Copyright 2000 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
March 22, 2000, Wednesday
SECTION: PREPARED TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 4572 words
HEADLINE:
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF MIKE DOMBECK CHIEF FOREST SERVICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT
OF AGRICULTURE
BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON
APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES
SUBJECT - FOREST SERVICE FISCAL YEAR 2001 BUDGET
BODY:
Chairman Gorton, Senator Byrd, and
members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
today to discuss the Forest Service's proposed budget for fiscal year 2001.
Performance and financial accountability will be key to building agency
credibility, without which we will be unable to obtain the necessary resources
to accomplish the agency's mission. As I testified before the House Interior and
Related Agencies Subcommittee on February 16, 2000, the Forest Service is
implementing a variety of actions to enhance its financial management, fully
integrate strategic planning and budgeting, and demonstrate organizational
effectiveness through the application of sound business practices.
In my
testimony today, I want to discuss four key areas: 1) sustainable communities;
2) funding and objectives for the Natural Resource Agenda program areas; 3)
actions the Forest Service is taking to ensure it improves program and financial
accountability: and 4) other highlights from of the President's budget. The
President's budget supports the Forest Service Natural Resource Agenda and is
directly tied to the Government Performance and Results Act (Results Act). The
budget proposes a simplified budget structure for the National Forest System
appropriation to improve both financial and program accountability while
ensuring the long-term health, diversity, and productivity of the land to meet
the needs of present and future generations.Overall, the President's budget is
requesting $3.1 billion for Forest Service discretionary
spending in fiscal year 2001. This is a 14 percent increase over fiscal year
2000 that is necessary to ensure the Forest Service accomplishes its
multiple-use mission of caring for the land and serving people.
The
budget requests a $138.6 million increase in funding for the
National Forest System. This is a 12 percent increase from fiscal year 2000. The
budget proposes an increase of $13.3 million to enhance the
agency's role in forest and rangeland research. It includes funding for such
priorities as the use of agricultural products for energy and fiber, the role of
carbon in productivity cycles, applications of new technology in resource
management and coordination of the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program.
The budget also proposes an increase of over 22 percent in the State and Private
Forestry appropriation that now includes funding for International Programs.
This increase will help State and private land managers practice sustainable
forestry and conservation of their lands.
HEALTH LANDS AND SUSTAINABLE
COMMUNITIES
Let me first share some thoughts with you about how we can
work together to ensure we have sustainable communities that thrive, prosper and
promote land health and community well-being. To accommodate these goals the
Forest Service is shifting its focus to pay greater attention to what we leave
behind on the land, as reflected in the following major policy initiatives.
Roadless Initiative: Our roadless initiative recognizes the unique role
that public lands play in maintaining large blocks of unfragmented forest. In an
increasingly developed landscape, the ecological and social values of roadless
areas are essential for protecting drinking water supplies, providing habitat
for rare and vanishing fish and wildlife species, hunting and fishing and other
recreation opportunities, bulwarks against the spread of. invasive species, and
reference areas for research. Less than 2.5 percent of our planned timber
harvest in the lower 48 states is projected from these areas.
Roads
Policy: We proposed a new road management policy on March 2, 2000. The proposed
policy will help us better manage more than 380,000 miles of roads to ensure
safe public access while stemming erosion and protecting water quality.
Providing sufficient access is especially important considering that we soon
expect to see one billion visits made to our National Forests in a year.
Land Management Planning Regulations: Our draft planning regulations
will ensure the protection of ecological sustainability through a framework of
collaborative stewardship and better integration of science and management. To
meet the social and economic needs of local communities, I believe the Forest
Service should operate in an open and transparent manner, so the American people
have every opportunity to influence and shape the way their land legacy is
managed; these new regulations will help accomplish that objective.Mr. Chairman,
I pledge to you today that we will keep the Congress fully informed as these
policy initiatives mature and develop and invite you to be a part of the public
process.
NATURAL RESOURCE AGENDA
When I became Chief, many
people, including members of Congress, complained that the Forest Service had
lost sense of its mission. In response, I outlined a Forest Service "Natural
Resource Agenda for the 21 st Century." The Natural Resource Agenda makes clear
that land and watershed health is the agency's highest priority. This is based
on the simple premise that we cannot meet the social and economic needs of the
people without first securing our goal of healthy, diverse, and productive
ecosystems.
The Natural Resource Agenda sets agency priorities and gives
strategic focus to Forest Service programs, emphasizing watershed health and
restoration, sustainable forest ecosystem management, the National Forest road
system, and recreation.
Watershed Health and Restoration: The Forest
Service is the Nation's largest and most important water provider. National
Forest lands are the largest single source of water in the continental United
States. Over 3,400 communities rely on National Forest lands in 33 states for
their drinking water, serving over 60 million people. We recently determined the
water on National Forest lands to be valued, at a minimum, of more than
$3.7 billion per year. This $3.7 billion does
not include the value of maintaining fish species, recreation values, nor the
savings to municipalities who have low filtration costs because water from
National Forests is so clean.
Although there have been significant
improvements in water quality since the Clean Water Act of 1972, 40 to 50
percent of our watersheds still need restoration and protection. The Forest
Service is a full partner in carrying out the President's Clean Water Action
Plan that aims to protect public health and restore our Nation's precious
waterways by setting strong goals and providing States, communities, farmers,
and landowners with the tools and resources to meet these goals. The fiscal year
2001 budget includes an increase of $84 million for continued
implementation of the Clean Water Action Plan.
The Forest Service will
use cooperative strategies built around watersheds and the communities they
sustain to implement the Clean Water Action Plan, including restoring stream
corridors and riparian areas, cleaning abandoned mine lands and hazardous
material sites, decommissioning and maintaining roads, and improving rangeland
vegetation and grazing management.
In fiscal year 2001, the Forest
Service will focus on twelve large- scale watershed restoration projects begun
in fiscal year 2000, investing more than $18 million to
accelerate implementation of the projects. The Forest Service expects partner
organizations such as conservation, wildlife and forest management groups,
AmericanIndian tribes, State and local governments, and community organizations
to match its funding commitment. The 12 projects include: Research and
development in New York City's municipal watersheds and the Chesapeake Bay;
River restoration on the Chattooga, Conasauga, Rio Penasco, Upper Sevier, Upper
South Platte, Warner Mountain/Hackamore, and White Rivers; and Pacific Costal
watersheds, the Blue Mountains of Oregon, and the Lower Mississippi Valley.
In carrying out these projects and the agency-wide focus on watershed
health, the Forest Service will draw upon many disciplines, including State,
Private and International Forestry, the National Forest System, and Research.
An important aspect of restoring and improving watershed health
addresses the lands at risk. Traditionally, risk has meant fire danger and
insect and disease infestation. Over 58 million acres of the nation's forest
lands are at risk due to mortality from insects and disease and 40 million acres
within the National Forests are at risk of catastrophic wildfire due to past
management practices and fire suppression. The Forest Service fully intends to
use active management to treat these stands to restore forest health and in the
process, provide jobs and wood fiber to local communities.
We need to
look at risk with a different perspective, thinking of risk in terms of the 40
to 50 percent of agency managed lands that require attention on a broad scale
for a variety of reasons. For example, recreation facilities, trails, and roads
that are poorly maintained result in national forest lands being at risk due to
degraded water quality which harms fisheries, wetlands and riparian areas.
Further, we need to expand the discussion of risk beyond National Forest System
lands to the non-federal forest lands at risk not only due to watershed quality
problems, but also due to conversion from open space. The Administration has
proposed several strategies to address this broad risk issue including a
$9.5 million effort to research and implement new methods for
economical use of small diameter trees to meet national wood fiber demands.
This expanded concept of risk is also portrayed in the agency's
performance-based budget request for fiscal year 2001. For example, we are
requesting an additional $19.2 million for the performance
measure acres o f forest, rangeland and lakes improved. With this additional
funding, we propose to improve 430,000 acres of habitat for inland and
anadromous fisheries, threatened and endangered species, and wildlife, which is
an increase of 135,000 acres from fiscal year 2000 enacted.
Watershed
restoration and protection will also serve as the focus of future forest plan
revisions. The fiscal year 2001 funding request for the watershed health and
restoration component of the Natural Resource Agenda totals
$487.7 million, a 9 percent increase over fiscal year 2000.
Sustainable Forest Ecosystem Management: The Forest Service and its
panners are using a comprehensive criteria and indicator framework to achieve
sustainable forest and range management in the Untied States. In 1999, the
agency released new draft planningregulations that provide a framework for
implementing collaborative stewardship. When completed, these regulations will
govern administration of 192 million acres of National Forest System lands.
Sustainable management of all of the Nation's forest and rangelands
requires collaboration among many interests and coordination across the
landscape. The United States has adopted the Sustainable Forest Management
Criteria and Indicators developed through the international Montreal Process.
They provide a common framework allowing the Forest Service to work with
interested State and private landowners to evaluate the health, diversity, and
resiliency of our nation's forests. The Forest Service is leading a national
effort to gather and report on the state of the Nation's forests in 2003.
The fiscal year 2001 requested funding for the Sustainable Forest
Ecosystem Management component of the Natural Resource Agenda totals
$406.7 million, a 16 percent increase over fiscal year 2000.
National Forest Road System: Mr. Chairman, I know there is significant
interest about our roadless initiative. We must put the 30-year controversy over
roadless areas to rest. One of the reasons I think it is so important to resolve
the roadless issue is so we can begin to address other pressing demands, such as
forest health.
The National Forest System has more than 380,000 miles of
classified roads and more than 60,000 miles of unclassified roads. However, the
agency only receives about 20 percent of the funding it needs annually to
maintain these roads to Federal safety and environmental standards.
As a
result, the deferred maintenance backlog is in the billions of dollars.
One of the 47 performance measures within the agency's performance-
based budget addresses Forest Service roads and is an example of how performance
measures will be used. The road condition index performance measure displays
year-to-year changes in the condition of the road system based upon five
attributes. The proposed index for fiscal year 2001 is constant with the prior
year, based upon a relatively static fiscal year 2001 funding request. In out
years, the index will likely decline year to year without significant increases
in funding.
Last fall the President asked the Forest Service to begin
developing a proposal to conserve and protect National Forest roadless areas
that have remained unroaded for a variety of reasons including inaccessibility,
rugged terrain, or environmental sensitivity. These areas also serve as the
headwaters to many watersheds and provide clean water and wildlife habitat as
well as aesthetic values.
The proposal we are developing has two parts.
First, we are considering restricting certain activities, such as road
construction and reconstruction in the unroaded portions of inventoried roadless
areas, the areas inventoried in the 1970's during two Roadless Area Reviews
(RARE I and RARE II) and through the forest planning efforts of the 1980's and
1990's. Today, a large number of these areas remain roadless.Second, we will
consider establishing procedures for local forests to consider as they plan
activities in roadless areas. More than 500,000 people have already participated
in the rulemaking. To accommodate this level of interest, we have taken the
unprecedented step of holding public meetings on every National Forest to
discuss the issue.
We released the proposed road management policy and
draft environmental assessment for public comment on March 2, 2000. The policy
outlines a process by which the Forest Service and local people can work
together to determine the best way to manage local forest transportation
systems, to make the existing forest road system safe, responsive to public
needs, environmentally sound, affordable, and efficient to manage. It would: 1.
Be implemented through extensive public involvement and analysis at the local
level; 2. Require use of a scientific analysis procedure to help land managers
and the public identify both heavily used roads that need to be maintained or
upgraded, and roads that are unused or environmentally damaging that can be
decommissioned; and 3. Place a new emphasis on maintaining and reconstructing
existing roads rather than building new roads, given the extensive road system
that is already in place in most National Forests.
Before the Forest
Service builds news roads in roadless areas, it should invest its limited
resources on projects that have broader support, cost less, and have fewer
environmental effects. Our fiscal year 2001 funding request for the National
Forest Road System of the Natural Resource Agenda totals $129.5
million, an 11 percent increase over fiscal year 2000.
Recreation:
Recreation is the fastest growing use of the National Forests and Grasslands.
The Forest Service is the Nation's largest supplier of public outdoor recreation
opportunities, providing more that 2.5 million jobs and contributing more than
$100 billion to the Nation's gross national product.
The Natural Resource Agenda seeks to provide recreation opportunities
that do not compromise land health and that increase customer satisfaction,
educate Americans about their public lands, build community partnerships, and
develop new business relationships with partners to expand recreation
opportunities. Some of the recreation assets on our National Forests include: 31
National recreation areas, scenic areas and monuments; 133 scenic byways; 56
major visitor centers; Over 133,000 miles of trails; Over 4,000 miles of wild
and scenic rivers; More than 18,000 campgrounds, picnic areas and visitor
facilities; 50% of the habitat for salmon and trout in the lower 48 States; 80%
of the habitat for elk, bighorn sheep and mountain goat in the lower 48 States;
63% of the designated wilderness in the lower 48 States; 2.3 million acres of
fishable lakes, ponds and reservoirs; 200,000 miles of fishable streams; and
Hundreds of thousands of listings on the National Register of Historic Places.
In an urbanized society, outdoor recreation provides most Americans with
an opportunity to connect to the lands and waters that sustain them. The Forest
Service has a unique brand of nature-based recreation to offer, including
undeveloped settings and an array of services that complement the enjoyment of
these special places. Recreation visitors expect a great deal from the Forest
Service and they will expect even more in the future.
The fiscal year
2001 funding request includes $30 million proposed for
developing tourism, reengineering the special use permitting process, developing
trails, and improving operations at recreational facilities and attractions,
many of which will be targeted toward lower income or resource-dependent areas
adjacent to National Forests.
The recreation component of the Natural
Resource Agenda has developed a 6-point action plan to serve better the American
public, including: 1. Conduct market research to get to better understand what
people want; 2. Invest in special places, especially those being "loved to
death" by visitation exceeding the capacity of the site; 3. Reduce deferred
maintenance through the application of techniques that assuring long-term
sustainability of the site; 4. Invest in natural resource conservation education
and interpretive services; 5. Take advantage of new business opportunities and
provide services for underserved and low-income people; and 6. Aggressively
secure, provide, and maintain a forest road system that is ecologically sound
and available to all Americans.
Among the most valuable products of the
National Forests are the experiences that live on a roll of film, or live as
childhood memories of family hiking or camping experiences, or in the
exhilaration one feels while running a wild river or seeing the crystal clear
waters of Lake Tahoe. There is something for everyone to enjoy on the National
Forests. We strive to serve new constituencies, urban populations, underserved
and low-income people, and to maintain the relevancy of National Forests for
future generations. The fiscal year 2001 proposed funding for the recreation
component of the Natural Resource Agenda totals $397.4 million,
a 13 percent increase over fiscal year 2000.
PROGRAM AND FINANCIAL
ACCOUNTABILITY
I would like to now discuss our progress in restoring
program and financial accountability to the Forest Service. With the dedicated
help of Secretary Dan Glickman,we have worked very closely with other parts of
the Department of Agriculture to implement the needed financial and programmatic
reforms.
As I have said many times, if the Forest Service were in the
private sector, with our 30,000-person workforce and 3.3 billion dollar budget,
we would rival any Fortune 500 company. At the same time, due to persistent
management weaknesses, financial accounting deficiencies, weak data, and poor
strategic planning, I doubt very much we would last long in that environment.
The Forest Service has not yet received a clean financial audit. When I
arrived here, I had more than 35 individuals directly reporting to me. Our
complex and cumbersome accounting system was staggering under the weight of 100
million individual financial transactions per month. Our Byzantine budget
structure made it common that a district ranger interested in accomplishing 15
projects on the ground might have to make 250 budget entries simply to establish
the projects in the accounting system. Meanwhile, because we have not
sufficiently focused on strategic planning, appropriated budgets rarely, if
ever, track expected outcomes described in agency forest plans.
The
fiscal year 2001 President's budget proposes significant reform of the agency's
budget structure. As noted by the National Academy of Public Administration, the
current budget structure does not reflect the nature of agency work performed on
the ground and forces our district rangers to spend too much time balancing the
books and too little time focusing on the natural resources for which they are
responsible. The new proposed structure is performance-based. It presents the
budget directly linked to 47 performance measures, that are in turn, directly
linked to the agency's strategic plan, the Results Act, and the Natural Resource
Agenda.
The budget simplification and performance measures proposals are
a cornerstone of our financial and accountability reform efforts. I am confident
that with implementation, we will be able to clearly show how the Forest Service
is using the taxpayers' money to conserve and restore the health, diversity, and
resiliency of our lands and waters, and provide services to the American public.
No Chief of the Forest Service in recent history has had to address the
issue of accountability more than I have. I know that a clean audit by itself
will not restore the agency's credibility with Congress and the American people;
the agency must change its culture based on the knowledge we cannot be effective
resource managers if we are not first accountable for the taxpayers' money and
for our own actions on the landscape. We are making significant progress.
I am happy to report to you that the Forest Service has: Successfully
implemented a new accounting system; Developed an integrated set of land health
and service to people performance measures, that link land health and other
outcomes on the land to its strategic plan and budget information; Published its
draft Strategic Plan (2000 Revision) for comment that shifts the focus of agency
management away from inputs, outputs and process to outcomes on the landscape;
For the first time in many years, filled all leadership positions and also
established the offices of the Chief Operating Officer and the Chief Financial
Officer to take responsibility for improved program analysis and the linking of
budget processes to agency performance and strategic planning; Conducted the
first thorough real property inventory in the agency's history that is critical
for our financial audit; -- Developed and implemented standard definitions for
indirect costs; Eliminated the backlog of over 1,000 civil rights complaints;
Replaced its crumbling technology infrastructure with a totally new platform for
management of information technology; and Implemented controls on trust fund
expenditures to assure compliance with Congressional direction regarding
indirect expenses.
A key component of our accountability reform effort
involves the implementation of the Primary Purpose method of expenditures.
Beginning in August of last year, we began informing appropriations and
authorizing staff from both the House and Senate of our intent to implement this
program in fiscal year 2000. Our request for realignment of funds is a result of
that implementation. Operating under the Primary Purpose principle, the agency
is now able to provide an accurate accounting of its expenditures, which it was
unable to do in the past.
Mr. Chairman, I do not think there should be
any doubt that these actions demonstrate Forest Service leadership is committed
to fix program and financial accountability deficiencies.
OTHER
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET
I want to emphasize some other
important aspects of the President's budget.
President's Lands
Legacy Initiative: This initiative highlights the Administration's
continued commitment to protect public open space by acquiring lands for
conservation and recreation.
By working with States, tribes, local
governments and private partners, the Forest Service acquires lands to protect
cultural and historic treasures, conserve open space for recreation and wildlife
habitat, protect clean water supplies and wilderness areas and preserve forests,
farmlands, and coastal areas. The fiscal year 2001 budget includes
$236 million for the programs within the Lands Legacy
Initiative.
The land acquisition portion of the initiative is
funded through the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Many of the acquired lands
are located in congressionally designated areas such as Wilderness, National
Recreation Areas, Wild and Scenic Riversand National Scenic Trails. Acquisitions
also improve forest management through consolidation of boundaries and providing
access to existing National Forests and Grasslands.
Forest Legacy, Urban
and Community Forestry and Economic Action Programs also provide an avenue for
the Forest Service to work with States and willing private landowners to provide
jobs while conserving important forest economic, ecologicalenvironmental and
social values that represent national priorities.
Legislative Proposals:
The Administration will advance several new legislative proposals including
Payments to States Stabilization, Healthy Investments in Rural Environments
(HIRE), Land Acquisition Reinvestment Fund, and Facilities Acquisition and
Enhancement Fund. Mr. Chairman, I am especially excited about our payments to
states legislation that we will transmit shortly. It focuses on providing States
with stable and permanent education funding, while allowing more money to be
spent on forest health restoration and restoring a closer working relationship
between rural counties and the Forest Service.
The President's budget
includes special emphasis on employing rural workers and enhancing the skills of
America's youth. The Administration is proposing the HIRE program in conjunction
with a comprehensive proposal to reform four of our trust funds. This proposal
eliminates the trust funds that have historically been dependent on timber
receipts and proposes establishing a new permanent mandatory appropriation. All
the work conducted under the existing trust fund authorities would be authorized
under this new mandatory appropriation, but with preference for local
contracting and employing of skilled rural workers to accomplish the work. With
this expanded authority and appropriate funding levels, attention will be
focused on addressing our critical facility, road, and watershed restoration
backlog.
The fiscal year 2001 budget also reflects a number of
legislative proposals that would reform selected programs to initiate or
increase fee collections and expand the involvement of the private sector where
appropriate.
IN CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman, this budget effectively
provides the resources necessary to implement our programs consistent with the
Forest Service's Natural Resource Agenda, Presidential Initiatives and other
priority funding areas. More importantly, the proposed new budget structure and
performance-based approach shows the ecosystem conservation activities and
public services that will benefit ours and future generations.
This
concludes my written statement. I would be pleased to answer any questions that
you may have.
END
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