretionary funding for the
National Forest System and will cover functions previously funded
through 6 separate budget line items. How will Forests with relatively
successful timber sale programs plan for their land management programs
under the Integrated Resource Restoration budget?
Answer a). ``How will Forests with relatively successful timber
sale programs plan for their land management programs under the
Integrated Resource Restoration budget?
Timber targets will continue under the IRR proposal and will
provide the planning framework. Integrated resource restoration (IRR)
will facilitate the Forest Service to increase accomplishments on the
ground to support identified forest health and water quality
improvement goals. The new IRR structure emphasizes collaboration and
stewardship contracting, but also recognizes the vital role traditional
timber sales play in achieving restoration goals. Combining the
authorities of the existing programs will allow line officers the
ability to meet a wider range of ecological, economic and social values
than has been possible under the restricted budget structure of the
past. The IRR structure will enable larger projects and thus more goods
and services to be produced. It will encourage multi-faceted
restoration work with a lower likelihood of appeals and litigation
because of the collaborative emphasis used to define projects and the
landscape-level objectives of the projects and activities. In this way
IRR structure works in concert with the new Proposed Planning Rule,
which is similarly anticipated to promote integration of various forest
restoration and watershed protection activities contributing to the
resilience of ecosystems and landscapes.
b) ``What assurance do we have that Forests with successful timber
sale programs will continue to meet their timber targets under the IRR
program?''
Answer. Timber targets will continue to be applied. Performance
will be addressed through a combination of outcome measures that
reflect expected accomplishments toward IRR's restoration and
maintenance goals at the forest and regional levels over time, as well
as targets tracking current outputs and reporting items, such as board
feet, from the former budget line items. This approach will provide
consistency and transparency about the use of appropriated funds under
the IRR budget structure.
Established performance measures such as timber volume, miles of
roads decommissioned, acres treated for hazardous fuels, and other
outputs will continue to be used. As a part of the FY 2012 proposal for
Integrated Resource Restoration we will assign specific targets to each
region. Line officers are held accountable, through performance
reviews, for meeting assigned targets.
Question 2. As Congress evaluates our renewable energy policies,
it's important to me to ensure that we incentivize the sustainable use
of renewable biomass from both public and private forests.
Answer a). ``If Congress were to adopt a renewable electricity
standard using the definition of renewable biomass contained in the
2007 EISA, what would the impact be on communities near the National
Forests?''
It is difficult to accurately predict what the impacts would be to
communities near national forests and grasslands if Congress adopted a
renewable electricity standard. Assuming that a renewable electricity
standard would include wood to energy, such a standard would improve
markets, reduce management costs, and put people to work. In general,
communities assessing the feasibility of biomass utilization have
relied on supply studies to determine quantities and availability of
biomass materials. Those data have been used by communities to
determine if operations can be sustained. This information is not
available for all communities near national forests and grasslands, and
is essential to accurately determine the impacts and feasibility.
The EISA places limitations on eligible biomass materials. Under
the EISA, biomass generated through forest management activities such
as slash and pre-commercial thinning residue, is eligible as a
renewable fuel only if removed from non-federal forestlands. Materials
from federal lands do not qualify.
b) ``What about the ability of states like Michigan with
substantial acreage of naturally regenerating forests to meet an RES
using biomass?''
Answer. Locations with substantial acreage of natural regeneration
could possibly assist in meeting a Renewable Electricity Standard.
Responses of Tom Tidwell to Questions From Senator Wyden
COUNTY PAYMENTS
Question 1. In the Administration's proposal to reauthorize the
county payments program, there is no funding for the county payments
program in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) budget. Under the
existing county payments program, the BLM makes payments to Oregon's
O&C counties. That obligation arises from the O&C lands that BLM
administers and for which a timber receipt sharing obligation exists
under the law that established these lands. My staff has been told that
the BLM's role in providing county payments to the O&C counties has
been handed over to the Forest Service, who also appears to be solely
funding the program from its discretionary budget. I still have not
received details from the Administration on how much funding in the
proposed 5 year reauthorization will be used for the BLM payments and
how such a determination will be made. Can you provide me the amounts,
under the Administration's proposal, of the county payments program
funding that will be provided to cover payments to the O&C counties for
each of the five years of the proposal, how the allocation of funding
for Forest Service and BLM lands will be made and how the Forest
Service intends to make payments to cover BLM obligations?
Answer. The Administration's proposal for reauthorizing the Secure
Rural Schools Act would not transfer the Bureau of Land Management's
(BLM) current administration of the O&C lands, and would not transfer
the responsibility for BLM's payments to counties. The proposal is
shown in the budget under the Forest Service merely for the simplicity
of showing it in one place. Inter-agency transfers would be made to
ensure that both the Forest Service and the BLM continue covering their
respective share of the payments. We understand the concern about this
proposal being funded from the agencies' discretionary budgets. The
Administration is open to working with Congress to fund either through
discretionary or mandatory appropriations.
Determination of the Forest Service and BLM payments would be made
using the same formula as in the current Act. This formula calculates a
county's adjusted share and applies it to the full funding amount. The
proposal identifies separate full funding amounts for each of the
proposal's three purposes: payments for schools and roads; economic
investment and forest restoration; and, wildfire assistance.
The proposed funding for each purpose by each agency is shown in
the following table:
COUNTY PAYMENTS RESOURCE ADVISORY COMMITTEES
Question 2. I also understand that the Resource Advisory Committee
(RAC) appointments under this program have still not been completed, as
the program heads into the final year of the current reauthorization.
This has been a very successful part of this program and gets projects
and funding out on the ground. Without completed RACs, these projects
and use of these funds is getting held up. What is holding up these
appointments and can I get your assurance that you will move these out
soon?
Answer. We are pleased to report that as of March 11, 2011 the
Secretary of Agriculture has appointed members to all of the Secure
Rural Schools Act resource advisory committees chartered under the 2008
re-authorization.
HAZARDOUS FUELS
Question 3. As I indicated in the hearing, I am troubled that
hazardous fuels funding in the overall budget has been cut about $10
million when there remains a strong need to increase the amount of this
work getting done. As you mentioned in the hearing yesterday, the
Agency was successful in meeting its timber targets last year. However,
in terms of acres treated, the agency has fallen short of meeting its
goals. For example, in the Forest Service FY2012 budget justification
on page 3-9, the agency only treated 59% of the acres in its target for
improving the condition class and reducing the risk to communities.
To me this indicates that the agency is not meeting its own acreage
targets even when it had more money. And many would say these acreage
targets themselves are far below what actually needs to get treated. So
it seems we're taking a step in the wrong direction.
I want to be clear that I support some of the hazardous fuels work
that will occur in projects under Collaborative Forest Landscape
Restoration and I appreciate that the Integrated Resource Restoration
may help find some efficiencies.
However, when health of the federal forests in Oregon and elsewhere
continues to decline and when the agency itself acknowledges the need
to scale up the acres treated and the projects implemented but notes
the lack of sufficient funding, it seems that cutting the hazardous
fuels funding is simply the wrong place to make cuts. Chief Tidwell,
can you explain to me how the agency is going to be able to make
progress in treating the necessary acres, getting more projects
completed and restoring forest health under this budget proposal?
Answer. There is a strong need to continue fuels reduction work on
National Forest System lands. There is also recognition of the
importance of integrating fire as a critical natural process in land
and resource management plans and activities, reintroducing fire into
ecosystems, managing wildfire across landownership boundaries, and
applying the best available science. The FY 2012 budget proposes a
reduction in hazardous fuels but this is mainly due to a shift of funds
into the Integrated Resource Restoration (IRR) account. Funding in IRR
will still be available to accomplish fuels reduction work, and we
intend to treat a similar number of acres as occurred in the past.
Those funds in the hazardous fuels account will be focused on the
highest priority acres in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) to reduce
risk to communities and help keep firefighters safe.
In FY 2010, the Forest Service treated over 1.9 million of WUI high
priority acres and almost 1.3 million of other priority acres, well
exceeding the agency target for fuels treatment. However, the figure
reported on acres treated to restore fire-adapted ecosystems, which you
cited from page 3-9, is accounting for when acres change condition
class, i.e. when all restoration work has been accomplished such that
the acres treated are within the natural range of variability of
vegetation characteristics: fuel composition; fire frequency, severity
and pattern; and other associated disturbances. To change condition
class often takes multiple treatments over a number of years. For
example, a site may need to be thinned, the slash piled, and then
burned to change the condition class. This may take three field seasons
for all the work to be completed. Further, acreage alone is not a great
measure of accomplishment. The priority of these acres is perhaps more
important. More often than not the priority acres are more expensive
(near community infrastructure) and therefore we see smaller acreage
figures in many areas as well.
PRIORITY WATERSHEDS AND JOBS STABILIZATION
Question 4. One of the new proposals the Administration made last
year and again this year is the Priority Watersheds and Jobs
Stabilization Initiative. This proposal appears to have shifted a bit
in this year's proposal to focus specifically on implementing action
plans under the Watershed Condition Framework. Can you tell us more
about what these action plans are, what forests already have these and
what steps are being taken for other forests to develop them, and
finally, what type of work you envision will be performed under this
program?
Answer. While many national forests implement a variety of
activities to improve watersheds, the process for developing watershed
action plans is new. The first Watershed Restoration Action Plans
(action plans) will be completed by the end of FY 2011.
Action plans will identify specific projects required to maintain
or improve the watershed condition class of priority watersheds. These
documents identify specific problems affecting watershed conditions,
determine appropriate projects to address these problems, and propose
an implementation schedule with project sequencing and potential
partners. The action plans will help us to link project priorities to
National goals and strategies. The action plans will also facilitate
implementation and tracking of watershed condition improvements in a
consistent manner.
The Forest Service has classified approximately all 15,000
watersheds, with substantial Forest Service management responsibility,
at the sixth-level Hydrologic Unit Code. Classification of watersheds
is the first step in the Watershed Condition Framework and is the
necessary precursor to prioritizing watersheds. In the next step, units
will identify their priority watersheds, and action plans will be
created for priority watersheds for improvements. By the end of fiscal
year 2011, the identification of priority watersheds and the
development of the action plans designed to move priority watersheds to
an improved condition class will be completed for an estimated 200-300
high priority watersheds throughout the National Forest System.
Accomplishments will vary depending in part upon; geography, partner
contributions, the complexity of land management issues, and
landownership patterns.
In order for a priority watershed to be considered for the Priority
Watershed funding, the local unit must have used the Watershed
Condition Framework to identify their candidate priority watersheds and
identified the essential suite of restoration projects for each of
these watersheds. This eligibility requirement will be an incentive for
the local units to complete the prioritization/essential project
process.
Each action plan will contain a list of essential projects that are
an integrated suite of management activities focused on maintaining and
restoring watershed health and thereby improving watershed condition
class. The options selected may draw from the entire suite of actions
included in the restoration toolbox but are actions focused on
addressing the limiting factors associated with one or more of the 12
watershed condition indicators that are not in properly functioning
condition. Potential activities include: treating sediment sources from
old trails, restoring wet meadow habitat to moderate stream flows,
replacing undersized culverts to restore fish passage and reduce
habitat fragmentation, reestablishing native fish to historic habitat,
reestablishing native vegetation to protect stream banks,
decommissioning roads, ripping old log landings and trails to reduce
soil compaction, conducting prescribed burns to reduce fuel loading,
reestablishing forest vegetation on burned areas, improving grazing
practices to maintain grassland ecosystems, containing and treating
invasive weeds, and treating insect and disease outbreaks in forested
stands.
CUTS TO LANDOWNERSHIP MANAGEMENT
Question 5. I noticed the Landownership Management account is
proposed for a 10% cut. I know cuts are needed and this certainly looks
like a very obscure place to easily make cuts. However, it is from this
account that the day to day work of surveying--for example for new
wilderness boundaries--or completing land exchanges takes place. The
agency is incredibly backlogged on much of this work. Using the Mt.
Hood Wilderness legislation as an example--2 years after the bill
became law the land exchanges implemented under that legislation are
still slowly working their way through the process. A draft EIS isn't
even expected until the coming fall, with many more steps to follow.
I'm told it will be many years before the agency completes the surveys
of the new wilderness boundaries as well. It seems that these kinds of
cuts are hurting the basic work the agency needs to get accomplished to
manage its resources. How do you think the agency can keep up, much
less catch up, on this backlog of work if the resources funding this
work continue to be cut?
Answer. Tough budget times call for difficult budget choices.
Current surveying and proper line marking activities address the
most critical and highest priority needs to support litigation, to
support trespass and encroachment resolutions, to aid in resolving
title claims or critical survey support for acquisitions and mapping,
and for describing specially designated area boundaries such as
Wilderness or Wild and Scenic Rivers. We will continue to target
available funding toward similar high-priority management needs.