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September 15, 2000, Friday

TYPE: COMMITTEE HEARING

LENGTH: 23793 words

COMMITTEE: FORESTS SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE SENATE ENERGY COMMITTEE

HEADLINE: U.S. SENATOR LARRY CRAIG (R-ID) HOLDS HEARING ON PREPAREDNESS FOR THE YEAR 2000 WILDFIRES

SPEAKER:
U.S. SENATOR LARRY CRAIG (R-ID)

LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:
U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND PUBLIC LANDS MANAGEMENT HOLDS

HEARING ON PREPAREDNESS FOR THE SUMMER 2000 WILDFIRES

SEPTEMBER 15, 2000

SPEAKERS:

U.S. SENATOR LARRY CRAIG (R-ID), CHAIRMAN

U.S. SENATOR CONRAD BURNS (R-MT)

U.S. SENATOR PETER FITZGERALD (R-IL)

U.S. SENATOR BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL (R-CO)

U.S. SENATOR PETE V. DOMENICI (R-NM)

U.S. SENATOR CRAIG THOMAS (R-WY)

U.S. SENATOR GORDON H. SMITH (R-OR)

U.S. SENATOR RON WYDEN (D-OR), RANKING

U.S. SENATOR BOB GRAHAM (D-FL)

U.S. SENATOR MARY LANDRIEU (D-LA)

U.S. SENATOR EVAN BAYH (D-IN)

U.S. SENATOR BLANCHE L. LINCOLN (D-AK)

WITNESSES:

JAMES LYONS

UNDERSECRETARY FOR NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

TOM FRY, DIRECTOR

BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT

*

MURKOWSKI: We're honored to have the Honorable Jim Lyons, undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture and Mr. Tom Fry, director of the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Interior.

I know it's been a difficult time period for the Department of Agriculture, and specifically the Forest Service. And hindsight's cheap and we can learn from mistakes. I'm particularly interested in what action you're taking now to ensure that situations don't reoccur in the future. And I'll be quite specific in my statement relative to Alaska. But I'll do that at the conclusion of my opening statement.
We're here today to talk about the administration's new plans for managing the impact of wildfires on communities and environment. We originally scheduled this hearing to talk about agency preparedness for the wildfire season that we are currently experiencing, and hopefully is coming to a close.

MURKOWSKI: The hearing notice pre-dated the release of the president's plan.

In the course of reviewing agency preparedness, we're going to be asking questions that I believe will be rather -- well, it will be a little difficult for the witnesses, but that's our job to ask the questions and your job to respond to the tough questions.

And I suspect some of the answers aren't going to be satisfactory. That goes along with the questions.

Before we go down the list of questions, however, I want to emphasize that we have to work together regardless of our differences of opinion or political persuasion, to put the necessary resources in place and make the changes that are necessary, to comply with the president's suggestions, which is to address the impact of wildfires on communities as well as our environment.

At the same time, we would be derelict in our oversight duties if we did not ask the questions that we will pursue this morning. We cannot simply hand the agencies another $1.6 billion without getting a clear understanding of where the problems currently reside and what their plans are to address those problems. This is the purpose of this hearing and the questions that we'll be asking.

Now, assuming that we can get past those questions with a common understanding of what needs to be done, I would urge my colleagues to join us in working with the administration to finally implement a coherent wildfire strategy. Everyone's attention is now focused. There's no question about that.

The national media -- they're asking why government policies have failed. The government's response is mixed. We've had more than we bargained for, more than we planned for, inadequate budget, inadequate training, whatever.

That's not a satisfactory answer when we have lost in fires a hundredfold more than we've commercially logged in our national forests. You know that figure better than I do. There are many things on which we can agree, many things which we can move forward on. I'm pleased, for instance, that the administration has referenced the need to develop new ways to utilize small diameter material that is taken from the forest as part of the fuel reduction activities.

I would hope that the administration would support the Biomass Tax Credit proposal that I've included in Senate Bill 2904 which is my comprehensive energy bill. If we could create markets for this material, we'll be able to engage in effective fuel reduction activities more quickly than otherwise would be the case. I believe that we can achieve a better result for the taxpayer if we can accomplish this.

Now, I don't understand how you can possibly continue to support your roadless policy in the forest as a consequence of your experience this year.

In the issue of access in the forest, when you have terminated or practically terminated commercial logging in much of the forest, leaves the forest inaccessible, your policies relative to encouraging clearing and thinning, as you know professionally, are totally inadequate in the second growth areas, for reasons unknown to me, but it certainly doesn't represent good forest management.

Your individual budget requests and your concentration on thinning is totally inadequate from a professional forest management point of view. And that's part of the planning for fire suppression and you know it as well as I do.

So, I don't support your roadless policy. I don't think there's any justification for it, particularly brought out by this season's experience. We're working with you to introduce legislation that would provide you with the authority to use private firefighting sources, if they're available.

Right now, it's my understanding that that authority is not existent and your fearful of liability in association with contracting or agreements or whatever in emergencies to use private source firefighting, whether it be community, state and so forth.

In the old days, the crew would turn out from the logging camp. Everybody would turn out. But we've got so sophisticated and the lawyers have lined up on the liability issue where I can understand your concern. But we've got legislation proposed to address that and hopefully you'll take advantage of that.

Dollars for training is necessary.

I want, personally, as a consequence of a meeting that Senator Stevens and I had concerning the beetle kill, the Spruce Beetle kill on the Kenai Peninsula, a commitment from the Forest Service that you're going to do something about it. I don't mean another study. I don't mean another public hearing. We've got to get that timber out of there, or we're going to have a disaster. And you're going to have the responsibility for it.

You know, you can hide behind the shield that well, it's state timber, it's native timber, but everybody looks to the Forest Service as a leader in forest management practices. You have not allowed, you have not gone forward, because of your inability to make a professional decision on what's best for the forest. You continually held hearings. You won't put up a sale because you cannot get or reach a consensus. In the meantime the bugs continue.

We're going to have a disaster. And your professional people on the scene will agree with that. But you folks can't make a decision to put up a sale, try and get a recovery that would be sufficient to offset the logging costs so you can get that timber out of there. There are going to be homes burned, there are going to be businesses burned and there are going to be communities burned.

Now, I want a pledge from you that you're going to address this, because you've learned from what happened this year about what can happen. And it's your job now to take steps to ensure that it won't happen where you know the risks exist.

Now will you give me that commitment?

Mr. Lyons?

LYONS: Yes, we will.

MURKOWSKI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I took the liberty of starting us off as you noted.

CRAIG: Well Mr. Chairman, chairmans have that liberty. Thank you for doing that. I apologize for running a bit late. But I do appreciate it, Chairman Murkowski for opening this hearing of the subcommittee on forests and public lands of the full committee that you chair, and the accommodations that the full committee gives us as we move in this most important issue.

And let me thank the gentlemen who are before us today.

This is a beginning of a series of hearings that we have scheduled. Of course this one today, this next weekend, not this coming weekend, but on September 22, we'll be in Billings, Montana, and we'll look at that problem in the Red Lodge Complex and then on September 23 in Salmon, Idaho and that general Clear Creek complex over into...

MURKOWSKI: I hope to be with you, Senator Craig.

CRAIG: Yes. And I invite the committee that's here and all who would wish to attend that. We'll go to the ground out there and listen to representatives in state and local units of government and perhaps others who would wish to come forward and testify.

This year's fire season may well prove to be the worst in this half century. Most of our western states, as well as Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas are reporting very high to extreme fire danger levels even today. As I speak, large fires are still actively burning in Arizona, California, Florida, still some in Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming.

The national interagency fire center reports that 20 fires are presently burning on about 850,000 acres. The acres burned, year to date; exceed 6.7 million acres, which is over twice the 10 year average to date. The total number of fires on public lands has surpassed 77,000. That is almost 13,000 fires higher than the 10-year average.

Nationally, wildfires this year have burned an area larger than the state of Maryland. All of the personnel fighting fires, I think, deserve this committee and our citizens' heartfelt thanks for the efforts and the dedication that they've put forth.

The national interagency center reports that during the worst of the month it was spending $11 million a day on the firefighting suppression and related efforts. The fire service -- the Forest Service budget director has estimated that wildfire costs this year will easily exceed a billion dollars in total.

In a fire season as bad as the one we are now experiencing, it is undeniable that we would be seeing a significant acreage burned. Indeed, the General Accounting Office has warned, in a series of reports, that there are 39 million acres of federal lands at risk to uncontrolled wildfires. Therefore, the severity of this fire season should not have been a surprise to anyone.

As I've told many of my colleagues and citizens of the state of Idaho, it wasn't that it was going to happen. It was simply a question of when was it going to happen.

However, over the last five weeks, we have seen a series of new stories that call into question whether the federal firefighting agencies have been adequately funded, staffed and prepared, both logistically and intellectually, to deal with the wildfire risk that we all knew existed and that will still exist this year, for the balance of the season and next year and into the future.

For example, on August 10, USA Today reported that the Bureau of Land Management fire preparedness budget request was reduced, first for the Department of Interior and later by the office of management and budget. Current and former BLM management employees complained in writing that the effects of these budget reductions would be to reduce fire preparedness significantly.

And then, of course, we read a story followed August 21 and 22, Washington Times, investigative pieces which reported that money taken from the fire preparedness budgets was used to acquire new federal lands as a part of the current administration's Land Legacy Initiative.

And then on August 23, the United Press International filed a story that the Forest Service fire preparedness budget was similarly reduced by either the Department of Agriculture, the Office of Management and Budget or both.

The UPI quoted representatives of the Forest Service employees' union complaining that in downsizing the Forest Service, the administration disproportionately reduced the number of low grade GS-5 through 9, employees that would normally be assigned firefighting tasks.

During the same period, the agency experienced an increase in the number of GS-14 and above employees. The Forest Service employees' union charged that fire preparedness money and similar funds were diverted to fund initiatives, including the Roadless Area Initiative developed by the Forest Service's Washington office.

On August 25, the Associated Press International posted a story that suggests the Forest Service is not using the most up-to-date and accurate fire risk maps in a number of agency rule-making initiatives.

It would appear that more recent and better information that would alert agency decision makers to fire risk was being ignored. This is particularly troubling, because preliminary data available from the Forest Service, which we will review today, suggests that wilderness and roadless areas burned disproportionately more than treated areas this summer.

On September 1, the Washington Post reported the Forest Service managers and the regions most affected by the fires were first forced to write the Washington office to urge the chief to reduce the number of business as usual information requests that were coming from the Washington office in the region. The regional foresters correctly pointed out that most of their staff is currently consumed by the firefighting effort and not available for business as usual tasks of the Washington office initiatives.

Also, on September 1, the Washington Times reported that environmental constraints are hindering firefighting efforts. Concerns over threatened fish species, for instance, precluded the use of certain water bodies for fire fighting efforts. The result was that by losing the control of the fire, those water bodies evaporated due to the intensity of the ensuing firestorm.

These reports of a lack of preparedness have to be troubling. They certainly are to this senator and I think to the Congress as a whole. They are based, for the most part, on interagency memoranda. They need to be reviewed. Clearly, it is the first bad fire season since the large number of endangered fish and wildlife species listings have occurred throughout the Western states.

From the reporting in at least some of the stories, it seems that we have not yet thought through how to accommodate valid endangered species concerns in face of the emergency conditions presented by large scale and out of control fires.

And as I had mentioned earlier, one fire season in cyclic patterns usually is followed by another. Preparedness is critical.

I, for one, will withhold judgment on these stories until we hear from the administration. They're before us today. The question of fire preparedness is the key issue that I request the agency witnesses to address in their testimony today. I hope that they will be forthright in acknowledging where problems exist and solutions are needed.

CRAIG: I also expect to hear about the proposal of the administration's released last week. I expect the witnesses would rather talk about that than the questions surrounding fire preparedness this summer. But I believe some answers are in order first.

Then I hope we'll be able to work with my colleagues and the administration to jointly craft a package that we can include in the Interior Appropriates Bill or some other appropriate vehicle in order to expedite the needed funding for our Western states. We are at work on that issue now. We would hope that we can conclude it as early as next week.

The administration's proposal, released last week, is a bit vague in details. Nevertheless it is a good first start towards developing -- or the development of legislation to accomplish those ends.

Much had already been done in the amendment co-sponsored by Senator Domenici, Senator Bingaman, who's with us this morning, Senator Feinstein and myself, to add additional monies to the Interior Appropriates Bill to bring the -- to remove fuel from the overstocked forest in the urban wildlands interface.

And of course, we all know that that was an outgrowth and the alarming reaction to the Los Alamos fire. However, in light of what we have seen over the past month, while we have been back in our states, at least certainly myself, and I'm sure others, much more has to be done. I hope we can use the administration's plan as a starting point for additional action.

We must reason together to foster more active environmental stewardship of our public lands and resources. Secretary Lyons is with us this morning. He and I have had numerous dialogues on this issue. And when I say reason together, I mean just that. We do not have the luxury of time, nor should we expend the energy or point fingers in false ways. We have choices to make and an environment to protect.

Regrettably, some of this sort of rhetoric was interjected into the administration's final report after it was transmitted by the agency to higher levels in the administration. Those who choose to simplify this issue of the health of our forest down to the single word of logging versus no logging, I'm here to tell you, shame on you. Shame on any public or public interest group that wants to start that kind of argument again.

The issue of forest health is much more complex than that. And to cast it in such stark terms is at best disingenuous in our effort to try to solve a major national problem as it relates to the health of our forest and the salvaging of that environment.

No one who supports maintaining forest health or ecosystems is proposing logging as a goal to that end.

Therefore, I hope that I can depend on my colleagues, both from all sides of the aisles, to work with us to resolve what I think is now a major national issue coming out of a major national crisis.

The administration is developing a plan of action. We must make sure that the lessons of this year's fire season are reflected in sound legislation and adequate funding for our land management agencies to reduce the risk that will occur again and again.

Well, I thank my colleagues for assembling this morning. Let me turn to the ranking member of our subcommittee from Oregon, Senator Ron Wyden.

Ron?

WYDEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I think you know how much I have enjoyed the nearly 20 years working with you. And I think it's especially worth noting that less than 48 hours ago we made a little bit of history with a Natural Resources Bill on the floor of the United States Senate.

Less than two days ago, for the first time in more than 20 years, a substantive natural resources bill that was very controversial when introduced, passed on its own merits without opposition.

That legislation involved federal payments to counties historically based on timber receipts. It faced the very same polarizing interest groups that are now driving so much of this fire debate. One side, of course, uses the issue to incentivize higher timber cuts. Some of the other side try to use the issue to say you should never, ever cut a single tree.

But we achieved that breakthrough on the county payments issue because we cooperated, because we were reaching across the aisle and we de-politicized a contentious issue. I come today to ask that we make the same sort of effort on the fire issue that we made on the County Payments Bill. And we can do it, by avoiding the searing partisan rhetoric that unfortunately in recent weeks seems to have enveloped this issue of the Western fires and work together to produce a solution to this fire crisis -- a crisis that I would submit is far too important to be driven by the November election.

And as you noted in your statement, Mr. Chairman, it's going to be a tough job, but like on county payments, we know that every single western senator is going to be pushed hard by these interest groups. And to give you an idea of what, I think, unfortunately this debate has become about, because I'm bringing today an advertisement that ran in our paper at home in Oregon. The headline is, "Say no to Al Gore's Big Burn."

This ran at the height of the fire season at home in our state and sufficed to say -- I'll show it to my colleagues -- I think they know that this kind of partisan flame-throwing by interest groups isn't going to solve the problems of forest health.

(UNKNOWN): Who paid for it?

WYDEN: This is paid for by an Alliance for America, various kinds of groups from all over America. I'm going to ask Mr. Chairman that it be submitted for the record.

But it isn't exactly subtle, folks. Under the ad it says, "Al Gore's forest policies are a recipe for disaster."

(UNKNOWN): I just wanted to make sure it wasn't a Republican re- election committee.

WYDEN: No. It never said anything of the sort. It never said anything of the sort.

But these kind of harsh ads, as we know, are not going to contribute to creating the kind of bipartisan climate that Chairman Craig and I worked so hard to pursue on the county payments issue and use to make this breakthrough, as I say, for the first time in 20 years on a matter that is so important in the natural resources area.

So, my desire, and I appreciated the way the chairman was trying to reach out and be conciliatory on this. Let's make sure that at the end of this discussion, both today and over the next few days and through this obviously contentious campaign season, let's not lose the common ground that we need to a scorching by opportunistic, politically motivated ads by interests groups on one side or another, that are going to drive us away from a practical solution.

In my view an issue as complicated as this can only be addressed by Democrats and Republicans working together. I want to make it clear as the ranking Democrat on this subcommittee that I'm eager to work with my colleagues on a bipartisan basis to remove fire prone materials from the forest, employ folks in our rural communities with family wage earning jobs, and I believe that we can do this in compliance with the nation's environmental laws while maintaining the forests' environmental integrity for ourselves and future generations.

So, we do on a bipartisan basis have an opportunity to make a real difference. I look forward to working with you again, Mr. Chairman, and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

CRAIG: Senator Wyden, thank you very much.

The legislation that the Senator referenced that we've worked on that just passed the Senate does have a component in it that may well lend itself to a bringing together of the administration's initiative and ours for the on the ground kinds of activities on local levels with some local decision making that could be fire-directed and may well dovetail into what we want to accomplish here.

Now let me turn to my colleague from Wyoming, Senator Craig Thomas.

THOMAS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be brief so that I might get a chance to hear our witnesses here before I head out for Wyoming.

In any event, certainly this is one of the most important issues that we've faced. We're all devastated by the fire damage that has taken place, of course.

I think all of us are grateful, too, for the people who have expended their energy and risked themselves to fight these fires and have done a good job at that.

Obviously, it's something unusual when we had six and a half million acres, when the average for the past 10 years has been around three, so it was extraordinary.

So, the real question, I think, and I'll submit my statement, is what do we learn from this year's experience that will be helpful? What do we learn in terms of preparedness? I think we need to pursue this idea of the shift of dollars. I've been a little critical from time to time in a number of ways where we've shifted dollars over to this acquisition of federal lands thing, instead of taking care of the lands we have. Not only in this instance but in a number of others. I think that's one.

The management of the forest, there are those obviously who don't think it ought to be managed, it ought to be set aside totally. We ought to be able to get that message pretty soon that times have changed and there does need to be some managed, and there needs to be some managed harvesting, certainly of this.

I think we need to take a long look at the impact of the roadless ideas with regard to access to fight fires. I think that's certainly something. This whole business of setting aside wilderness some more. What does that do? Clearly when you have a wilderness area, it's much more difficult. In fact, there's very little, if any, forest fire fighting goes on there. So, that's a tough one.

I think there are some things. I read about them and talked with the regional director that's going on out in Colorado that makes some sense in terms of clearing these things.

So, like the others who have very well stated the problem, I just hope we use these things that are before us now to examine how we can do something better in the future.

And as the senator from Oregon said, I hope we don't get into presidential politics with respect to environmentalists and users. That's ridiculous. And I hope also the candidates for president don't begin to do that as well.

So, I could file my statement, Mr. Chairman, thank you.

CRAIG: Thank you very much, Senator. And your full statement will be part of the record.

Now let me turn to Senator Bingaman who is, of course, ranking on our full committee and we worked very closely with him, Ron and I did, as we crafted the county payments legislation. We appreciate, Senator, your participation in that and working with us to make that happen.

Thank you for being here.

BINGAMAN: Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having the hearing. And congratulations to you and Senator Wyden for that legislation. I think it is a major step forward.

I'll just say a couple of general things here to put this in a perspective. At least the perspective that I see that the fire problem in my state and throughout the West, I think, was precipitated this year because of the drought.

I mean, we had several years of drought, but it was worse this year. And clearly, that's what sort of brought it to a head. In addition, there are clearly policies that we have adopted over the years that have been counterproductive or problematic. And one of those, which we all recognize, is fire suppression. That policy that's been in place for a long time has created conditions which have led to much more damaging fires than we might otherwise have had.

I need to learn more, frankly, about some of these other policies that the administration has adopted and that previous administrations have adopted to know better whether they contributed to this problem or did not. The level of logging that we do in our forests, I'm not convinced, myself, that that is a major factor in determining the extent of the fire damage. I think we need to explore that. We need to understand about it.

Same thing on this roadless issue. I'm not persuaded that the solution -- I look at the fires in my state. There is nothing that I can point to that says; those fires would have been less damaging or less likely to have occurred had we not had roads in the areas where the fires were the worst.

Of course, the issue in my state that most people are focused on, I think, properly, is this urban wildland interface, and also the question of municipal watersheds. And what needs to be done in these areas to protect the people who live near these forests. And we have a lot more people living near the forest now than we've ever had before in these communities, and we need to take the appropriate steps.

We passed through this committee Senate Bill 1288 last year. It was bipartisan. We had unanimous support in the Senate.

BINGAMAN: It went to the House. It is a forced restoration bill on a very small scale, focused on my home state of New Mexico, trying to begin the process. And that was done before we had the fires this year.

I am encouraged that we were able to add the additional funds to the Interior Appropriation Bill that Senator Domenici proposed and I co-sponsored. I'm very encouraged by the president's proposal of the $1.6 billion that has now been proposed. I think that's a real commitment.

As I see it, there are sort of three issues that we need to try to focus on. Number one is, what are the right policies going forward? I mean, do we have the policies right this time, since we recognize and acknowledge that we haven't had in previous periods in our history.

Secondly, do we have the ability to implement those correctly? The worst fire in the history of my state, of course, was the Los Alamos fire that occurred this summer, the Sierra Grande fire, and that was not a fire that was caused because of bad policies. It was because of bad implementation of a so-called controlled burn policy. So, we need to get the implementation right.

And third, we need to figure out how we can sustain a commitment to this problem over a long enough period of time to make a difference. Because this is not a problem that's going to be solved between now and the elections. It's not a problem that's going to be solved even by the next administration.

It's going to take 10, 15 years and people in your agencies and your departments are going to have to be working at it for that period of time. And we in Congress are going to have to be providing the resources to your agencies so that you can do the work that needs to be done in that period of time. And any insights you can give us as to how we sustain that level of commitment in years when the forest fire problem is not as great, as I hope it will not be, in future years, that's the real issue.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CRAIG: Senator, thank you very much.

Now let me turn to Senator Johnson, who lost about 73,000 acres of land in his state this year in an area where we don't always expect forest fires to be as dominant. But at the same time, 73,000 acres in Idaho might sound like a small burn, but in your state, in relation to your total forested acres, that's a big fire, and with, I think, devastating consequences.

Senator, thank you for coming.

JOHNSON: Well, thank you, Senator Craig. And thank you for holding this hearing. I ask unanimous consent to submit my full statement.

CRAIG: Without objection.

JOHNSON: Let me just observe quickly, because we do want to want things to get on to the testimony from the witnesses.

Although the Jasper fire in the Black Hills of South Dakota was roughly 73,000 or more acres, it's a total of about 100,000 acres in the Black Hills, if you accumulate all of the fires we've suffered from this past year.

That is in a region that has a great deal of human interface with the forest and has caused a great deal of concern, obviously, about a 6.4 million acre fire problem across the West totally, so far this year, and we have not concluded the fire season in the West this year as well.

I had an opportunity to personally spend some time on the ground with the supervisor of our Black Hills National Forest, John Twiss (ph). I have to say that the work of the Forest Service, the National Park Service as well as assistance from the governor's office through the National Guard and volunteer firefighters was extraordinary. And the level of coordination was excellent. And I want to commend the people who jeopardized their lives, literally, dealing with these fires in the Black Hills and across the nation.

It came apparent to me, however, in talking with the Forest Service officials that there is a need to address training issues more aggressively than has been the case in the past. Dealing with forest fires, particularly crown fires, is a matter that requires a great deal of training and expertise. A lot of the people that we had volunteering their time had training in structural fires and grass fires, but not in forest fires. And they were limited in what they could do to contribute to the firefighting cause.

I look forward to the testimony today relative to what we can do to minimize or at least restrict the scope of these fires in the future and what needs to be done to restore burnt lands and what the direction of our suppression policies should be.

There's been a lot of attention in South Dakota relative to the need for thinning, the need to address the Pine Beetle problem that we have in South Dakota, and the question of what to do about salvage of downed timber, both from storms, from Pine Beetle causes and particularly in the human interface areas, where we have these communities in the midst of our forests.

I would observe that the fire, as serious as it was, in the Black Hills, was largely in an area that had been repeatedly timbered and in an area that had roads. There's no lack of road construction. And in fact, I noted that the past techniques of thinning and prescribed burns have had some positive consequence. For the most part in the Jasper fire, in South Dakota, 50,000 acres burned in a few hours. However, when the fire hit a prescribed burn area, the fire changed from a crown fire to a ground-based fire, where it could be effectively fought.

Fire crews were able to remain in the area only because of the defensible space that the barriers created.

I want to share the observations of my colleague from Oregon relative to the politics of this issue. I appreciate that this is a presidential election year, and no one should be shocked that there are some who would use this for partisan political interests, but the tone of some of the rhetoric surrounding the fires in the West has been transparently partisan and political. I think that's not constructive. We have had an aggressive fire suppression policy in our forests now for the better part of this century, and we're only now coming to terms with some of the consequences of that strategy.

The fact is, in the Black Hills we had several wet years followed by a year of severe drought, in forests that had been timbered, where roads existed and yet we wound up with a crown fire. We wound up with a severe fire problem in any event.

I think there are lessons to be learned, so we need to be attempting to learn from the spike in fires we've suffered from this year, but it needs to be done in a thoughtful way, bringing to bear the best possible science, in a way that is one that can bring together the environmental community and the timber community on a common strategy, as least as best as we possibly can. I think it's important that we approach this issue from that perspective.

So, I look forward to the testimony here today. I look forward to working with my colleagues in a bipartisan fashion to see what we can do to learn some constructive lessons from these fires and how best to utilize additional resources in the future.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CRAIG: Senator, thank you very much for those comments. And of course, your full statement will be a part of the record.

Let me welcome before the committee the Honorable Jim Lyons, undersecretary, Department of Agriculture; Tom Fry, director of the BLM, Bureau of Land Management, Department of Interior; the Chief of our Forest Service, Mike Dombeck.

Gentlemen, we appreciate you being with this morning and preparing for this hearing. As you've heard me and my colleagues express our concerns, we think this is a critical hearing as we move forward with not only the proposal that you have worked to put together, that the administration has announced, but also to examine where we are and where we've been so that we don't repeat those kinds of mistakes if there are mistakes, again in the future.

I've lived all of my life in a timbered state in the west of Idaho, and I can pattern these kinds of weather events on about a five-year cycle. My guess is that if Mother Nature isn't totally off course, next year won't be much better than this year. And that's a critical reason for us to understand the preparedness factor versus a futuristic approach toward active management and fuel reduction.

Let us start with you, Secretary Lyons. We appreciate you being with us this morning. I appreciate hearing your comments.

LYONS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to be here with you this morning and to be flanked by Tom Fry, director of the Bureau of Land Management, and Chief Mike Dombeck of the Forest Service.

Before I begin, I do want to commend and congratulate you, Senator Craig and Senator Wyden for the work you did on the county payments bill. We've had many discussions about it, and I'm glad to see that we were able to come together on something that I think will provide long-term benefit for the communities. I commend your bipartisan leadership in that regard. And I also want to just highlight the important role that Sarah Biddleman (ph) played on your staff, Mr. Wyden, and of course Mark Rafer (ph), Chairman Craig, in crafting that.

I only say I hope we can hold the Senate bill. That would be excellent.

So far this year, as all of you know, has been an extraordinary year in terms of the wildfire that we faced. Six point six million acres of federal, state, tribal and private land have been burned. The Forest Service has spent close to a billion dollars in its attempt to contain these fires and to protect life, property and critical natural resources.

The fire season is the result of many factors, but I would certainly highlight the hot and dry weather conditions in the West. A phenomena known as La Nina caused severe long lasting drought across the country, drying out forests and range lands. The situation, of course, was exacerbated by the fact that the drought followed several seasons of higher than normal rate, which fueled the growth of grasses and other plants that quickly dried when the rains stopped.

To make matters worse, this weather pattern also generated dry thunderstorms with heavy lightening and no precipitation. The current season corresponds to an historical pattern of extensive wildfires during similar unusual weather conditions.

The result has been an extended severe fire season with wildfires burning simultaneously across the United States, fires that continue today. We want to join you in commending the work done by firefighters and their interagency partners, and particularly the leadership at NIFC, the National Interagency Fire Center, all whom did an outstanding job during the season. So far this year, they've put out a remarkable 76,000 fires in their efforts to try and protect life and property and natural resources and I think they do deserve our praise.

On August 9, 2000, the president, in his trip to Idaho, the trip you joined us on, Senator Craig, the president requested a report from the secretaries of agriculture and interior, outlining the departments' plans for immediate and short-term activities to help rehabilitate burned areas and assist rural communities in recovering from the impacts of fires.

The secretaries issued this report, entitled "Managing the Impact of Wildfires on Communities in the Environment," and I'm sure you all have a copy of this. It's on our web page as well.

What I'd like to do this morning is discuss the major findings and recommendations in the report and to highlight some of the key areas in which I believe we can work together.

And I want to emphasize, Mr. Craig, in light of your comments, the efforts that you recently completed, working with Senator Wyden, in light of the conversations we've had over the years about the opportunities to work together, I think one is clearly at hand.

First of all, I want to comment a few people who were involved in preparing this report. Michael Raines (ph), with the Forest Service who did an outstanding job in preparing the background and I actually helped him the report; Tim Hartsell (ph) from the Department of the Interior and my colleague, David Hayes, the deputy secretary of the Department of the Interior who worked with me in putting together the final report.

The report emphasizes five key points. First, we must continue to make all necessary fire fighting resources available to deal with current fires and any additional fire, which may occur this season.

Secondly, we must restore landscapes and rebuild communities.

Third, we must invest additional resources in reducing future fire risks, especially near communities in the urban wildland interface that's been mentioned several times this morning.

We must work together with communities and our other partners, including other federal agencies, the states, tribes and local governments in this vein, and we must emphasize accountability in implementing these recommendations to ensure that these recommendations receive the highest priority, and in fact, action does occur on the ground as a result.

Now, let me discuss briefly each of these points.

As a first priority, the departments will continue to provide all necessary resources to ensure that firefighting efforts protect life and property and that we continue aggressively to deal with the fire situation we will face for the remainder of this year.

Secondly, the departments will invest in restoring communities and landscapes impacted by the 2000 fires. The departments will assess the economic needs of communities and consistent with current authorities, commit the financial resources necessary to assist individuals and communities in rebuilding their homes, businesses and neighborhoods.

Existing loan and grant programs administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Small Business Administration and USDA's Forest Service and Rural Development programs are going to be the primary ears of focus for this assistance.

In addition to expedite and simplify the delivery of assistance to communities, we're in the process of establishing one-stop centers where individuals, businesses and communities can get quick answers to questions and apply for resources with minimal red tape.

LYONS: The departments are already evaluating landscape restoration needs. The Forest Service has already turned out 69 burned area rehabilitation teams, or bear teams, and have already treated 400,000 burned acres. We've committed more than 34 million acres in that regard. And Mike will go into greater detail on our rehab efforts as will Tom with regard to the work that BLM is already doing on the ground.

In completing this work, the departments will prioritize investments in landscape restoration to protect the following: first, public health and safety. Senator Bingaman mentioned the impact on municipal watersheds and that's certainly an area we want to focus our restoration efforts to reduce the likely impacts of a rainy season on water quality in those watersheds.

Secondly, on unique natural and cultural resources, and I would offer as an example, Mr. Chairman, potential impacts on watersheds critical to the survival of salmon and other species where we're working actively to try and restore habitats we want to make sure that we minimize any future damages associated with the burn over in those areas. And third, other environmentally sensitive areas where economic hardship may result from a lack of reinvestment in restoring damaged landscapes.

In short, what we need to do is prevent the second tragedy from impacting these communities. The first, of course, the burn that ran through these areas. The second is the potential impacts, should we fail to rehabilitate sites that have been damaged by wildfire.

This year's fires reflect a longer-term disruption in the natural fire cycle. It has increased the risk of catastrophic fires in our forests and range lands. Because of a century long policy of extinguishing wildland fires, studies show that wildfires typically burn hotter, faster and higher than in the past.

At the same time, firefighting has become more complicated, expensive and dangerous. Let me offer to illustrate this point, first of all, a fire risk map that was recently prepared by the Forest Service. It identifies the historical fire regimes and I think helps to demonstrate the fact that fire is a normal part of many ecosystems in the West. Through a century long policy of suppressing all wildfires, we have exacerbated the potential for catastrophic wildfire in many areas.

What complicates the firefighting situation as well, though, is the fact that in many areas the demographics are changing and the growth of communities, of urban centers, right up against the edge of previously opened wildland and public lands, is making it more and more difficult to fight fire.

This is illustrated, I think, well in the Southwest, as Senator Bingaman has highlighted, where you can see the communities are now growing in areas that also happen to coincide with high fire risk, with the accumulation of fuels and the growth of communities create extremely difficult and, frankly, quite costly conditions for trying to prevent future wildfires.

This wildland urban interface is really where we need to target our efforts in the future; I think we would all agree.

Addressing these issues will require significant investments to treat landscapes through the physical removal of undergrowth, prevention and eradication of invasive plants and the introduction of fire to forest and range land ecosystems.

Federal agencies have increased their efforts to reduce risks associated with the buildup of brush, small trees and other fuels by nearing 500 percent since 1994. We can illustrate that with this following graphic. This year federal agencies will treat approximately 2.4 million acres to reduce the risk of future wildfire. It's an investment we've continued to make over time.

Reversing the effects of a century of aggressive fire suppression will require additional resources. The report emphasizes that reversing the effects of a century of aggressive fire suppression will be an evolutionary process, and not one that can be accomplished in a few short years. And indeed, greater investments must be made in working cooperatively with communities and the states to reduce fire risks in high priority areas such as those near communities and in critical watersheds.

A request for new resources to reduce fire risks is entirely separate, though, from our traditional timber program. And this is an important distinction I want to make, Mr. Chairman. The report stresses the need to work cooperatively with communities, citizens, state governments, tribes and other federal agencies to address the fuel treatment issue, when any harvest of commercially valuable timber would be handled separately through the department's normal commercial timber program.

I want to emphasize that commercial logging can play a role in addressing these issues, but it is not a panacea for reducing fire risks. There may be opportunities and appropriate circumstances to capture economic value of some of the fire damaged trees. We certainly would look at that. But the departments will continue to consider the option of harvesting fire damaged trees only where appropriate and where we can continue to comply with all environmental laws and regulations.

I think it's important, though, to recognize that we have a whole host of tools that we can use here. Our focus needs to be, however, on treating fuels, on reducing wildfire risk by reintroducing fire to these systems, and, if you will, mimicking more natural conditions that through a century of policy we have disrupted.

Working with local communities and our other partners is a critical element in restoring damaged landscapes and certainly in reducing fire hazards near homes and communities. To accomplish this, the departments recommend expanding the participation of local communities in efforts to reduce fire hazards and the use of local labor for fuel treatments and restoration work, and I think there's a tremendous opportunity here for local employment, both in the restorative work we need to do and in future fuel treatment efforts.

The departments would also improve local fire protection capability through financial and technical assistance, to state, local and volunteer firefighting efforts.

Finally, the report to the president recommends establishing a cabinet-level management structure to insure that the actions recommended by the departments receive the highest priority. In this structure, the secretaries of agriculture and interior would coach here. Among other things, the new management team would be responsible for ensuring that appropriate performance objectives are established and met, ensuring that adequate and financial and other resources are made available and establishing a system to identify and address implementation issues promptly and ensure that all environmental rules are adhered to and dealt with efficiently.

Local teams working closely with communities with the Department of Commerce, particularly in the Northwest, where salmon issues are a concern, and other appropriate agency partners would ultimately manage these projects on the ground.

The report to the president identified a need for an additional $1.57 billion per year for the departments of Interior and Agriculture, starting in FY 2001. Now, I would emphasize the fact that although we have made this a request using emergency contingent funds for FY 2001, we believe that a continued investment is necessary. However, we didn't think it was appropriate to saddle any future administration with that particular request.

That does not mean, however, as pointed out by Senator Bingaman, that this does not require a sustained investment over time. And you will see in our FY 2002 budgets our requests reflecting this continued investment need.

Congress and the administration clearly have an opportunity to work together, to address these issues. Chief Dombeck and I had a chance to briefly meet with Chairman Gorton earlier today, Senator Craig, to discuss these issues. And we're very pleased and enthusiastic about the opportunity to work together to provide the funds necessary to implement this strategy.

In summary, the Forest Service and other federal agencies working with the Bureau of Land Management and others, have an opportunity, I think, to minimize the losses from future unnaturally intense fires. We're committed to working with communities to implement a strategy to restore and maintain healthy ecosystems on national forests, and we're committed to a strategic approach where we will treat areas that pose the highest risks to peopled property and natural resources, and do so in the most expeditious and efficient manner.

This will require partnership, resources and a common-sense approach to avoid needless controversy. And again, it will require a sustained investment over time.

Mr. Chairman, we look forward to working with you, the members of the committee and others in Congress to secure the funds needed to make these critical investments, and I'm enthusiastic about the opportunity to sit down and, I think, focus on something that we all agree is an essential investment we need to make in our natural resources for the benefit of the people who rely on those resources, the associated communities, and the legacy we leave.

Thank you. And I want to turn now to Tom Fry, with the Bureau of Land Management to discuss the BLM's approach to these issues.

CRAIG: Jim, thank you. Director Fry, welcome before the committee.

FRY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to be before the committee today.

First off, I want to join many members of the panel, who have talked about the heroic efforts of our 29,000 firefighters who are out there on the ground. I had the opportunity not to be on the fire line, and the last place I need to be is out on the fire line, but to talk to people as they came off the fire line about this fire year. And let me tell you that morale was high, the people were working hard. I mentioned to one of the young firefighters what a bad fire season this was. He said, no, you've got it wrong. This was a great fire season. These people love to fight fires. They love to be out there fighting fires, and morale was high. And I can report to you that they were out there doing an excellent job.

I wanted to address one of the concerns, or one of the issues that the chairman brought up and the question of preparedness -- the question of were we prepared.

I think there were some earlier indicators for this year that this was going to be an especially difficult year. As was pointed out by Senator Bingaman, we had a couple of years of drought. This year we did not get the snows that we normally have. While we had a lot of water over the last couple of years to build up fuels, the snows did not come this year, so we had some pretty early indications.

We also had some indications that the fire season was starting early. It started early in New Mexico and Arizona, about two months earlier than we would normally expect. As a matter of fact, many of us have been concerned that the bad fire year might be in New Mexico and Arizona this year as opposed to where it ultimately occurred in Montana and Idaho.

These early indicators told us that there were certain things that we needed to do. First thing we did and some of the kinds of things we did that, while some of them are ongoing, I think we kind of stepped up the effort this year. First off, we did have our agreements in place with the foreign countries. You will notice that we had supervisors who came in from Australia and New Zealand -- excuse, Canada and Mexico. Our agreements with the military were in place to bring in military personnel where appropriate, to fight fires under the supervision of trained supervised firefighters.

We had agreements in place with the rural firefighting community, so that we could work with them. We have been through an extensive training program with rural firefighters, where we trained over 1500 rural firefighters to work in the urban wildland interface. We are not particularly good at fighting fires on homes and structures. They are not particularly well trained, traditionally, in fighting fires -- wildland fires. We are now spending a great deal of time and effort in training -- cross training each other and entering into agreements. Part of president's request is $10 million so that we can again work more closely with and help provide equipment for local firefighting teams and crews. So, we had some of those kinds of things in place.

Additionally, we took a different approach this year knowing that we thought it was going to be a difficult fire year. Always safety is the number one concern, safety for our firefighters and safety for those who are around fires. That's our number one concern and that continues to be our number one priority. This year, our second priority was initial attack. Let's get out there and get those fires quickly. We were able through initial attack, as soon as the fires started, to stop over 95 percent of the fires immediately before they spread. I think this is a wonderful credit to the people out there on the ground to get to these fires quickly and stop the fires. That was our number one job, so that they wouldn't grow.

I can point out that last year was a very difficult year for the Bureau of Land Management in the Great Basin where we burned about a million seven acres in that area. This year we had twice as many fires start but we burned about half the number of acres. The reason is we got out there and did a much better job on initial attack. And another thing we did this year for all the agencies is start pre- positioning people. We used a part of the funds that Congress provides called severity funds. We spend $22 million this year, prior to the beginning of the fire season, to pre-position people and get equipment in the right places where we thought fires were going to occur. We moved people into Oregon when we thought fires were about to start there. So, this pre-positioning, I think again, may help make a difference, again, in a very, very difficult fire year.

I think all of these things, while they may have helped us this year, there are others things that we can do. As we look at how we go forward from here, I think we have to look at the ultimate rehabilitation of the land. We've been going in traditionally after these fires, planting some seeds and then getting out. We have to look at finding a way to make sure these lands are rehabilitated to somewhat something resembling their original condition so that these fire regimes do not continue to occur with the kinds of severity that they have.

We started, after our experience in the Great Basin last summer, looking at how to heal the land. We have come up with a proposal to heal the land, and there is money in the agriculture bill to start that process of long-term rehabilitation of the lands in the Great Basin.

So, are there things that we can learn? Again, from this year, I think there are absolutely things we can learn. Is there a need for more people, more training, more people on the ground, more fire crews? Absolutely. But we can't every year be prepared for the hundred-year flood.

FRY: It was certainly the fifty-year flood. But we can do a better job, I think, of being prepared for these kinds of events in the future.

So, we look forward to working with this committee and the with the entire Congress on this funding package to look towards fuel treatments on the front end, preparedness in the middle, fighting the fires, but also rehabilitation on the back end. And that's what a lot of the dollars that are in this particular -- in the president's proposal are about.

We are not out of this fire season yet. We will be fighting these fires probably until Thanksgiving. We are now back into what would be a normal fire regime, whereas three or four weeks ago, we had requests for a number of firefighting teams. We now have no requests. We have fires, while fires are not out. We think we have the fires fairly well under control, but we will be in this business until Thanksgiving and after that will be the time to take a look back and see what are the lessons we can learn from this fire season.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CRAIG: Dr. Fry, thank you very much.

Now let me turn to the Chief of the Forest Service, Mike Dombeck.

Mike?

DOMBECK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Wyden, committee members, it's a real pleasure to be here again to talk about a topic that's so important to those of us here, as well as people that live out West and all across the country.

Like I know you, Mr. Chairman, and since I've traveled also with Mr. Bingaman this year and other members of Congress, most people in this room have probably been to several fire camps, observed the fires and have got a first hand view of some of the things that we dealt with out West.

And I want to join my colleague, Director Fry, and just congratulating a work force that's second to none in the world when it comes to our ability to deal with wildland fires as we -- and they did it this year very safely. There are all these challenges when you have 29,000 people on the fire line, but considering the risk and the magnitude of the activity that was out there, it was just a heroic effort and we owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude for that.

Last week I had the entire leadership of the Forest Service, the top leadership in Montana at a national leadership meeting, and we spent most of the time focused on fire partially in the field and then listening to some of our experts, our incident commanders and other fire experts to talk about where we go from here and focus on things like that.

And I'd just like to take a few minutes and outline to you some of the principles that came out of that meeting and the recommendations of the top professionals in the Forest Service and other agencies as we dealt with it. And these are guidelines that I'll be putting out for the Forest Service. And they're also outlined in my full statement, which I ask Mr. Chairman to be entered in the record.

CRAIG: Without objection, Mike.

DOMBECK: First and foremost, we need to assist state and local partners to take actions to reduce fire risk to homes and private property through programs such as Firewise. The most significant thing an individual landowner can do, or homeowner can do to keep their house or barn from burning, is within 200 feet of that structure, and then 500 feet from that structure.

And we need to invest more time, more educational efforts to help people understand what they can do to protect their own property. And we're prepared to do that.

We need to focus on rehabilitation and on restoring watershed function, including the protection of basic soil and water resources, the biological communities and prevention of the invasion of exotic species that is so problematic in many parts of the country.

I will be assigning the highest priority for hazardous fuel reduction to the urban wildland interface, to the communities at risk, the readily accessible municipal watersheds where people depend upon these watersheds for their drinking water. We'll be focusing on the threatened and endangered species habitat, other important local and cultural features, where conditions favor uncharacteristically intense fires.

We'll be focusing on achieving a desired future condition on the land, working with local communities, interest groups, our state and federal partners. We need to streamline process to maximize effectiveness, to use ecologically conservative approaches, and to where we can, minimize controversy in accomplishing the restoration projects.

We need to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the treatments to reduce these unnaturally intense fires while restoring forest eco-systems, restoring the eco-systems and watersheds to their appropriate function.

We will encourage new stewardship industries, collaborate with local people, volunteers, the Youth Conservation Corp members, service organizations, Forest Service work crews and provide local jobs. And we need to focus on long-term research, research on the effectiveness of the different restoration and rehab methods to determine which methods are most effective in protecting and restoring watershed function and health. And we need to seek new markets and uses for the by-products of this restoration, the wood that comes off the land.

With regard to immediate actions that the Forest Service will be taking, I just want to outline some of the activities that we propose as a result of the report submitted to the president and with your assistance, we hope to get additional funding to do some more work. And there's some of the things we're going to do.

We've already planned 1.3 million acres of fuel treatment. We propose to add an additional 455,000 acres of treatment in fiscal year 2001. We'll be doing an additional 315,000 acres of fuel management in the urban wildland interface, focusing on non-federal lands and assisting our partners in what they can do to protect property. Fires know no boundaries, and the more we can work together, the more we will accomplish.

We'll be doing at least 750,000 acres of rehabilitation and restoration of burned areas and we'll be working with 43,000 volunteer fire departments. They're oftentimes the first on call. And that's an increase of 1800 from our original request in the 2001 budget, and we estimate that this will result in about an additional 8,000 new jobs in the local communities, many of the communities that are stressed because of the other dynamics that have been associated with forest management.

To date we've completed 65 burned area rehabilitation plans and we'll be -- and as I think Mr. Lyons said, we're treated about 400,000 acres now. And BLM has similar activities in treating the public lands that they manage. So, there's a lot going on.

One of the questions I might respond to in the opening statement, Mr. Chairman, is I'd like to ask the staff to put up a chart associated with the comparisons of the burns and the expenditures, and wilderness versus non-wilderness. An area that I personally flew over to look at this issue was in the Bitterroot, where if we take a look at the Skalkaho fire that burned about 64,000 acres, we had about 755 firefighters on it, and the cost was over $7 million.

Meanwhile, another fire in wilderness, the Selway-Bitterroot, which burned about 63,000 acres, we had about 25 firefighters and the cost was about $709,000. Now, those are two individual fires and there are some more examples up there of the expenditures.

Now, the important thing to keep in mind here is that first and foremost we focus on firefighter safety. Second, we focus on 'get them while they're small' on an initial attack, and third we focus on communities at risk. And hence, you see a greater investment in areas, for example, in your state, Mr. Chairman, in the Clear Creek fire that was on, we see the expenditures of about $244 per acre. And we compare that to the Valley fire with an expenditure of about $136 per acre. And then if we take a look at the wilderness complex that covers both Idaho and Montana, we had an expenditure of about $17 per acre.

So, when we take a look at the magnitude and the expense of fires in wilderness versus outer wilderness and the question of roading and so on, I think there's a lot of factors involved in that. And I think as you indicated, this is a complex problem. It's not a simple problem.

We have from both from Interior and Agriculture, we have a number of our technical experts with us that can answer detailed questions about preparedness, about some of the other things that you're interested in, and with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have on any issues that I can.

Thank you.

CRAIG: Gentlemen, thank you all very much. We will do five- minute rounds so that my colleague, singular, I guess, and I can move through a series of questions.

Mike, if you'd have that chart put back up. I don't want the record to -- or an audience to reflect or to suggest that fighting fires in wilderness are cheaper therefore we ought to have more wilderness because it's just cheaper.

There's a very real difference between how you approach a fire in a wilderness in a broad approach, versus how you fight fires in an urban interface or a near-urban interface as is true in the Bitterroot Valley, where you were actually fighting almost structure to structure, is that not true. And is it the intensity of the application that drives the figures?

LYONS: Yes. That's -- in fact, I believe Tom Fry mentioned that, you know, the face of wildland firefighting has really changed significantly over the last few decades, because of the growth in the West, the people that want to be living in the woods and they deserve and expect protection of their resources. And we focus on that.

So, the job is very complex. In fact, on the Skalkaho fire, we learned a lot from the Canadian crews from Ontario that came to help us, where they actually had portable sprinkler systems that they take into the bush in Canada. And they can go in there and spend maybe an hour setting it up, and leave and go do another one. They don't have to have expensive equipment or personnel there on a full-time basis. We also learned about a variety of things to, I think, over the long haul, to be more efficient at protecting structures.

But there has been this dichotomy in the firefighting community between wildland and structural firefighting. It's very different.

CRAIG: Well, that's so true, and as my colleague from Oregon has said, both he and I have dealt with these issues for a good long while, and in my reasonably short tenure here, the whole dialogue has changed from fighting fires to save, if you will, watersheds and wildlife habitat and trees, to a focus on saving structures. And that's happened within the decade.

And clearly, it does bleed resources dramatically. And the need to understand that and have our policy reflect that, and that's why we've gone at this urban wildlands interface, the policies that we talked about the Senator Bingaman participated with Senator Domenici in some of the new approaches is absolutely critical, as we deal with this.

But I think the public needs to understand that as well. And when the resources are limited, then there is a division as to how you approach this.

LYONS: I think there's another element I would share with you, Mr. Chairman. And when we met in your office, we had a discussion about the acres that burned, and the different land types that burned. And I know you have a chart -- we've got a little pie chart. Maybe it will make it easy, since I'm one of those visual types. We can work off either one. But if we can put this pie chart up.

You had asked a question about the acres burned in roadless areas versus wilderness areas versus already roaded areas. And I think this helps to illustrate the fact that, you know, about a third of the acres burned this year were in each of those categories of land. But if we flip back to the chart that Mike put up, I think it helps to illustrate something.

One of the reasons we have so many acres calculated in the wilderness and roadless area is we did not make nearly as significant investment in fighting fire in those areas, either because they didn't endanger communities, weren't as much concerned, at least in a busy fire season, in terms of public health and safety.

So, spending $17 an acre, for example, on the wilderness complex in the Bitterroot National Forest as opposed to $244 an acre in the Clear Creek fire, we would expect more acres to burn in that wilderness area. And in fact, we also need to point out, that although we report acres burned, what we're really reporting is the perimeter of a fire, not every acre within that perimeter has burned. So, that's really not an accurate term.

My point is that, I think one of the reasons that we have numbers that we have this year in terms of the acres that burned in wilderness and roadless areas as opposed to roaded areas, is because we did not attack fires as aggressively in those wilderness and roadless areas simply because we focused on communities at risk. We made much larger investments there to try and reduce the extent of fire, where we clearly thought there was a public threat.

And I just offer that as a response to one of the issues that we had discussed previously.

CRAIG: Well, let me keep this chart up, and we'll discuss acreages for a little bit and application to acreages.

CRAIG: Jim, I'm going to be blunt, as I usually am. What you've just told us is a slight change in story. A week ago, the administration and others were suggesting that more fire - more acreages were burned in those lands that had been actively managed, if you will.

Now, that just ain't so. Now you're saying, well, we applied less application to those areas. Well, of course you did. And that's not been uncharacteristic for some time.

Wilderness areas and inventoried roadless areas are managed in like ways. We do not manage inventoried roadless areas. They are wilderness in character, and that's exactly where the president is trying to drive us today with a new roadless area policy. He's talked in glowing terms about the quality of these lands and the wilderness- like characteristics and all of that.

The bottom line, and I believe these figures are accurate and the record ought to demonstrate it, and that is that 64 percent of the land that burned this year, in total acreage, to date, was in wilderness and wilderness-like areas known as inventoried roadless areas.

Now, there's also, and we know it, you know it, there's a different characteristic of the fires involved there, too. And that's the intensity of the burn and therefore the destructiveness of the burn as it relates to the environment and the ecosystems involved. In most instances, fuel loading is greater there because man has not been there, in whatever form, whether it be to cut trees or thin or to reduce fuels. As a result of that, we know that those are significantly stand all during fires.

That's why I have this chart up. I was very frustrated when I began to hear a bit of a flow of rhetoric that was appearing to justify an ongoing effort by this administration in the Roadless Area Initiative.

Now, I'm not going to stay on this issue, because it's an issue that we will stay on until it's finalized and then we'll still try to change it, because I think it's wrong. But do you agree with what I've just said as it relates to total areas burned and the characteristics as it relates to management of inventory roadless versus wilderness? Dividing the two sounds interesting, when in fact, the mindset of management suggests that they are both very similar and the president's rhetoric would argue the same.

LYONS: Well, let me respond this way, Senator Craig. Although we had more acres burned in roadless -- in wilderness areas, I would not jump to the conclusion that those were more intense fires. We're doing that analysis now. I think, more importantly, as I tried to illustrate, the fact that we had more acres burned is more a function of the fact that we did not invest as much effort in addressing the fires.

In many instances, the fact that these areas were burned in larger acreages was simply a matter of the fact that we did not address these in larger concern. And the relationship between timbering and non-timbering, I don't think is a solid one.

CRAIG: I'm not going to make that argument. I'm going to make a simple argument of total acres burned.

LYONS: Well, let me emphasize two points, Mr. Chairman.

CRAIG: Because that was the argument being made a week ago by the administration in general terms.

LYONS: But I think to -- the real question is, what does it matter if more acres burned in wilderness and roadless. What matters most is our capacity to fight fire. We have the same capability and the same track record in putting out fires on initial attack in roadless areas as we do in roaded areas. And in fact, we find that the higher fuel risk areas, 85 percent are in already roaded areas.

So, the roadless policy is not interfering with our capacity to fight fire, nor is it leading to larger conflagrations. We just have a situation where we have more acres burned that were roadless and wilderness, simply because we did not attack those fires as aggressively.

CRAIG: A question as it relates to what you've just said as it relates to examining for intensity. You are not yet aware of the intensity of these fires in the roadless areas?

LYONS: We're doing that analysis now. We've spent all of our time and effort and resources on fighting those fires. That's why I also suggested, Mr. Chairman, that the accuracy of the figures related to acres burned is questionable, because with regard to those fires in remote areas, we made estimates of fire perimeters.

CRAIG: Well, the reason I asked that question is that on the 10th, Chief, you said the reality is we have higher fire intensity in roaded areas than in roadless areas.

Now, the secretary says you don't know yet, but you've just said you do.

LYONS: Let me just clarify that. I was talking about understanding the intensity of these fires in roadless and remote areas, because we haven't had the time to look at those. I think we have some pretty good information, because we've invested a great deal of energy and resources in fighting those roaded areas, and we know...

CRAIG: Well, then we will let the chief correct his statement for the record. We know the fires are intense in roaded areas, but we don't know about roadless areas yet. Would that be more proper?

DOMBECK: Well, look at the burn area within the perimeter of just the example. If I could get Dave to put the example up there, if we take a look at. And I'm not suggesting that we draw hard conclusions from this at this point, because we'll have more detail.

But what we see in acres burned within the perimeter, a comparison of 50 percent in the wilderness complex, 73 percent within the Clear Creek fire and about 71 percent in the Valley complex. So, I think...

You know, there's a mosaic within these, so also my -- the perimeter is also an overestimate on all fires.

CRAIG: I appreciate that. I've flown most of these fires.

I'm going to get off of this, OK, and move to my colleague from Oregon. But let me suggest, gentlemen, there is a very interesting hint of rhetoric trying to justify a policy that this administration's aggressively pushing through at this moment, and it is your job to push through. I find that coincidentally interesting. I'll pass it to Ron -- Senator Wyden.

WYDEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me begin by saying as we go into these couple of weeks or remaining time for the session, I'm committed to working with you particularly as we deal with this $1.6 billion request to find a common ground program for fighting fires.

And I believe that we can do it. I think that the two of us believe, and I think the American believe that the challenge is to protect people and to restore ecosystems. Those are the two matters that have to be addressed. And part of what I think our challenge might be, and we've talked about it, Mr. Chairman, is some of the polarizing semantics of the past, just, you know, roadless versus roaded, timber sale versus restoration, is part of what we have to get beyond. And I want to ask a few questions to see if we can do it.

Now, of that $1.6 billion, Mr. Lyons, start by telling us how much is going to go directly to on the ground activities in communities across this country? Where's that $1.6 billion dollars going to go on the ground in communities around the country?

LYONS: Let pull out my breakdown here, Senator Wyden.

Roughly, the way we would break down that investment is, about $340 million would be for fire preparedness resources and $88 million would be...

WYDEN: Fire preparedness means, you know, money for firefighters, that kind of direct assistance there?

LYONS: Yes. Suppression support.

WYDEN: Suppression? OK.

LYONS: Exactly. $390 million would be for fuels treatment in burned area restoration. So, that represents the investments in rehab that we're doing now, as well as additional investments in fuel treatment to prevent future fires.

WYDEN: That money is on the restoration side?

LYONS: Yes.

WYDEN: And is that commercial -- is that activity that can be commercial and non-commercial, because as you know, one of the areas that is constantly at the source of the friction in the Northwest is whether that work is commercial or non-commercial.

LYONS: Our focus there is primarily on fuel treatment and thinning and non-commercial work. You know, that's not to say that in certain circumstances that there wouldn't be an economic value for the materials removed. And in fact, as Mike has emphasized, we need to develop markets for this small diameter material.

But our primary focus there is in fuel treatment dollars, and we've drawn a distinction between commercial and non-commercial precisely for the reasons that you discussed, so we don't create confusion, generate public concern that we're trying to create an excuse to do something. We're trying to work together to treat landscapes.

WYDEN: Take us through the rest of the 1.6.

LYONS: And then, the $70 million for would be to replenish and enhance current fire suppression accounts, monies borrowed from KV (ph) and other sources so we can make the current accounts whole.

So, just to recap, $340 million for preparedness, $88 million for coop programs in the support of local communities. That's to assist local firefighting organizations, to assist communities with economic support, et cetera. $390 million for fuels treatment and burned area restoration, and then $770 million to replenish existing accounts. That's a rough breakdown.

WYDEN: OK. Now, how do you envisage with that breakdown, local communities being involved in the process and having those local folks being employed? Because the issue that comes up at every town hall meeting in Idaho and Oregon is how local communities will be involved, and how local residents are going to get jobs as a result of that.

LYONS: The short answer is that there are a lot of approaches. Maybe I'll yield to Mike to offer some examples, as well as Tom from the standpoint of BLM's work on it.

DOMBECK: For example, in the burned area emergency rehabilitation on the 400,000 acres that I mentioned, and $34 million committed now, a large portion of that work is carried out by local contractors, people that have the equipment to do the work. It involves things like seeding hillsides, water bars to reduce soil erosion, replacement of culverts. As we do part of the assessment is to determine the change in the hydrologic function of the watershed. Are we going to have a slug of water come through that will take out a road and a culvert and add additional sediment in the streams that influence the fish spawning habitat. And things like that, so that's one piece that's ongoing now.

A second piece is, as I indicated in the principles developed by the Forest Service that we focused on is that we're going to continue to encourage service contracts, those kinds of things, you know, knowing that in most cases, we've got to make investments here now, and it's going to take us a while to recoup that and get the land back into shape, but the bulk of this work will be carried out by people in local communities, contractors, townships, counties, those kinds of things.

And the estimate is that in the Forest Service we're assuming that we'll create about 8,000 jobs in doing this. I think we've got some experience with the Jobs in the Woods program.

WYDEN: You believe that 8,000 jobs will be created as result of the $1.6 billion dollar package? The $1.6 billion package will translate into 8,000 jobs in these rural communities that are most directly affected is your calculus?

DOMBECK: That's right.

WYDEN: OK. One other question on this point and you've touched on it. How will decision process go so that these local communities, in addition to the jobs, and that's encouraging news to hear about the 8,000 jobs, how will the decision making process go forward to get the input of these local communities so they don't come back to the chairman and I and say, "The Beltway's telling us, you know, you've got to do it their way and they're not listening to some of our suggestions."

DOMBECK: One of the directions that we've moving toward and I think we've learned from some of the BLM experiences with the resource advisory councils is both the payments to states legislation that you discussed earlier includes provision for local collaboration and advisory council-type mechanisms and as do our planning, new planning regulations that will be out soon.

We hope to learn from BLM's experience as to what worked, what didn't and how to configure these and really, directly involve groups like that in prioritizing projects.

WYDEN: Good.

LYONS: Can I make...

WYDEN: Excuse me?

LYONS: I was just going to make one point an example that I know you're familiar with, Senator Wyden, and that's the Blue Mountains Project on the east side is an excellent example where we want to sit down with communities and reach consensus where we can on how we can work together to address these field treatment efforts.

Another good example the Forest Service is working now in the Four Corners area on a project where they are working to enhance the economic well-being of communities while investing these field treatments efforts and looking for new markets for the materials that will be taken out of the woods as a part of our fuel treatment work.

WYDEN: With the chairman's leave and his graciousness, I'm going to ask one more on this round and that involves this question of fire suppression.

On this fire suppression issue conceptually, how do you see this if, in any way, being changed in the years ahead? As you know, this also has been very continuous in the West in terms of just what its role ought to be.

And what, if any, changes do you envisage for the longer term in the role of fire suppression?

LYONS: Well, I think to some degree -- I know to some degree that policy has already changed. Following the wildfires of 1994, the departments of Agriculture and Interior came together and developed the Wildland Fire Policy in 1995, where we recognized the fuel treatments were of concern but we also emphasized the fact that we needed turn away from a suppression policy and look more at how we manage fire on landscapes so that we can begin to restore it to those systems.

LYONS: The fire regime map that I put up is a tool that helps us determine where we need to restore fire to those fire adapted systems. It's a matter of making a judicious use of resources, and also decisions about where fire can be allowed to burn, where we can do fuel treatment, where can we introduce fire so we can get back to a system where periodic low intensity fires are the norm as opposed to these catastrophic events.

WYDEN: Mr. Chairman, thank you.

CRAIG: Thank you very much.

Chief Dombeck, I sent to you on June 30 a letter in relation to, or a concern about fire retardants the Forest Service is using to fight fires and I don't have a response to that yet.

If you could dredge that up and get me a response, I'll also put some additional questions in the record. It relates to the character of the fire retardant and its environmental impact, and I know that you all went ahead to use the retardant this summer. And I think it's a concern that we all have as it relates to that retardant and the Canadian history of that retardant as it relates to fish and fish kill.

As I mentioned in my opening statement, I want to follow a patterning of questioning this morning to talk about some of the things that we've said, some of the things that you've said, some of the agency activities that went on pre-season, and then we want to get into the balance of what you're proposing and where we can assist you in doing so.

Tom, in light of your opening statement, you talked about assessing and recognizing the character of the season that was at hand relatively early on and therefore in your preparedness to do, you took certain steps.

Let me start out with a concern is at relates to the director of the office of fire and aviation, Les Rosenkrance. He reported in January of this year, January 3, 2000, in a memo to you, that cuts in funding were resulting in insufficient training and lower staffing, and that FY 2000 and FY 2001, the BLM would only be able to fund fire operations at 83 percent of the most efficient level.

What is the most efficient level and what are the consequences of funding at only 83 percent and there's a copy of the Rosenkrance memo to you. If in fact, you were recognizing the need, why did we have that kind of a reduction in preparedness?

FRY: Well, first off let me start of by saying that Mr. Rosenkrance was a long-term career civil servant who served in many capacities in the government, someone that I have a great deal of respect for and I count as a friend and a colleague.

And the matters that he brought up in his memorandum are things that we have been talking about for a number of years. Many of the things that he brings up in that discussion are things that are in the report that was done in 1995, concerns about fuels buildup.

If you look at some of the things we tried to do to respond to not only the concerns about this year, but also to Mr. Rosenkrance's memo, first, we have to look at the timeframe here. Remember that this year, the year we are fighting, the fires we are fighting today, are year 2000 budget numbers.

That was passed by this Congress last November and signed into law. I believe the final appropriations bills were in November last year. So, the money for this year was already in place. So, when Mr. Rosenkrance wrote the memo in January, those numbers were already there.

But that didn't prevent us from continuing to be concerned about that. We went to the Congress after that and got some reprogramming of money to go over on the preparedness side from the operations side. Additionally, the administration, at that time, was requesting about $100 million in additional operation money that ultimately became $350 million, which the Congress funded this last summer.

Thirdly, we decided that it was time to make sure we started using our abilities on the severity account to pre-position people using about $22 million of money that we had available to us. Those are dollars that we did not use in the past. We used about $2 million.

So those are some actions that we took in response to that memo, because it does cause...

CRAIG: Did we give you any supplemental money, or did you request any supplemental money besides reprogramming?

FRY: You did. You replenished -- what happened is we were running out of our operation account at the end of the year 2000. And through the process, the emergency funding process for all the agencies, I believe the number was $350 million for operation, which is the money we ended up spending and have now run out of this year. That money is now gone and part of the $1.6 billion request by the president for emergency funding is to replenish some of those dollars.

CRAIG: OK.

FRY: So, as we look at our preparedness, obviously the Bureau has been concerned about making sure that we had sufficient dollars in place to engage in the kind of preparedness that needs to be done.

As we've all talked about, when this concept of MEL came into place, we weren't really all talking about this urban wildland interface. Everybody seemed to agree that some sort of percentage of maximum efficient level might be something that worked. And we used a kind of a 10-year average to look at how we decided what kind of funds should be used. Unfortunately, as we've all learned, this 10-year average is not going to work for us. We ended up with a 50-year event this year.

But I think that we have to be prepared not to look back 10 years, but as we deal with this urban interface, it's becoming more expensive, we can't use those old kinds of formulas. I think those are some of the kinds of things that Mr. Rosenkrance was trying to point out to us and that we agree with him on. And I think that's why we all have an opportunity now to learn from all of that to work together and find the right kind of dollars to have the right kind of preparation for fires.

CRAIG: Where is Mr. Rosenkrance now?

FRY: He is retired.

CRAIG: Maybe that kind of expertise, you need to put him on retainer.

FRY: We had hoped that he was going to stay with us, and I would love to have him back helping us on some other matters.

CRAIG: OK. In the Rosenkrance report, we talked about -- he talked about sufficient forces to fight fire and while there was some replenishment of money, he said, we will not -- accordance with BLM standards, so we will not staff them, did the BLM choose not to take suppression actions on any fires in 2000 due to insufficient forces?

FRY: This year, because of the kind of year it was, and because we decided that this year a change of direction that we were going to protect communities and watersheds at risk, there were fires that we allowed to burn this year. Whereas if we had more people, we might have had more people on some of those fires that we allowed to burn.

But we set as a priority protecting communities and watersheds and other things at risk. It's obvious that if you have twice as many people, you can fight twice as many fires. I don't think any of us are talking about the fact that we need to have a firefighting capability every year to deal with the worst year.

But I think it is important to note that if we would have had more people, yes, we would have had more people on the fire line. But our biggest concern this year was not in terms of individual firefighters. It was in terms of supervisory firefighters.

The military is great to have as a backup to bring in a battalion. But it takes 35 people to support a battalion. People who are experienced in fire, people who know fire strategy, who can make sure that fires are fought in a safe way, and you have to have those kinds of people. Those are the kinds that we brought in from other countries. That's what we brought in from New Zealand, from Australia, people that had that kind of expertise. Then we can bring in additional firefighters.

So, it wasn't for us this year really a question of how many firefighters we had available. It was a question of how many supervisory employees.

This is going to be a problem that we all have to face. We have an aging work force. The average age in the Bureau of Land Management now is 48 years old. These are people, many of the supervisors are people who now have families at home. They're not ready to rush right out the door. For firefighting it is a second job. It's not like something, for a lot of these supervisors, it's not something they do all day, every day. They have other jobs. We have got to start spending more of our effort and more of our dollars on making sure we get these people properly trained, young people properly trained, and get them into the work force.

CRAIG: So, I guess, and I want to conclude this so that Senator Wyden can ask another round. The Rosenkrance memo is a yes-no. Yes, we didn't have enough to fight all of the fires, but no, we changed our strategy and our policy, so therefore.

FRY: So therefore.

CRAIG: You know, I've grown up around the interagency center in Boise. I know of people who fight fires in the summertime and who've done it for a decade, as you say, as a second job, if you will, many of them educators, teachers.

But one of the things that I've expressed to the chief, I've expressed to Jim and I've talked with the folks at FEMA about it and you talk about having more people available, but not being able to staff for the 50 or the 100 year fire season. As a budget conservative, I'm going to agree with you. But I'm also going to tell you, Jim and I, or Mike and I reminisced about this on that plane trip that Jim Lyons mentioned.

I grew up in an environment in which the BLM, every spring, dropped of a fire cache at our family's ranch. In firefighting in the West, on the range lands of the West, the ranchers were the first line of defense for decades. Oftentimes the fire was out before the BLM could get there, or pre-BLM.

That changed. And I understand why it changed. For liability issues and all of those kinds of things. But in all seriousness, Tom, it is damn easy to train and maintain for these kinds of crisis environments, a citizen group, not unlike FEMA, to be ready when necessary, but not to be the front line of defense. And that is a phenomenally inexpensive thing to do, to train and card these people and have them ready.

There was a tremendous frustration in my state this year, as Idaho citizens watched their state burn, and their trees burn and their grass burn and their watersheds burn and their habitat burn, that they were not allowed to be participants in stopping it.

And we'll discuss that more in detail, because there's got to be a way to solve that. And I think there is a way and I think we agree, generally, that that's a very inexpensive -- that doesn't replace all of what you want to do. It just adds a second force out there in times of crisis.

Let me turn to my colleague from Oregon, Senator Wyden.

WYDEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

A question for you, Mr. Dombeck. If you listen to the $1.6 billion dollar allocation, or I put in it the prism if somebody in the Northwest came to a town meeting and heard that, they'd say, well, $340 million goes into on the ground activities, you know, directly. And a whole bunch of money has to go, understandably to pay the back bills, because it was so great this year. But they're going to say, $340 million went to on the ground activities.

I personally believe that there is going to have to be a long- term commitment from those in your, you know, position and all of you at the table, into on the ground activities, the whole array of activities: restoration work, thinning work, you know, the native plants, all of those kinds of things.

What do you think the long-term investment in our land is going to have to be to turn around this crisis situation?

DOMBECK: Well, the investment is going to have to be significant and as Jim mentioned in his statement that this is basically a one year proposal and I can guarantee you that, you know, the employees of the Forest Service and I will be working hard in odd years to make sure that we deal with this issue and are appropriately funded.

And I want to make a couple of points along those lines. We're -- the Forest Service is 21 percent smaller today than it was in the early '90s as a result of the age demographics of the organization that Tom mentioned and other things. We have about 42 percent of the Forest Service work force that's currently eligible to retire.

And we've got to start replenishing that work force and doing the training and the mentoring and make sure that the institutional knowledge doesn't retire before we can make the connection with the new people coming on line and our goal for 2001 is to hire 1500 new employees. Most would be at the field level, many associated directly with this kind of work.

And also, employees that will increase our contracting capabilities so we can deal with the service contracts and other kinds of things at a greater rate than we can deal with that now.

And as you and I, and as well as Senator Craig have visited before, I think we're sitting on a local jobs program. Probably second to none since the 1930s and the CCC era.

DOMBECK: If we take a look at the infrastructure problems, whether it's road maintenance, you can go to park housing issues and a lot of the infrastructure that was built 30, 40 or 50 years ago, as well as then deal with the thinning, the fuel treatment, the restoration work that's going to be required. The public is less accepting of soil disturbing activities, so we've got to use more 'light on the land' technologies and things like that.

So, I think we just have tremendous opportunities to work with local communities and focusing on jobs in this route.

So, I see most of this connected right to making a difference on the land in the local communities.

WYDEN: What kind of monitoring program are you all going to have in place to make sure that the money does get into on the ground activities?

DOMBECK: I've sat, in fact, yesterday and over the last couple days have met with the business operation side of the Forest Service, the chief operating officer, to focus on measurable achievements that we can monitor on a quarterly basis within the agency and focus on acreage...

WYDEN: When would that go into effect?

DOMBECK: That will go into effect starting on October 1.

WYDEN: So, starting on October 1, we'll be able to monitor where the money goes and the additional money, in terms of on the ground activities and local jobs created and this sort of thing.

DOMBECK: Specifically on the ground activities in terms of acres treated, that's most important. Because when we just take a look at the money and we don't take a look at the achievements, this leads to a dichotomy that's kind of interesting.

When we deal with prescribed fire and we use straight cost accounting, the cheapest acres, where we can get the most acres for a thousand dollars or a million dollars, are often the cheapest acres. But those are not the highest acres at risk. The highest acres at risk are the expensive acres, so if you look at from the standpoint of pure accounting, in fact, I think we've skewed the system somewhat, because it's a lot cheaper to do prescribed fire, say, in the Southeast than it is in the inner-mountain West.

WYDEN: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to have to get out the door, but just one comment before I wrap up. As I look at this $1.6 billion and our challenge now in terms of, as you've described, our working together to put together a package, it seems to me we've got a variety of areas where we can find common ground.

In terms of the funding approach, we have heard from both sides of the aisle and the administration that we can get support for both preparedness and restoration, which will clearly address certainly what folks in industry and folks on the environmental side have been interested in.

I think we can get a sense of priorities in terms of where those dollars ought to go and what we heard today, again, on both sides of dais, is it ought to go into on the ground activities and it ought to employ local folks.

We're going to need to have a monitoring program to make sure that the dollars are spent well, and Mr. Dombeck has said that starting in October, we'll get a quarterly report on it. And it seems to me it then leaves us with the one issue that has been most contentious, the area of disagreement, which involves the roadless kind of discussion.

And I want it understood that I'm going to do my best to work with you and with the administration, to see if even on that point we can get away from some of the polarization in the past and produce a package that protects people and restores ecosystems.

So, I believe on the basis of this hearing and working together as you and I have for now almost 20 years, Mr. Chairman, we can produce a very solid package with that supplemental request.

I look forward to working with you on it. To all of you, let's go at it like we did with the county payments issue and I think the people of this country will benefit.

And I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CRAIG: Ron, before you leave, in direct light of your questioning as it relates to what Jim and Mike and Tom are talking about here, and Mike likening it to a 1930s job programs opportunity for local communities, one of the problems we will have, if we fail to sustain this long term, is that we won't have the infrastructure, because it won't form to do the kind of work that they're expecting on the ground. One of my great frustrations is how you accomplish that.

Now, you and I may have found a bit of a key to that with the advisory groups, the collaborative groups that we are creating out of this legislation you spoke to earlier. Jim has talked about their proposal as it relates to something not unlike what the BLM has done, and that is their acts, their advisory groups and possibly those groups, properly formed, can also serve to monitor the effectiveness on the ground.

But if we're not actually achieving something out on the ground, and we can't report it back to this authorizing committee, and to the appropriations committee, then the long-term character of sustaining this, in light of the billions of dollars it's going to take over time, asking the American taxpayer to pay for it, isn't going to happen.

And therefore, the infrastructure's not going to develop in Pineville, Oregon, or Orofino, Idaho. And there'll be no reason for it to develop if they can't look long-term in the out years and say yes, I can go out and buy this rubber-tired equipment to do the kinds of things the Forest Service wants done, or the BLM wants done, and I can pay for it in a contractual way. And I can develop a labor force and train them accordingly.

That's going to be our challenge. And that's now, of course, the challenge that we have by depletion of work force. And I'll get into the line of questioning in a moment, whether it's incident commanders or fire chiefs out there on the ground that we ran into trouble with this year.

So, thank you very much for that line of questioning. I see that as our challenge or one of many that we're going to have to deal with here.

Ron, thank you for being with us. Travel safely.

Gentlemen, let me go now to another concern that I have. FY 2001 budget justification for the BLM includes a table, which showed the BLM make an initial request to the Department of Interior $400 million for wildland fire management. However, the final request to Congress shows only $300 million. At the same time, BLM requested $50 million for land acquisition, and of course, the politics of that movement increased it to $60 million.

Tom, how was it determined that the final request for Congress should include less money for fire management and more money for land acquisition? I mean, I guess my reaction to that is this summer you couldn't manage the land you got, why do you want to buy more?

FRY: Let me go back just a bit, if I can, Mr. Chairman.

CRAIG: But please address the consequence of this kind of movement. These are the kind of memos we never see. We get to see the far right line, if you will, on that. That's what ultimately comes to us. What I am saying is it looks like the people in BLM down in the bowels did what they should have in good faith, and they got caught up in politics.

FRY: Well, it was the BLM recommendation

CRAIG: That's correct.

FRY: It comes out of my office.

CRAIG: Those are the folks that I trust.

FRY: OK. What's not on this chart is the request that BLM would have liked to have had for additional money for oil and gas inspections, additional money for invasive species, additional money for law enforcement to provide safe visits.

There are a number of things when you go into a budget process where you go in and say, here's what our needs are. And the reason I want to back up, just very briefly, is that we all live now under the Balanced Budget Act that was agreed to by the president and the Congress in terms of how we will fund our agencies.

And we're given targets that we're supposed to meet when we start preparing our budgets. What happened in this particular case is I looked at the Bureau of Land Management and said, I think that this Bureau is not doing the job it should do for the American people, because I think it is under-funded. We're not doing what we need to in terms of dealing with our planning processes, taking care of wild horses and burros and fire preparedness in any number of areas.

So, the request that I made was outside of those guidelines that were given by the office of management and budget and by the department. And I said this is what our true needs are.

I'm glad I did that, because our true needs, I think, were recognized in a general way, relative to whether it's fire preparedness or other things where there were increases. There are other areas that went up higher. So, I'm trying to paint you a picture of this is as somewhat of an apples and oranges to the extent that we were all living within some budgetary constraints.

Additionally, though, I don't see -- there's no -- for my purposes, there was no relationship between land and water conservation fund money or Lands Legacy money and the fire preparedness. These things -- the Lands Legacy was a project that lots of people were looking at. It was additional dollars. They looked at those additional dollars on top of our other programs. And I never had anybody come to me and say, you need to give up money in any of your programs in order to fund Lands Legacy or any other program.

So, putting a budget together is a complicated process. There are lots of tradeoffs. But I never saw a tradeoff between those two.

CRAIG: Well, my only observation is that the fire versus Land Legacy and that's why I focus on it, the largest reduction or cut in the process came under fire preparedness. And the largest increase came in Land Legacy. Now, you can divert the attention, if you will, to invasive species and police protection and all of that. And I don't disagree with you in any respect.

But I know the politics of where we've been the last few years. And it's interesting, to me, at least, that the largest reduction comes at a time when the alarms bells are going off that you may be headed into some fire problems. And when the political bells are going off that somebody wants to acquire more properties for environmental purposes, that's my observation. You can draw your own conclusions. That's why I brought this issue, and that's why it became a public issue during the fire season.

FRY: I would point out, Senator, that on the -- the Lands Legacy piece for the Bureau of Land Management basically is our dollars -- would the out of the land and water conservation fund. That's the BLM piece of Lands Legacy. And it was looking at a full...

CRAIG: But it still counts against the budget cap. And that's what drives the process.

FRY: I understand.

CRAIG: Because I would hate to ask this nasty question. Surely, none of those Land Legacy monies went to increase national monuments.

FRY: To increase them?

CRAIG: Increase the number or the studies and the proposals that your ultimate boss has been basking in?

FRY: No, the Lands Legacy -- the land and water conservation fund money goes to purchase lands. We haven't purchased any national monuments.

CRAIG: OK.

LYONS: Mr. Chairman, could I make a point since we're going to talk about budgets? I think it's one that you and recognize and we ought to be up front about. And that is in the context of preparing budgets and dealing with an issue like fire, we've had a tremendous history of success in working with the Congress in getting funds, particularly after the fact, to replenish accounts associated with fighting wildfire.

We have not had as much success in obtaining the funds to do some of the other things, including investing in things like fuel treatments, as we would have liked.

I think to some degree, as budgets are prepared and presented, is an assumption that if there are additional fire costs in a given year that working with the Congress, we can secure those funds, oftentimes out of emergency funds, which don't count against the budget caps.

So, I'm sure that that is a factor that comes into consideration. It certainly is one up here, and it certainly is one as we construct budgets. And we just need to face that reality if we could agree to make additional investments up front in things like fuels treatment and other activities, which is what we're discussing here, it would be a much wiser investment.

But I think that's a factor that does come into play here and maybe at least in some the numbers that you see.

CRAIG: Jim, you and I have had a tug of war over budgets now for a good long while.

LYONS: Yes, we have.

CRAIG: You're absolutely right. There's a question called integrity. And when Congress appropriates money that the money go where it's intended to go at the time it's argued before the appropriating committees and the authorizing committees. You and I and the chief have been around this path a good many times about money moving to other areas or to initiatives that weren't even on the table at the time the budgets came about.

And you've got a good many of them underway at this moment out there that are costing staff time and people, never presented to a Congress. Now, you're going to get fire money and I hope that we don't draw the general assumption that you're going to assume that you're going to get fire money anyway and so you can continue to do this.

That does not build the credibility that you and I have to deal with here to justify going to my colleagues and saying -- and to the American people -- and saying these are very real needs. The dialogue I just had with my ranking member is to build a record that says we've got to sustain certain levels of dollars and cents for specific purposes.

And we ought to go out on the ground and measure them. If we do that and all of a sudden, oops, there goes $10 million to this, quote "political initiative", or $10 million over here to another "political initiative", or, let me say, an environmental initiative or another initiative driven by politics. Maybe that's a better way of saying it.

Creditability erodes. There's a very high value in upfrontness in dealing with our colleagues as we deal with balanced budgets and budget caps and all that it takes to get the money we're going to get.

CRAIG: If we're going to bump the caps, and in bumping the caps, we're going to put upwards of nearly $2 billion into what you're proposing, somewhere in that range, 1.6, 1.8, will nudge it up. You're going to have a better analysis of it after the fact as we finalize this season and you see additional dollars that are necessary. You've got a very willing Congress out there right now to say, yes, we can do that. A couple of reasons: the nature of the crisis, the public awareness of the crisis and the reality that we have. Fortunately, a surplus at this moment and extra dollars to deal with.

Now that we've got to maintain our credibility here.

LYONS: I couldn't agree more, Mr. Chairman. But as you know, the appropriations committees have done a very good job of monitoring any transfer of funds and have reprogramming requirements. We don't violate those reprogramming requirements.

In addition, I think you know from our conversations and you know from commitments that the president is making here and our recommendations from the two departments that we're talking about dollars to be invested in addressing what is clearly a national concern in dealing with the wildfire impacts we've had in preventing future wildfires.

So, those monies will go into projects. We can guarantee that we'll have an accountability measure for every dollar spent.

CRAIG: Let me ask all of you right now. The hearing that I'm going to be holding probably in the Salmon area on the 23rd, well, there will be a hearing on the 23rd in Salmon, but the nature of the hearing -- I think I would like to put together a panel of incident commanders. And I'd let you help shape that, obviously, to get those folks there who could talk to us in terms of what they saw and what they experienced and some of their needs, also. It isn't in this instance at all that I don't trust what you're saying, it's that I want to build the record to substantiate where we want to head in dealing with these kinds of issues.

So, if you'd make note of that, I'd greatly appreciate it.

LYONS: We'd be pleased to help you, Mr. Chairman.

CRAIG: Incident commanders, fire chiefs, people on the ground leads me to my next concern.

The president of the National Federation of Federal Employees Local 1241 states in a memo: to all concerned parties, dated August 15 that he believes that the administration, quote "decided to risk not funding a basic firefighting work force to help fund the roadless and other Washington office programs. So you see, it isn't just paranoid Larry Craig. You've got employees inside the system that are making similar allegations.

Further, he states that because of this decision, the national forests are at risk. He further reports that current agency downsizing has come at a cost to ground resources with few projects being done, while building up the Washington office to do national issue type work.

How would you respond to that? I guess that's to you, Mike.

DOMBECK: I share many of the same concerns with regard to the level of capability in the field. When you stepped out just a minute ago, I was telling Senator Wyden that in our work force analysis our goal is to hire 1500 new employees next fiscal year, most of which will be in the field, many of which will be dedicated to fire and -- as we attempt to rebuild that work force.

So, the entire work force -- and this is a problem that's not just unique to the Forest Service. Tom expressed similar concerns with BLM and I think if we would look at most agencies across government, we'd see a sort of a demographic trend that's very similar and we need to get on top of it. And I think one of the very positive outcomes of the level of visibility this year will be this very issue.

With regard to the overall size of the Washington office in general, I just have some numbers here. For example in 1995 we had 949 employees in the Washington office. Today we have 820.

As you know, and this has caused us challenges in other areas, like financial management and accountability where we have talked on that subject at numerous private meetings as well as hearings where we reduced our capability in administration by 1300 employees and now we face significant challenges in that area. And it's -- it's an area we just continually have to focus on and work together to, you know, achieve the goals that we need and work hard to give more money to the ground.

CRAIG: Mike, I'll move to another issue, but if you would respond to us specific to the points made in additional follow up, we'd appreciate it, I think. I mean, these are very -- when you have people inside in the agency saying these kinds of things, I think we need substantiation for the record. If you would do that, I'd appreciate it.

DOMBECK: I'd be happy to do it. In fact, I'm meeting with union leadership next week. We routinely meet with our partnership council and that meeting we'll hear next Wednesday.

FRY: Senator, if I could just add, you know, from -- under Mike's leadership when he was at the Bureau of Land Management, the Washington office went from an office of about 600 to about 300 and we've maintained that level. It's not a growing organization. It's a much shrinking organization. We're pushing all of our people and money that we have to the field.

CRAIG: Well, the memo makes the argument that GS-14 and above are increasing, sixes are going down and if we're talking about personnel on the ground, and that's what we're talking about at this moment, we had a personnel crisis this summer as a result of not having the talented people in place.

LYONS: Mr. Chairman, can I just make one point, because this is important. If you just look at the demographics of the organization, both Mike and Tom have talked about the aging work force they have. Of course, as people get on in the organization, they are going to raise in grade level.

So, if you just look at the structure of the organization now, naturally we're going to have more people at a higher grade level, because we have not had the capacity to recruit and bring younger people in. That could be just an arcane element associated with the structure of the organization we face now, and I think both Tom and Mike recognize how critical it is to bring new employees in so they can get proper training and assume leadership roles sooner than we probably have the luxury to wait for.

CRAIG: Well, Jim, you and I both know what happens in corporate America when all of a sudden there a lot of chiefs and no Indians.

LYONS: I just have two chiefs here today.

CRAIG: That entity out in the marketplace tends to be less viable. Let's look at this and I'd appreciate your response to that, Chief.

In a memo to the chief of the Forest Service, dated August 11, 2000 the Forest Service regional foresters expressed concern that the, quote "many reply due letters from the staff in the Washington office and requested that such letters be eliminated with rare exception." In closing, the official sensed that the view from the Washington office is that it is business as usual.

Mr. Lyons (sic), how is it that as late as mid-August, such a memo had to be written. Now, we know this came from some regional foresters. They're very concerned that they were in the midst of a fire season, and yet the Washington office hadn't recognized it.

DOMBECK: Well, I would say the supervisors did exactly what they should do, and that's raise a concern to me on an issue, and I would assume they perhaps tried via phone calls and talking to others. I don't know that, and immediately upon receiving that memo, I issued the directive to the deputy chiefs that I expected them to personally review each reply due letter that went out to the field and approve it to see if it was necessary.

CRAIG: Well, we know the job that these two gentlemen have right now in assessing the damage that's been done and evaluating the kind of environmental restoration that has to go on, and therefore the kinds of budgets they're going to need to get that done.

That's a task in itself, let alone some of these other initiatives.

LYONS: Just to be clear, I think you know, Mr. Chairman, but Mike, with my concurrence and encouragement, sent direction to the field that the firefighting was our number one priority, particularly in addressing the issues of supervisory crews that Tom brought out. He made a number of efforts to try and identify additional crews that could help us bring on firefighters.

So, make no doubt about the fact that we've made firefighting our number one priority, even if it gets in the way of responding to a few letters.

CRAIG: Well, Jim, I understand that. I also understand that there was a suggestion that you could drop all other priorities, but there was initiative that had to stay on track, because it had a political timeliness to it.

Let me go to another memo. In a memo to the chief of the Forest Service dated June 1, 2000, a regional forester reports an inability to complete section seven consultations with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on much of the region's work due to lack of staffing.

The memo describes many types of projects, including ecosystem restoration burns and other fuel reduction activities that will receive no action. These projects were therefore not completed. How did you, Chief, respond to this memo?

DOMBECK: I note that that's addressed to the associate chief. I do not personally recall seeing that memo, but I'd be happy to provide a response for the record when I check back with staff.

CRAIG: If you would, please. I think that's critical. I mean, we're talking about fire or fuel reduction activities, fire reducing activities on the ground and rightfully so, you're all taking a bit of credit for some of those initiatives underway.

But we're also getting information that some of those initiatives didn't go forward, because they didn't have the staff to get it done. Now, what is required of the agencies to complete section seven consultation for fuel management planning and projects under the Endangered Species Act?

DOMBECK: Let me get to that, but along the lines of the same topic that the letter refers to, one of the things we've asked in the president's -- in the report to the president, is the need for resources for the regulatory agencies, because we need, if we're dealing with a backlog of section seven consultations or other things like that, that slows down projects and we need to move forward with that.

One of the points in the report to the president and the strategy that we're focusing on now is a rapid response team to deal with these issues. We, in fact, one of the responses to this letter, I believe, is the associate chief has talked to the leadership of the regulatory agencies and we're now in the process of developing joint memoranda of understanding to achieve the consultation work much more quickly, which I assume, I don't know for a fact, but I assume is a result of that kind of an alert.

CRAIG: Let me suggest this, because I see an ongoing or a potential problem. As you attempt to ramp up the ability to deal with fuel reduction, and the projects necessary, and the design of those projects to meet all of the laws and the critics and to get them done, and as you, of course, are required to address section seven consultation, that's kind of a tandem responsibility that's, I hope and I trust you will analyze out there to make sure that one doesn't lag for other. They've both got to be done, if this going to be the initiative that we track, the initiatives we fund and have accountability for.

LYONS: Mr. Chairman, I think the key there is just simply coordination and as we've experienced with other initiatives, a working relationship on the ground, we refer to the teams we've used in the past as level one teams, which are interagency in nature and can look at projects jointly, batch up those projects to more efficiently complete consultations makes all the difference in the world. That's one of the reasons we included it in the $1.6 billion request, additional funds for these kinds of activities.

CRAIG: OK. A question of both agencies. How do the agencies land use plans address wildfire suppression activities?

My point is -- we know now we are faced with wildfire activities maybe of a magnitude that we've never known before. We've got agency plans; we've got forest plans on a forest-by-forest basis. How are we making those compatible? Where are we?

Tom?

FRY: I wanted to check and make sure I had my answer right, but it is true that the BLM and the other interior agencies, as I understand it, all of our land management plans include all matters relative to the land, and that fire management and fire preparedness, the fire issues, are taken into account in those plans. You and I have had the opportunity to discuss the fact that the Bureau of Land Management, a number of our plans are becoming sorely outdated and this Congress...

CRAIG: Well, the point we're talking now, Tom, the urban interface wildlands specific to these new initiatives and the plans to date, are they reflective of those new circumstances?

FRY: In some cases they are, the ones that have been updated, the ones that have not been updated do not reflect those. We made a special budget request this year to start the process of getting those plans updated and it appears that Congress has been favorable, both in the House and the Senate, for providing funds for us to start updating our resource management plans.

CRAIG: Does the Forest Service want to respond to that, to my question?

DOMBECK: Some of the first generation plans do not address this, as I think we're in the same situation as the Bureau of Land Management is. However, some of the more up to date plans do, but all activities are still within the framework of the standards and guides of the forest plans.

But if we look at even the issue of prescribed fire that really started in the 1970s, we were still at the 'all fires out by 10:00 am' policy and really focused on total suppression. And that has -- that policy was formally adopted by the Forest Service in 1935 and as a result of what we learned in the 1970s, and then the initial focus of the Yellowstone fires in '94 and '96 and this year, will result in, I think, significant changes.

LYONS: This is one of the reasons, of course, Mr. Chairman, we're anxious to complete our planning rules, which are in final clearance now, to give us the flexibility to make adjustments in the plans as new scientific information is evidenced by what we've learned about wildfire comes to light.

So, where we have made plan revisions, I think we've incorporated these new policies. Where we need to, the new planning rules will provide us greater flexibility to get it done quickly.

DOMBECK: I believe the single biggest difference that we're facing is the, you know, you can call them urban wildland interface or communities at risk, but the density of people and structures adjacent and intermingled in these lands that we didn't have 20 and 30 and 40 years ago, if we look at the, you know, what's happening not only in Boise, but the Rocky Mountain front, the Cascades, the West Slope, California, it's really all over the country.

And it's bringing a whole new challenge to the whole operations of wildland fire and I think the policies that emanate from that.

CRAIG: My next line of questioning goes with the layering of policies and also the practical application of that in a fire scenario.

Like most of you, I tracked these fires this summer and was on the ground with several of them. I had a bulldozer operator tell me once this summer an incident that I think is reflective of a problem we have because we haven't figured out -- how to deal with it.

This is consistent with what I said in my opening statement. We've got a lot of endangered species management plans on the ground now, more compared with where we were in our last major fire season in '94 and '95. The dozer operator said this. He had an environmental officer walking along beside him as he was dozing a fireguard, telling him not to drop his blade, because it was a habitat area for an endangered species.

Now, dozer operators drop their blade, doze fireguards, you build backfire, you do all the kinds of things to stop a fire. He wasn't allowed to do that. So, he said, I stopped, shut off my cat and said when you're ready to fight fire, give me a call.

Now, here's my frustration. What, if any types of restrictions on wildfire suppression and activities do the agencies impose to protect threatened and endangered species, cultural resources, scenic views, wilderness areas and watersheds? That's the question. Obviously, my concern is a small strip that could have guarded off a fire wasn't built and probably the entire habitat went up in smoke. It wasn't very sound judgment. Somehow, we've not effectively dealt with that. That's a general criticism of policy and not the individuals involved. Or how we apply this and how these new policies fit in a catastrophic fire situation.

Your response to that, Mike?

DOMBECK: I guess I would, you know, I'd want to know a little bit more about those kinds of situations, but I do agree that I think overall, it's -- these are the kinds of questions that come up all of a sudden when we have a challenge like this to deal with.

CRAIG: I'm not disputing that. That's why I'm asking it now.

DOMBECK: There may be some unevenness in the way they're interpreted or in the views of the individuals that are forced to make the decisions on a case-by-case basis on the land.

LYONS: What I'd suggest, Mr. Chairman, you know, a good example is the Payette, where you and I have been, the trip we took out with the president. There Dave Alexander working in critical habitat for salmon and bull trout, has done an outstanding job in implementing procedures to minimize the impacts of firefighting on endangered species, while at the same time getting the job done.

One example is refueling pads for helicopters. The refueling tanks -- trucks are in an enclosed environment, so if there's a leakage, it's self-contained, and we can avoid impact. Areas are roped off where -- around fire camps, for example, impacts on the repairing areas can be minimized.

I think the important thing is that we want to fight fire, but we want to make sure that the treatment or what occurs there isn't worse than the cure, that we don't want to cause any secondary impacts that are unnecessary. And I can't think of many situations where that has been a significant impediment for our firefighting capability, though certainly circumstances will vary and we'd have to look at it on a case-by-case basis.

CRAIG: Well, the reason I ask these questions, I think in light of the newly listed species, it's not a criticism of the listings, it's how we deal with it. Is there any update and guidance to the field, or do you feel it's necessary that there be an update?

DOMBECK: I would suggest that this might be a resources issue -- a capability issue as much as a policy issue, and I'd want to look into that more, but, you know, my assumption is that the decisions are made on a fire by fire basis, but there are provisions for emergency consultations.

Now, when you have, you know, multiple fires, as we had this year at one time in various regions of the country where we'd have, say in excess of 60 or perhaps 70 project fires, all the resources are challenged.

CRAIG: Well, I'll never forget watching a D8 Cat roll up through a riparian area and a watershed near Los Alamos, trees rolling. The name of the game was we're at war, we've got an urban interface here to protect, and by God, we're going to stop the fire and the destruction that was done at that point was so major compared to the minor destruction or the minor damage that would have been done if we would have been able to go in there on a light basis and start thinning and cleaning and doing the right things.

But, Jim, let me give you a case in point, because you were there and I was there, and that was the Burgdorf Meadows area on the Payette where we were, and those helicopters were landing. Yes, there was some refueling allowed there, but for those large helicopters that were applying water and delivering services, they were not allowed to refuel there. They had to go back in to McCall into the airport there to refuel. And the reason they weren't allowed is because the fuel cache was not allowed to be placed there.

Now, there was concern for an endangered species. We were in a flat area that was -- could have been if they had properly located the pad, a mile away from it. Now, my point is, and I am told by a helicopter operator company, that it cost the federal government $5,000 more a day for a 10-day period to refuel in McCall instead of to build a refueling pad and to have the fuel up there so they could land near the fire.

Now, that's a judgment call. But it's kind of, oh well, the federal government's funding this one, so we'll make it. You know, $50,000 pays for one of those incident commanders' salaries. I mean, I am a person who looks at things in a relatively practical way. I thought that that was an improper judgment to be made. The judgment was made, that's the reality of the judgment.

LYONS: Well, far be it from me to second-guess the decisions of the incident commander or the forest supervisor, but to use your war analogy, Mr. Chairman, you know, to the best of our ability, we seek to limit collateral damage. And this is what we're attempting to do here. I suggest to you that the $50,000 spent in avoiding an oil spill is money that's well invested. Think of the alternative if we in fact, had had a spill in a stretch of river there, which was endangered species habitat. The cost of clean up and the damage to the resource would have far exceeded $50,000. That was a judgment that was made on the ground.

CRAIG: Well, I appreciate that. We also had an awful lot of habitat totally wiped out in an effort to save habitat. And there are judgment calls. That's why I went to this line of questioning. Not now to point fingers and say, shame on you, but to suggest that maybe this is an area that we reexamine and that we make sure that we have the kind of field guidance necessary to make sounder judgments. One of the problems, and I guess it's a problem based out of protocol, in a sense. We've created a much higher level of sensitivity to the environment, as we should. And in endangered species management areas and habitat areas, there should be a sensitivity there.

But to suggest that the fire isn't going to do any damage and somehow we just keep on living and the fire wipes us out, shows me an inability on the part of a person on the ground to switch or to shift slightly in his or her ability to makes decisions, or I've got the power, I'm going to guard my area against all odds, even though I'm fighting an odd that I cannot cope with, wildfire.

I mean, those are the kinds of thoughts that go through my mind when I look at this. Now, we're going to spend an awful lot of money trying to rehabilitate these areas to save, protect, maintain water quality and all of that type of thing. So, those are frustrations.

I've held you long enough. I have a series of other questions that I'll ask and I'll submit them to you in writing. I will say in closing that in examining the initial Forest Service memo or work that went on as it relates to your directives to the Forest Service, the BLM, to propose to the administration. I have those drafts; I've examined them versus the final report.

I guess I'm a little frustrated about some of the disparities in there or things that I think are disparities between what our folks on the ground are saying ought to be done and what you think can be done politically.

And I guess that's the judgment call I see made in that transition to from draft to final document. I would hope that we maintain a very open process in the coming days and I say this for the record, because I think it's important to say-- Secretary Lyons and I have said that we will work on the things we can agree on and set aside the things we disagree on. And I respect that. But at the same time, we are in a crisis situation, and I think it ought to be viewed as such. And we're going to ask the American taxpayer to fork over more money ever in the history of the country for fire and fire suppression and protection and all of that.

Let's be bold and let's be real about what we should be doing out there that benefits the environment. The thing that frustrates me most, when I fly over these fire complexes, and I see oases of green in the midst of fire or in the midst of blackened ground, and I ask the fundamental question, what happened down there, or why didn't it burn?

Gentlemen, I almost always get the answer, oh, that's state land. Or that's another agency's land. It was actively managed. And I have to draw this conclusion. Which is the better habitat now, the green ground, the green land or the black land? The soot and the ashes, or a little bit of alteration for the sake of constant health. Maybe we're going to get there for some of that in the future. And maybe the initiative you've proposed is going to get us there, and maybe out of this period of crisis we can transform some policy that will make some sense on the ground.

As you know, I've been a critic of inactive management. I do not believe that benign neglect solves problems. Some call it preservation. This year that turned into destruction of the magnitude this country has never recorded before. And my state and other states will be a few years working their way out of it. And habitats were damaged and watersheds still are at phenomenal risk and will be for several seasons until that ground stabilizes and growth begins again on it.

I will work with you and we will get some of this solved and we will work to get the recourses to get it done. But let us also be very open about where we are on this and very frank about what we want to accomplish. And I hope, then, we can get there, but that's my goal, gentlemen. I would invite any closing comments any of the three of you would like to make.

LYONS: I think I'd simply say, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of us that we look forward to the opportunity to work with you and the open invitation to sit down and find those areas of agreement where we can, in fact, move forward.

I don't think any of us would disagree with the need and the value of active management. I think it's a function of where we manage and how we manage and how we achieve the collective goals we have, and most importantly, what we leave behind that will determine the quality of the resource and how well we protect the communities and the environments we're entrusted to work with.

So, we look forward to working through you and your staff on these proposals to seek that common ground and most importantly, to make the investments that we believe are critical to restore the health and vitality of these landscapes.

Thank you.

DOMBECK: Thank you, Senator.

CRAIG: Gentlemen, thank you.

I want to recognize Dave Bowl (ph) over here who has been the flip chart guy, legislative affairs staff. He spent two weeks on the fire complex in the Bitterroot Valley, singed but survived.

Thank you all very much.

The subcommittee will stand adjourned.

END

NOTES:
???? - Indicates Speaker Unkown
- Could not make out what was being said.
off mike - Indicates Could not make out what was being said.

PERSON: LARRY CRAIG (94%); JAMES F LYONS (65%); CONRAD BURNS (57%); PETER FITZGERALD (57%); BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL (56%); CRAIG THOMAS (56%); PETE V DOMENICI (56%); RON WYDEN (55%); BOB GRAHAM (54%); EVAN BAYH (54%); MARY LANDRIEU (54%);

LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2000

Document 3 of 79.


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