Copyright 1999 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
FEBRUARY 25, 1999, THURSDAY
SECTION: IN THE NEWS
LENGTH:
4009 words
HEADLINE: PREPARED STATEMENT OF
MIKE
DOMBECK
CHIEF
USDA FOREST SERVICE
BEFORE THE SENATE
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE
SUBJECT - FISCAL YEAR 2000 BUDGET
BODY:
Chairman Murkowski, Senator Bingaman, and
members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
this afternoon to discuss the Forest Service's proposed budget for fiscal year
2000.
Only three weeks ago, I addressed our employees in Missoula Montana
about the state of the Forest Service. I would like to review some of those
remarks today as I discuss the proposed budget for the Forest Service.
I am
honored to have served as Chief of the Forest Service for over two years. During
this time, I have had the pleasure to be a part of the continuing evolution in
the direction of the Forest Service. I have come to appreciate that many of the
conflicts we face today over management of natural resources are very similar to
the conflicts faced by the agency's first Chief, Gifford Pinchot. What made the
Forest Service unique under his leadership was a set of conservation values that
were not always popular, but which reflected the long term interest of land
health. Mr. Chairman, as in the days of Gifford Pinchot, the values put forth in
the President's fiscal year 2000 budget emphasize long term health of the land.
In my testimony today I want to concentrate on the values of healthy land by
elaborating on some key areas: 1) the major changes reflected in the President's
budget that set a new leadership direction for the Forest Service; 2) how the
Forest Service Natural Resource Agenda reflects these values; and 3) how we are
addressing important accountability issues. Let me first address some overall
perspectives about where the Forest Service has been and where the Secretary and
I want to take it in the future.
Over the last decade there has been a
significant change in how society views conservation values. Many people have
ceased viewing publicly owned resources as a warehouse of outputs to be brought
to market and instead have begun assigning greater value to the positive
outcomes of forest management.
The result of such change is that we often
find ourselves caught in the middle between competing interests. Some look to
you, the Congress to "fix" the legislation that they perceive has negatively
affected their interests. Others push to limit the number of appeals,so the
agency can get on with producing timber or stopping timber production, as the
case may be. Still others ask courts to resolve land use policies through
litigation.
Too often we find ourselves waiting for someone else to resolve
our issues for us. I think that must end. The budget we are going to talk about
today sets the framework for the Congress, the Administration, the States, local
governments, and private parties to begin working together in a new way to
collaboratively resolve conservation conflicts. The central premise of our
approach is that by restoring and maintaining a healthy land base on public and
private lands alike, we can ensure that our children, and their children's
children enjoy the benefits of land and water.
Mr. Chairman, with healthy
watersheds as a foundation, there is room for a reasonable flow of outputs;
timber and livestock specifically, but many other products also. There is and
will be the ability to produce cleaner water. There is a land base which will
allow us to set aside additional places untrammeled by human beings, and there
is an ability and a necessity to preserve now and for generations to come,
additional open spaces before such spaces are fragmented or degraded due to
private land development, urban sprawl, and other such issues.
For those who
advocate a return to timber outputs of 10 years ago, or those who advocate a
"zero cut" philosophy, I say it is time to inject realism into the debate. The
President's budget provides funding for outputs which are consistent with land
health. I can not visualize a circumstance when such outputs will ever be at the
level of 10 years ago, but I say to the other side of the spectrum, timber
harvest will, and should continue. The President's budget contains innovations
that recognize the ability of people to restore ecosystems from those already
degraded, using modern science and technology, where people have either
contributed to poor land health by over using the land, built roads in unstable
or overly steep terrain, or prevented natural processes such as fire. We can
improve the health of these areas, and do so by not only allowing the removal of
forest products but by demonstrating in some cases such activities can
contribute to forest health. The more timber harvest contributes to ecological
sustainability, the more predictable timber outputs will be. This budget
presents a solid balance that if enacted will help accomplish these goals.
The Forest Service serves many people. With our 192 million acres, 383,000
miles of roads, $30 billion infrastructure, 74,000 authorized land uses, 23,000
developed recreation sites, tens of thousands of dispersed recreation sites, and
35 million acres of wilderness, the national forests are many things to many
people. The Forest Service has the premier Forest and Rangeland Research
organization in the world which is involved in research to improve land health
and to improve the experiences enjoyed on the land by Americans.Specifics of the
President's Budget
The President's budget creates a new focus on State and
Private Forestry programs. Over time, our leadership capacity to assist those
who manage the more than 500 million acres of forests outside of the national
forest system has diminished. One of our greatest contributions to society will
be our ability to bring people together to provide technical assistance and
scientific information to states, private landowners, and other nations of the
world. The fiscal year 2000 proposed budget contains an increase of $80 million
in State and Private Forestry, and $37 million in Forest and Rangeland Research
to increase our involvement in this critical collaborative role. Consider that
we have been spending about $2 billion annually to manage the 192 million acres
of national forest land, yet spend less than $200 million in support of the 500
million acres of state managed and privately owned lands.
With this budget,
support to state and locally managed lands and non- industrial private lands
dramatically increases. The budget proposes $218 million for the Lands
Legacy Initiative, which will make new tools available to work with
states, tribes, local governments, and private partners to protect great places,
to conserve open space for recreation, and wildlife habitat; and to preserve
forest, farmlands, and coastal areas. This $218 million is part of the
President's bold government wide initiative to provide $1 billion for the
Lands Legacy Initiative.
The President's budget also
continues support for key programs initiated with the fiscal year 1999 budget by
targeting an increase of $89.4 million for the Clean Water Action Plan to
maintain priority attention to the health of watersheds on federal, state, and
private lands. The budget also proposes $6 million to support the Climate Change
Technology Initiative and an increase of $6 million for the Global Change
Initiative, both of which are aimed at improving the long term health of the
climate that supports life on this planet.
Forest and Rangeland Research
programs are an important aspect of emphasis in the President's budget. In
addition to funds to support global climate issues, an additional $14 million is
proposed for the Integrated Science for Ecosystem Challenges project which
addresses science and technology needs related to ecological systems.
The President is also proposing as part of this budget several new
legislative initiatives. Most notably, a proposal similar to one put forward
last year, to stabilize payments to states and counties by separating payments
to counties from a reliance on receipts generated by commodity production. At
the beginning of my testimony, I noted the need to manage outputs from the
national forests in a manner consistent with land health. In doing so, emphasis
for producing those outputs has changed. For example, today a significant number
of timber sales are sold for stewardship purposes rather than pure commodity
objectives. There is an increase in the sale of dead or dying timber. In these
cases receipts are less than were experienced several years ago. I expect this
trend to continue particularly in the west. What we are asking is, why should
the richest country in the nation finance the education of rural schoolchildren
on the back of a controversial federal timber program? The Forest Service has a
stewardship responsibility to collaborate with citizens to promote land health.
Collaborative stewardship implies an obligation to help provide communities with
economic diversity and resiliency so they are not dependent on the results of
litigation, the whims of nature or unrelated social values to educate their
children and pave their roads. We need to work together so states and counties
can anticipate predictable payments on which to base education and road
management decisions.
Several other legislative proposals are also soon to
be submitted including proposals to transfer timber sale preparation costs to
timber purchasers through user fees, a proposal to reform concession management,
increased emphasis on obtaining fair market value for land uses and timber, and
establishing a fund to manage the sale of special forest products.
Natural
Resource Agenda
The President's budget contains many important initiatives.
It also contains a broad program of funding for management of national forest
lands. Just one year ago I announced the Natural Resource Agenda, which is a
comprehensive science based agenda that will lead management of the agency into
the 21st century. As an integral partner with the Government Performance and
Results Act, this agenda focus on four areas; 1) watershed health and
restoration, 2) sustainable forest and grassland ecosystem management, 3) the
national forest road system, and 4) recreation.
I want to highlight briefly
our emphasis in each of these areas. A retired Forest Service employee offered
me some advice a while back. He said, "if you just take care of soil and water,
everything else will be OK." Multiple use does not mean we should do everything
on every acre simply because we can. We must protect the last best places and
restore the rest. Forest Service lands are truly the headwaters of America,
supplying river systems and recharging aquifers. They contain riparian, wetland,
and coastal areas that are essential for the nation's water supply and
prosperity. The President's budget provides an increase of $48.6 million
included in programs such as wildlife habitat management, watershed
improvements, fisheries habitat management, rangeland vegetation management,
threatened and endangered species habitat management, and state and private
forest health programs. These increases will allow the Forest Service to make
important watershed restoration and protection efforts.
Restoration and
maintenance of watershed health is contingent on quality land management
planning. As you know, the Committee of Scientists will issue their final
recommendations on forest planning soon. I expect they will suggest that we
focus planning efforts on long-term sustainability, more effectively link forest
planning to budget and funding priorities, practice collaborative stewardship
through use of diverse and balanced advisory groups, and allow for adaptive
management through monitoring. I look forward to issuance of the Committee of
Scientists Report from which revised forest planning regulations will be
developed in late Spring. I believe new planning regulations will be invaluable
in breaking the forest planning gridlock that is hampering national forest
management in so many areas.
A second area of the Natural Resource Agenda is
sustainable forest and grassland management. The President is proposing a
billion dollar initiative to protect open space, benefit urban forests, and
improve the quality of life for the 80% of Americans living in urban and
suburban areas. Through sustainable forest and grassland management, the Forest
Service will play an essential role in accomplishment of this initiative. The
President's budget provides an increase of $113 million in State and Private and
Research programs which are integral to protecting and restoring the lands and
waters that sustain us. We will collaborate with state fish and wildlife
agencies, state foresters, tribes, and others to develop conservation and
stewardship plans for an additional 740,000 acres of non-industrial private
forestland. We will help states protect an estimated 135,000 additional acres of
forestland through acquisitions and conservation easements. We will acquire
environmentally sensitive lands through the Land and Water Conservation Fund,
and we will include nearly 800 more communities in efforts to conserve urban and
community forests. In addition, 300,000 more hours of conservation training will
be provided to local communities.
Mr. Chairman, I am truly excited about
budgetary emphasis in sustainable forest and grassland management through
cooperation and collaboration. This emphasis will carry into many programs
including fire management where we will employ fire as a tool to meet integrated
resource and societal objectives across landscapes. We will give priority to
high-risk wildland/urban interface areas where people, homes and personal
property are at risk. We will employ fire as a tool to aid threatened and
endangered species conservation and recovery, to reduce accumulated fuels within
and adjacent to wilderness and reduce fuels to help lower long term costs of
suppressing wildfires.
Now I would like to turn to one of the more
challenging aspects of the Natural Resource Agenda. That involves management of
the National Forest Road System. As you know, on February 11, I announced an
interim suspension of road construction in most roadless areas of the national
forest system. We offer this time-out to reduce the controversy of roadless area
entries in order to reduce damage to a road system which is already in
disrepair.
A personal source of frustration is that few people or interest
groups are focused on the issue of our existing road system as opposed to the
roadless area issue. Yet if we care about restoring the ecological fabric of the
landscape and the health of our watersheds, we must concentrate on areas that
are roaded in addition to those that are not.
The President's budget
proposes a $22.6 million increase in the road budget, primarily for maintenance.
The agency has an estimated road maintenance backlog of over $8 billion.
Meanwhile we are only maintaining 18 percent of our roads to the safety and
environmental standards to which they were built. With the proposed funding
level in the fiscal year 2000 budget, we will increase by 50% from 1998, the
miles of road to be decommissioned or stabilized. We will increase the
percentage of forest roads maintained to standard from 18 percent to 24 percent.
With roads that could encircle the globe many times, our road system is
largely complete. Our challenge is to shrink the system to a size we can afford
to maintain while still providing for efficient and safe public access in a
manner that protects land health.
Over the next 18 months, we will develop a
long term road policy with three primary objectives: 1) develop new analytical
tools to help managers determine where, when or if to build new roads, 2)
decommission old, unneeded, unauthorized, and other roads that degrade the
environment, and 3) selectively upgrade certain roads to help meet changing use
patterns on forests and grasslands.
Management of roads is very important to
local communities that rely heavily on these roads for livelihoods and rural
transportation. I expect decisions about local roads to be made by local
managers working with local people and others who use or care about our road
system. We will obviously continue to provide access to and through forests.
However, it is clear that we simply cannot afford our existing road system.
The fourth element of the Natural Resource Agenda involves recreation. The
President's budget provides strong support to the recreation program. With
appropriated funds totalling $288 million, and additional funds provided from
the recreation fee demonstration project receipts and the ten percent road and
trail fund, this program will continue to provide strong support to the 800
million annual visitors which we expect to increase to 1.2 billion over the next
50 years.
The Forest Service recreation strategy focuses on providing
customer service and opportunities for all people. The successful recreation fee
demonstration program has served many people at the sites operated under the
program through improved visitor experiences and repair and upgrade facilities
which were badly in need of attention.
I strongly support continuation
of this program. I do want to pass on one caution lest this program is viewed as
an answer for reducing future recreation discretionary funds. The recreation fee
demonstration program serves many people in a limited number of recreation
sites. The Forest Service recreation program is highly dispersed. It is the
place for a family drive or hike on a Sunday afternoon, a weekend camping trip,
or a week long grueling hike in the rugged backcountry. Many of these
experiences do not lend themselves to a recreation fee demonstration type
program. In fact, less than 10 percent of forest recreation visits occur at fee
demonstration sites. As the backyard playground for many Americans, it is
essential we maintain a recreation program that allows enjoyment of the national
forests without charge in addition to fee programs in limited areas.
A key
part of enhancing this dispersed recreation is through our wilderness management
program. The President's budget includes an increase of $7 million for
protection and restoration of natural conditions in wilderness and to mitigate
the impacts of high use areas adjacent to large population centers. The
wilderness legacy is a crown jewel. I am committed to increasing the Forest
Service commitment to the Wilderness Act and intend to give more emphasis
through increased land management planning and re-establishment of a national
wilderness field advisory group.
Each of the four emphasis areas of the
Natural Resource Agenda links directly to one or more of the goals of the
Results Act Strategic Plan. I am pleased that the President's budget supports
this plan for moving forward.
Forest Service Accountability
Successful
implementation of the President's initiatives and the Natural Resource Agenda is
dependent on having the trust of Congress and the American people. To be
trusted, we have to be accountable for our performance. We have to be able to
identify where our funds are being spent, and what America is receiving in
return. We have to do this as efficiently as possible in order to assure that a
maximum amount of funds are spent on the ground for intended purposes without
being diverted for unnecessary overhead.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, the
Forest Service has had problems with accountability in the past. We have been
the subject of more than 20 oversight reports and internal studies. We have been
resoundingly criticized for having poor decision making, either bloated or
inaccurate overhead costs, and non-responsive accounting systems. While some of
this may be exaggerated, I fully acknowledge that some is true. We've got the
message. We will improve dramatically. Let me highlight several initiatives that
are now underway.
First and most importantly, I have made it clear through
organization changes and personal statements that the business and financial
management functions of this agency are equally as important as attention to
managing the resources. I have placed business management professionals in
operations and financial management positions. We have established a Chief
Operating Officer at the Associate Chief level which reports directly to me,
thus placing our business management functions on an operating level equal to
that of our natural resource functions. We have brought in a new Chief Financial
Officer at the Deputy Chief level to implement the Foundation Financial
Information System. This is her top priority, with a goal of achieving a clean
financial opinion from the General Accounting Office as soon as possible.
It
is also time to reform our budget structure. I want to work with the Congress
and the Administration to design a budget structure that reflects the work we do
and the Results Act Strategic Plan on which the Natural Resource Agenda is
based. The current budget structure does not support the integrated work
necessary to restore and maintain land health while promoting ecological
sustainability. In order to ensure accountability while implementing a new
budget structure, we will employ land health performance measures to demonstrate
that we can have a simplified budget and improve water quality, protect and
restore more habitat, and improve forest ecosystem health.
In fiscal year
2000 we will begin to implement reforms to our trust funds. We will examine
alternatives for trust fund management in the future to avoid unintended
incentives to pursue forest management activities that are not consistent with
land health objectives.
For the first time, at the direction of Congress, we
have developed and implemented standard definitions for indirect costs which are
in full compliance with the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board. These
definitions have been reviewed by several oversight groups. Based on these
definitions, for the first time we have accurately determined indirect expenses
for the agency, which during fiscal year 2000 we project to be 18.9 percent.
As you know, the issue of indirect costs, often referred to as overhead,
received extensive attention during the 105th Congress, as did the poor quality
of our financial system and records. I want to make a specific request as your
Committee examines our budget in the coming year. I ask for your patience and
support in rectifying much of our accountability problems. The Forest Service's
financial management and reporting of overhead took a decade or more to fall
into disrepair. It will take more than a year to fix the problem. Let me
emphasize that we are devoting extensive resources to implementing new financial
systems, improving our audit processes, and improving decision making. The
resources we devote to make these fixes involves expenditures of an overhead
type nature. As we concentrate on cleaning up our problems, we need to have
flexibility without legislated limitations which could prevent us from being
successful.
In my testimony today, I have reviewed the President's
initiatives, discussed the Natural Resource Agenda, and described our intent to
improve agency accountability. In conclusion, I want to say that a Forest
Service that meets the needs of the American people and restores and preserves
the health of the nations forests and rangelands, is a goal we all strive for.
I'll leave you with some thoughts based on Aldo Leopold's Sand County Almanac;
the same words I left with our employees in Missoula during my state of the
Forest Service speech.
Let us recommit ourselves to an invigorated nation
and land ethic. An ethic that recognized that we cannot meet the needs of people
without first securing the health, diversity, and productivity of our lands and
waters. An ethic that understands the need to reconnect our communities -both
urban and rural- to the lands and waters that sustain them. An ethic that
respects that the choices we make today influence the legacy that we bequeath to
our children and their children's children.
That concludes my remarks. I
would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
END
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