Copyright 2000 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
February 29, 2000, Tuesday
SECTION: PREPARED TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 3241 words
HEADLINE:
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HON. JAMES LYONS UNDER SECRETARY NATURAL RESOURCE AND
ENVIRONMENT UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
BEFORE THE
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
SUBJECT - FOREST SERVICE FISCAL YEAR 2001 BUDGET
BODY:
Chairman Murkowski, Senator Bingaman,
and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
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: 1) 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
14.8 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.
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 23.8 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 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 purpose,
including providing the 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 which 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 wide-scale 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 Counties: 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 Senators Craig and Wyden 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,
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, which is 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 it 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
customer 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 resourcedependent 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;
-- Place a new
emphasis on maintaining and reconstructing existing roads rather than building
new roads.
A draft rule and procedures will be released for public
review in the next week.
Forest Service Planning Regulations: All of
these proposals would be implemented in the context of the new forest planning
regulations. The proposed planning role 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 agency
will continue to accept written comments on the proposed rule until the comment
period closes February 10, 2000.
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.
Under the capable direction of Chief Dombeck, the
agency has worked very closely with my off-lee, 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 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-theground 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, publishing
its draft Strategic Plan (2000 Revision).
In addition, for the first
tune 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
LOAD-DATE: March 8, 2000