Copyright 2000 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
March 22, 2000, Wednesday
SECTION: PREPARED TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 3256 words
HEADLINE:
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF HON. JAMES LYONS UNDER SECRETARY NATURAL RESOURCES AND
ENVIRONMENT 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.
I would like to present a brief overview of our budget request and
highlight some of the priorities we've identified in three broad areas. Chief
Dombeck will address these and other areas in greater detail. The three areas I
want to highlight are: l) the major Presidential initiatives, as reflected in
the FY 2001 Budget, to promote the long-term sustainability and productivity of
the Nation's forests and grasslands; 2) the strides that have been made in
restoring program and financial accountability within the Forest Service; and 3)
our ongoing efforts to resolve issues of long-standing concern to the public and
the Forest Service as we better prepare the agency to meet the challenges it
will face this next century. Today more than ever, we are involved in important
debates about the future of America's forests. Underlying all of these debates
is a common thread: what we do today will ensure that our forests, grasslands
and river systems retain their health, diversity, resilience and productivity
for future generations. While there are differing approaches, I think that we
would all agree that it is in the best interests of the Forest Service and the
Congress to work together to ensure that we have sustainable communities that
thrive and prosper in ways that promote land health and community well-
being.First, a brief overview. Overall, we are requesting $3.1
billion for Forest Service discretionary spending in fiscal year 2001. This is a
14 percent increase over the fiscal year 2000 appropriation and includes the
funding to do such things as institutionalize accountability and provide the
quality service that the American public expects the Forest Service to provide.
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. In addition, the budget proposes an increase of
$13.3 million to enhance the agency's widely recognized role in
forest and rangeland research, including increased research for better
utilization of small diameter timber and woody material and the relationship of
soil productivity to the carbon cycle. The budget also proposes an increase of
over 22 percent in the State and Private Forestry appropriation that now also
includes International Programs.
BUDGET PRIORITIES OF THE PRESIDENT
Lands Legacy Initiative: Again President Clinton
proposed funding for the Lands Legacy Initiative in the fiscal
year 2001 budget to help protect environmentally sensitive lands from
development, preserve great places, and provide more open, green space for
Americans in suburban and urban areas. The Forest Service has three programs
that play a role in this initiative: its land acquisition program; the Forest
Legacy program; and the Urban and Community Forestry programs. While many in
Congress are very familiar with the agency's valuable land acquisition program
for which the President has requested $130 million, the Forest
Legacy and Urban and Community Forestry programs are just getting the attention
and recognition they deserve from the public as two additional valuable
conservations programs.
The Urban and Community Forestry program
provides grants and technical assistance to thousands of communities and major
cites across America helping them to maintain or expand their "green
infrastructure." The program helps them plant trees along city streets,
abandoned lots, parks, as well as understand all of the different ways trees can
help solve environmental problems such as reducing storm water run off. While
many are focused on providing money to build parks, Urban and Community Forestry
funding actually provides the technical assistance to help decide how and what
is planted in those parks. It is a program that complements such state-side
programs like the Urban Parks and Recreation Recovery program. Because the
demand for this program has grown so strongly over the last five years, the
President has again requested $40 million for this program.
The Forest Legacy program is unique in that it provides States money to
acquire easements on private forested lands that are under pressure from
development. Over twenty States are now participating in the Forest Legacy
Program and are requesting nearly $100 million in assistance to
purchase easements. The States utilize these lands for a number of purposes,
including providing public recreation opportunities as well as preserving
habitat for critical wildlife. As a result of this increase in demand, the
President has requested $60 million for fiscal year 2001.
HIRE Proposal: The President's 2001 budget includes the Healthy
Investments in Rural Environments (HIRE) initiative that accomplishes a number
of important goals for the Forest Service including: Creating new private-sector
jobs in rural and forest dependent communities, where jobs for skilled workers
continue to be in dire need;
Providing the Forest Service more
management flexibility to address the growing forest and rangeland health,
ecosystem restoration, and facility, trail, and road maintenance challenges
facing the national forests; Improving the accountability and manageability of
the Forest Service's trust fund system;
Continuing work currently
performed by the Forest Service under the trusts, to address both the priority
work funded by the existing trust funds and support a widescale jobs creation
program.
To achieve these goals, the Forest Service proposes replacing
four permanent and trust fund accounts (the Salvage Sale, Knutson- Vandenberg
(K-V), Reforestation, and Timber Sale Pipeline Restoration (USDA-only) funds)
with a new mandatory appropriation called HIRE.
Under the HIRE proposal,
all timber sale receipts would return to the Treasury. At the same time, the
Forest Service would receive a new mandatory appropriation of more than
$300 million a year. The Forest Service would allocate this
money to the field through the same allocation criteria methods it uses for
discretionary funds and would display its allocations to Congress for greater
accountability.
Payments to States: The Administration has also been
working diligently to stabilize county payments for education and road
maintenance that have previously been linked to timber sale levels. Faced with
declining timber sales on our National Forests, we have put forth proposals that
would instead provide a more reliable stream of funding. Our proposal has
evolved a great deal and we are now working with Congress to craft legislation
that would stabilize payments, maintain healthy ecosystems, and restore a closer
working relationship between rural counties and the Forest Service.
Clean Water Action Plan: The President's Clean Water Action Plan
emphasizes targeting priority watersheds to improve water quality.
Several actions in the plan are related to management of national
forests and grasslands, including restoration of stream corridors and riparian
areas, inventory and monitoring, cleanup of abandoned mine lands and hazardous
material sites, decommissioning/maintenance of roads; and improved rangeland
vegetation and grazing management. The fiscal year 2001 budget includes an
increase of $84 million for this initiative compared to
fiscal year 2000. This funding is critical to meeting the requirements of the
Clean Water Act, among other State and Federal laws.
Watershed Health
and Restoration: Forest Service lands also serve as the headwaters for many
major river systems and aquifers that are essential for the nation's water
supply, and contain valuable riparian, wetland, and coastal areas. Although
there have been significant improvements in water quality since the Clean Water
Act of 1972, 40 to 50 percent of our watersheds are still in need of restoration
and protection. For this reason, the President is requesting
$487.7 million for fiscal year 2001 for these activities, which
is a 9 percent increase over fiscal year 2000.
With this money, the
Forest Service hopes to continue investing in twelve large-scale watershed
restoration projects begun in fiscal year 2000. The main purpose of this effort
is to develop an agency-wide strategy that focuses resource actions on
significant portions of land to enhance its clean water, wetlands, migratory
birds, fisheries, riparian areas, and watersheds as well as provide other goods
and services to communities.
Recreation: Americans cherish the national
forests and grasslands for the values they provide--clean water, clean air,
natural scenic beauty, important natural resources, protection of rare species,
majestic forests, wilderness, a connection with their history, and opportunities
for unparalleled outdoor adventure. In an increasingly urbanized society,
outdoor recreation provides most Americans with an opportunity to reconnect to
the lands and waters that sustain them. Recreation visitors expect a great deal
from the Forest Service in terms of settings, experiences, facilities and
services; and they will expect even more in the future. Recreation is the
fastest growing use on the national forests and grasslands.
The Forest
Service will finalize its new recreation strategy this year with the help and
input of the public. Our recreation strategy will be founded more on quality
customer service, based on a complete understanding of customers' wants and
needs. The strategy will help sustain ecosystems, highlight special places and
stimulate rural economies. We pride ourselves in innovative partnerships and
collaborative relationships to accomplish the recreation job, all while ensuring
that recreation opportunities take place within the ecological sideboards
necessary to maintain land health. We strive to serve new constituencies, urban
populations, the underserved and low- income people to maintain the relevancy of
national forests for future generations.
The fiscal year 2001 funding
request includes $30' million proposed for developing tourism;
reengineering the special use permitting process; and developing trails,
recreational facilities and attractions targeted toward lower income and
resource-dependent areas adjacent to National Forests, where there are excellent
tourism opportunities. 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.
OTHER ADMINISTRATION
PRIORITIES:
Mr. Chairman, I would also like to make you aware of a few
other initiatives that are being undertaken by the Administration:
Roadless Area Initiative: In October 1999, President Clinton asked the
Forest Service to begin an open public process to address how roadless areas
within the national forest system would be managed in the future. Roadless areas
have typically remained without roads because of inaccessibility, rugged
terrain, low timber values, environmental concerns and high costs associated
with litigation. In fact, historically, Forest Service entry into roadless areas
has a fifty percent failure rate due to the reasons stated above.
Understandably, Forest Service managers often choose to invest resources
in projects that have broader public support, less cost, and fewer environmental
impacts than building roads in roadless areas.
So, in response to the
President's announcement, the Forest Service released a notice of intent (NOI)
to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) on October 19,1999, and
proposed a two part process to determine how the public would prefer. Part one
would address restriction of certain activities, such as new road construction,
in inventoried roadless areas. Part two would establish national direction for
managing inventoried roadless areas, and for determining whether and to what
extent similar protections should be extended to un-inventoried roadless areas.
Part two would be implemented through local forest planning. Both part one and
part two would be implemented with extensive public involvement.
On
December 20, 1999, the Forest Service concluded a comment period on the scope of
the proposal. During this comment period, the agency: Hosted an unprecedented
190 regional and local public meetings; Received more than 500,000 comments.
The Forest Service is now preparing a draft environmental impact
statement (DEIS) that will detail the agency's proposed action and its likely
effects. The agency plans to conduct another comment period and an equal number
of public meetings when it releases the draft environmental impact statement and
a proposed rule in spring 2000. The agency plans to release a final
environmental impact statement and regulation before the end of 2000.
Forest Service Roads Policy: On the other side of the coin, the proposed
Forest Service Roads Policy would revise how the Forest Service manages the more
than 380,000 miles of existing roads already in the national forest
transportation system.The Forest Service currently has a deferred maintenance
backlog of more than $8.4 billion dollars and only receives
about 20 percent of the funding it needs annually to maintain its existing road
system to safety and environmental standards.
The proposed policy is an
attempt to: Make the existing forest road system more safe, responsive to public
needs, environmentally sound, affordable, and efficient to manage; Implement a
public involvement process and scientific analysis procedure at the local level
to: Help land managers and the public identify heavily used roads that the
agency should prioritize in terms of its limited maintenance and reconstruction
spending; Help land managers and the public identify roads that are unused or
environmentally damaging that can be decommissioned; and Place a new emphasis on
maintaining and reconstructing existing roads rather than building new roads.
A draft rule and procedures were released for public review on March 2,
2000.
Forest Service Planning Regulations: All of these proposals would
be implemented in the context of the new forest planning regulations. The
proposed planning rule would rewrite the existing Forest Service regulations
implementing the National Forest Management Act of 1976. The proposed rule is
based on the recommendations of a Committee of Scientists and 20 years of
experience implementing forest planning.
The proposed rule
would: Base forest and grassland planning on the principles of ecological,
economic, and social sustainability; Require the Forest Service to actively
engage the public and our other federal, state, local, and tribal partners in
the management of our national forests and grasslands; Integrate science and
scientists into the planning process and requires the Forest Service to focus on
managing entire ecosystems rather than single species or outcomes; and,
Integrate planning and management activities more closely so that the Forest
Service can respond to new information and opportunities in a timely manner.
Last fall the Forest Service hosted a series of 23 town meetings across
the country to discuss the proposed planning rule. The planning rule would
provide the overarching framework for implementing the roadless area and road
management initiatives, if the three initiatives are adopted. All of these
initiatives seek to provide for long-term sustainability, ensure collaboration
with the public, integrate science more effectively in the planning process, and
incorporate new information and opportunities.
ACCOUNTABILITY ACTIONS
I think that we would all agree that the debate about the management of
our national forests has been clouded in recent years with issues of
accountability. In the past ten years the Forest Service has been the subject of
more than 315 audits by the General Accounting Office and the Office of the
Inspector General. And the agency as well as the Department of Agriculture has
yet to receive a clean financial opinion since they were first required of
governmental agencies.
Under the capable direction of Chief Dombeck, the
agency has worked very closely with my office, other parts of the Department of
Agriculture and the Secretary to implement the needed financial and programmatic
reforms.
These changes were made to position the Forest Service to
achieve an unqualified audit opinion on its fiscal year 2000 financial
statements. The agency knows, however, a clean audit opinion by itself will not
restore the agency's credibility with Congress and the American people. A change
in agency culture must occur- a change based on the knowledge that the Forest
Service cannot be effective resource managers if they are not first accountable
for the taxpayers' money and for their own actions on the landscape. The Forest
Service has presented its fiscal year 2001 budget in a performance-based manner
that allows it to accomplish its conservation mission based upon performance
measures that fully display on-the-ground outcomes of its management practices
and services to the public.
This budget presents a program that is not
simply based on a set of funding requests. Rather, the budget justification
presents the President's budget in terms of direct on the ground accomplishment
of work. Mr. Chairman, with the implementation of significantly improved
accountability measures, we can refocus the debate about the Forest Service
where it should be, on natural resource management policy.
I can vouch
for the fact that Chief Dombeck is committed to making the necessary changes.
Some of the more significant accomplishments include implementing a new
accounting system, developing a simplified budget structure for the National
Forest System, submitting a performance-based fiscal year 2001 budget,
developing an integrated set of land health and service to people performance
measures, and publishing its draft Strategic Plan (2000 Revision).
In
addition, for the first time in many years, all leadership positions have been
filled. Chief Dombeck has established the offices of the Chief Operating Officer
and the Chief Financial Officer to take leadership responsibility for improved
program analysis and the linking of budget processes to agency performance and
strategic planning.
Mr. Chairman, I do not think that there should be
any doubt that these bold, decisive actions demonstrate leadership commitment to
correct the Forest Service's program and financial accountability deficiencies.
IN CONCLUSION:
I am proud to say that during my tenure, the
Forest Service has made significant progress in restoring accountability while
refocusing the agency's attention to its multiple use mandate. In so doing, we
have placed a new priority on maintaining and restoring the health of the land
while ensuring the sustainability of goods and services produced on our National
Forests. We have renewed our commitment to re-greening our communities both
urban and rural - and sought ways to improve the economies of forest dependent
communities by broadening their economic base. We are emphasizing collaboration
in working with our public and private partners, and encouraging innovative
solutions to our resource management challenges.
I'm proud of the
progress we've made and look forward to the opportunities ahead. Thank you. I
would be pleased to answer any questions that you may have.
END
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