Copyright 1999 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
APRIL 15, 1999, THURSDAY
SECTION: IN THE NEWS
LENGTH:
4462 words
HEADLINE: PREPARED STATEMENT OF
MIKE
DOMBECK
CHIEF
USDA FOREST SERVICE
BEFORE THE SENATE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES SUBCOMMITTEE
SUBJECT - FOREST SERVICE FISCAL YEAR 2000 BUDGET
BODY:
Chairman Gorton, Senator Byrd, and
members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
this afternoon to discuss the Forest Service's proposed budget for fiscal year
2000.
In February, I addressed our employees in Missoula Montana about the
state of the Forest Service. I would like to review some of those remarks today
as I discuss the proposed budget for the Forest Service.
I am honored to
have served as Chief of the Forest Service for over two years. During this time,
I have had the pleasure to be a part of the continuing evolution in the
direction of the Forest Service. I have come to appreciate that many of the
conflicts we face today over management of natural resources are very similar to
the conflicts faced by the agency's first Chief, Gifford Pinchot. What made the
Forest Service unique under his leadership was a set of conservation values that
were not always popular, but which reflected the long term interest of land
health.
Mr. Chairman, as in the days of Gifford Pinchot, the values put
forth in the President's fiscal year 2000 budget emphasize long term health of
the land.
In my testimony today I want to concentrate on the values of
healthy land by elaborating on some key areas: 1) the major changes reflected in
the President's budget that set a new leadership direction for the Forest
Service; 2) how the Forest Service Natural Resource Agenda reflects these
values; and 3) how we are addressing important accountability issues. Let me
first address some overall perspectives about where the Forest Service has been
and where the Secretary and I want to take it in the future.
Over the last
decade there has been a significant change in how society views conservation
values. Many people have ceased viewing publicly owned resources as a warehouse
of outputs to be brought to market and instead have begun assigning greater
value to the positive outcomes of forest management.
The result of such
change is that we often find ourselves caught in the middle between competing
interests. Some look to you, the Congress to "fix" the legislation that they
perceive has negatively affected their interests. Others push to limit the
number of appeals, so the agency can get on with producing timber or stopping
timber production, as the case may be. Still others ask courts to resolve land
use policies through litigation.
Too often we find ourselves waiting for
someone else to resolve our issues for us. I think that must end. The budget we
are going to talk about today sets the framework for the Congress, the
Administration, the States, local governments, and private parties to begin
working together in a new way to collaboratively resolve conservation conflicts.
The central premise of our approach is that by restoring and maintaining a
healthy land base on public and private lands alike, we can ensure that our
children, and their children's children enjoy the benefits of land and water.Mr.
Chairman, with healthy watersheds as a foundation, there is room for a
reasonable flow of outputs; timber and livestock specifically, but many other
products also. There is and will be the ability to produce cleaner water. There
is a land base which will allow us to set aside additional places untrammeled by
human beings, and there is an ability and a necessity to preserve now and for
generations to come, additional open spaces before such spaces are fragmented or
degraded due to private land development, urban sprawl, and other such issues.
For those who advocate a return to timber outputs of 10 years ago, or those
who advocate a "zero cut" philosophy, I say it is time to inject realism into
the debate. The President's budget provides funding for outputs which are
consistent with land health. I can not visualize a circumstance when such
outputs will ever be at the level of 10 years ago, but I say to the other side
of the spectrum, timber harvest will, and should continue. The President's
budget contains innovations that recognize the ability of people to restore
ecosystems from those already degraded, using modern science and technology,
where people have either contributed to poor land health by over using the land,
built roads in unstable or overly steep terrain, or prevented natural processes
such as fire. We can improve the health of these areas, and do so by not only
allowing the removal of forest products but by demonstrating in some cases such
activities can contribute to forest health. The more timber harvest contributes
to ecological sustainability, the more predictable timber outputs will be. This
budget presents a solid balance that if enacted will help accomplish these
goals.
The Forest Service serves many people. With our 192 million acres,
383,000 miles of roads, $30 billion infrastructure, 74,000 authorized land uses,
23,000 developed recreation sites, tens of thousands of dispersed recreation
sites, and 35 million acres of wilderness, the national forests are many things
to many people. The Forest Service has the premier Forest and Rangeland Research
organization in the world which is involved in research to improve land health
and to improve the experiences enjoyed on the land by Americans.
Specifics
of the President's Budget
The President's budget creates a new focus on
State and Private Forestry programs. Over time, our leadership capacity to
assist those who manage the more than 500 million acres of forests outside of
the national forest system has diminished. One of our greatest contributions to
society will be our ability to bring people together to provide technical
assistance and scientific information to states, private landowners, and other
nations of the world. The fiscal year 2000 proposed budget contains an increase
of $80 million in State and Private Forestry, and $37 million in Forest and
Rangeland Research to increase our involvement in this critical collaborative
role. Consider that we have been spending about $2 billion annually to manage
the 192 million acres of national forest land, yet spend less than $200 million
in support of the 500 million acres of state managed and privately owned lands.
With this budget, support to state and locally managed lands and non-
industrial private lands dramatically increases. The budget proposes $218
million for the Lands Legacy Initiative, which will make new tools available to
work with states, tribes, local governments, and private partners to protect
great places, to conserve open space for recreation, and wildlife habitat; and
to preserve forest, farmlands, and coastal areas. This $218 million is part of
the President's bold government wide initiative to provide $1 billion for the
Lands Legacy Initiative.
The President's budget also continues support for
key programs initiated with the fiscal year 1999 budget by targeting an increase
of $89.4 million for the Clean Water Action Plan to maintain priority attention
to the health of watersheds on federal, state, and private lands. Let me show
you two displays which graphically emphasize the importance healthy watersheds,
not only on the National Forests, but from all forested lands.
As the
first graphic shows the total readily available fresh water represents less than
1% of the total world supply. It is truly a precious resource. The second chart
shows that although water from the National Forests is important, only 14%
actually originates from the National Forests. Thevast majority originates from
other forested lands in the United States. I believe thisy shows the importance
of the President's Clean Water Action Plan. Forest and Rangeland Research
programs are an important aspect of emphasis in the President's budget. In
addition to funds to support global climate issues, an additional $14 million is
proposed for the Integrated Science for Ecosystem Challenges project which
addresses science and technology needs related to ecological systems.
The
President is also proposing as part of this budget several new legislative
initiatives. Most notably, a proposal similar to one put forward last year, to
stabilize payments to states and counties by separating payments to counties
from a reliance on receipts generated by commodity production. At the beginning
of my testimony, I noted the need to manage outputs from the national forests in
a manner consistent with land health. In doing so, emphasis for producing those
outputs has changed. For example, today a significant number of timber sales are
sold for stewardship purposes rather than pure commodity objectives. There is an
increase in the sale of dead or dying timber. In these cases receipts are less
than were experienced several years ago. I expect this trend to continue
particularly in the west. What we are asking is, why should the richest country
in the nation finance the education of rural schoolchildren on the back of a
controversial federal timber program? The Forest Service has a stewardship
responsibility to collaborate with citizens to promote land health.
Collaborative stewardship implies an obligation to help provide communities with
economic diversity and resiliency so they are not dependent on the results of
litigation, the whims of nature or unrelated social values to educate their
children and pave their roads. We need to work together so states and counties
can anticipate predictable payments on which to base education and road
management decisions.
Natural Resource Agenda
The President's budget
contains many important initiatives. It also contains a broad program of funding
for management of national forest lands. Just one year ago I announced the
Natural Resource Agenda, which is a comprehensive science based agenda that will
lead management of the agency into the 21st century. As an integral partner with
the Government Performance and Results Act, this agenda focus on four areas; 1)
watershed health and restoration, 2) sustainable forest and grassland ecosystem
management, 3) the national forest road system, and 4) recreation.
I want to
highlight briefly our emphasis in each of these areas. A retired Forest Service
employee offered me some advice a while back. He said, "if you just take care of
soil and water, everything else will be OK." Multiple use does not mean we
should do everything on every acre simply because we can. We must protect the
last best places and restore the rest. Forest Service lands are truly the
headwaters of America. They contain riparian, wetland, and coastal areas that
are essential for the nation's water supply and prosperity. The President's
budget provides an increase of $48.6 million included in programs such as
wildlife habitat management, watershed improvements, fisheries habitat
management, rangeland vegetation management, threatened and endangered species
habitat management, and state and private forest health programs. These
increases will allow the Forest Service to make important watershed restoration
and protection efforts.
Restoration and maintenance of watershed health is
contingent on quality land management planning. As you know, the Committee of
Scientists has issued final recommendations on forest planning. The Committee's
recommendations will be used to prepare a draft planning rule so that future
forest plans will support how we will:
- provide an informed collaborative
basis for decisions about management activities, protection objectives and
restoration potential;
- provide for the protection, maintenance, and
recovery of native aquatic and riparian-dependent species and prevent the
introduction and spread of nonnative species;- provide for monitoring to insure
we accomplish our objectives in the most cost-effective manner;
- include
the best available science and research, in a collaborative manner with
interested citizens; and
- provide opportunities to link social and economic
benefits to communities through restoration strategies.
I believe our new
planning approach will be invaluable in breaking the forest planning gridlock
that is hampering national forest management in so many areas.
A second area
of the Natural Resource Agenda is sustainable forest and grassland management.
The President is proposing a billion dollar initiative to protect open space,
benefit urban forests, and improve the quality of life for the 80% of Americans
living in urban and suburban areas. Through sustainable forest and grassland
management, the Forest Service will play an essential role in accomplishment of
this initiative. The President's budget provides an increase of $113 million in
State and Private and Research programs which are integral to protecting and
restoring the lands and waters that sustain us. We will collaborate with state
fish and wildlife agencies, state foresters, tribes, and others to develop
conservation and stewardship plans for an additional 740,000 acres of
non-industrial private forestland. We will help states protect an estimated
135,000 additional acres of forestland through acquisitions and conservation
easements. We will acquire environmentally sensitive lands through the Land and
Water Conservation Fund, and we will include nearly 800 more communities in
efforts to conserve urban and community forests. In addition, 300,000 more hours
of conservation training will be provided to local communities.
Mr.
Chairman, I am truly excited about budgetary emphasis in sustainable forest and
grassland management through cooperation and collaboration. This emphasis will
carry into many programs including fire management where we will employ fire as
a tool to give priority to high-risk wildland/urban interface areas where
people, homes and personal property are at risk. An excellent example of this
need can be understood if we examine the 1992 Cleveland Fire on the Eldorado
National Forest. This fire tragically claimed two lives, destroyed 22,500 acres
including 3400 acres of Spotted Owl habitat, and burned 41 homes and other
buildings. In addition, the fire destroyed the El Dorado Canal which supplied
water to the local communities of Pollock Pines and Camino. In examining this
fire, we found there were several areas of large trees which survived despite
the intense flames. Here topsoils were not destroyed and watershed functions
continued, at least in part. These trees survived because prescribed burns over
the previous 13 years had removed fuels sufficiently to prevent intense heat
that would have otherwise destroyed these trees.
Based on the lessons
learned about the benefits of this active management, the Eldorado National
Forest identified 17 other areas where forest health projects could avert
similar fire disasters through the use of innovative contracting techniques
which involved selling commercial timber as well as removing small diameter
trees. The timber stand which was left provided extensive wildlife and fisheries
habitat and substantially reduced the fire hazard. Not only was forest health
improved, but the timber sales produced positive economic results. The agency
collected $3 million in receipts from an investment of $430,000. When the
positive effect on the economy is considered this effort to protect land health
resulted in a total economic benefit of $4,300 per acre on an investment of $165
per acre. Let me show you some graphics which highlight this very successful
effort. I don't want to portray a situation where all such circumstances will
result in positive economic return, but I do want to point out how in many cases
we have the chance to improve forest health and support the local economy.
As a result of this and other experiences we understand that resources must
be devoted to using fire and other tools, such as thinning, to reduce
accumulated fuels adjacent to urban and wilderness areas alike, to aid
threatened and endangered species, and to help lower long term costs of
suppressing wildfires and protect public safety. The stewardship end-result
contracting authority which this Subcommittee included in the fiscal year 1999
Appropriations Act, gives us similar opportunities to employ innovative
contracting techniques to improve forest health.Now I would like to turn to one
of the more challenging aspects of the Natural Resource Agenda. That involves
management of the National Forest Road System. As you know, on February 11, I
announced an interim suspension of road construction in most roadless
areas of the national forest system. We offer this time-out to reduce
the controversy of roadless area entries in order to reduce
damage to a road system which is already in disrepair.
A personal source
of frustration is that few people or interest groups are focused on the issue of
our existing road system as opposed to the roadless area issue.
Yet if we care about restoring the ecological fabric of the landscape and the
health of our watersheds, we must concentrate on areas that are roaded in
addition to those that are not. Let me show you a display which I believe
clearly displays the need to focus attention on the existing road system, not
roadless areas. As the chart shows, of the total estimated road
program that would have occurred in the absence of a suspension only 262 of
9,210 miles, or 3% of roads planned for reconstruction or construction would be
affected, and only 221 million board feet of 5.7 billion board feet, or 4% of
the planned timber sale volume would be affected.
The President's budget
proposes a $22.6 million increase in the road budget, primarily for maintenance.
The agency has an estimated road maintenance backlog of over $8 billion.
Meanwhile we are only maintaining 18 percent of our roads to the safety and
environmental standards to which they were built. With the proposed funding
level in the fiscal year 2000 budget, we will increase by 50% from 1998, the
miles of road to be decommissioned or stabilized. We will increase the
percentage of forest roads maintained to standard from 18 percent to 24 percent.
With roads that could encircle the globe many times, our road system is
largely complete. Our challenge is to shrink the system to a size we can afford
to maintain while still providing for efficient and safe public access in a
manner that protects land health.
Over the year, we will develop a long term
road policy with three primary objectives: 1) develop new analytical tools to
help managers determine where, when or if to build new roads, 2) decommission
old, unneeded, unauthorized, and other roads that degrade the environment, and
3) selectively upgrade certain roads to help meet changing use patterns on
forests and grasslands.
Management of roads is very important to local
communities that rely heavily on these roads for livelihoods and rural
transportation. I expect decisions about local roads to be made by local
managers working with local people and others who use or care about our road
system. We will obviously continue to provide access to and through forests.
However, it is clear that we simply cannot afford our existing road system.
The fourth element of the Natural Resource Agenda involves recreation. The
President's budget provides strong support to the recreation program. With
appropriated funds totalling $288 million, and additional funds provided from
the recreation fee demonstration project receipts and the ten percent road and
trail fund, this program will crntinue to po aislmstrong support to the 800
million annual visitors which we expect to increase to 1.2 billion over the next
50 years.
The Forest Service recreation strategy focuses on providing
customer service and opportunities for all people. The successful recreation fee
demonstration program has served many people at the sites operated under the
program through improved visitor experiences and repair and upgrade facilities
which were badly in need of attention. I strongly support continuation of this
program. I do want to pass on one caution lest this program is viewed as an
answer for reducing future recreation discretionary funds. The recreation fee
demonstration program serves many people in a limited number of recreation
sites. The Forest Service recreation program is highly dispersed. It is the
place for a family drive or hike on a Sunday afternoon, a weekend camping trip,
or a week long grueling hike in the rugged backcountry. Many of these
experiences do not lend themselves to a recreation fee demonstration type
program. In fact, less than 10 percent of forest recreation visits occur at fee
demonstration sites. As the backyard playground for many Americans, it is
essential we maintain a recreation program that allows enjoyment of the national
forests without charge in addition to fee programs in limited areas.A key part
of enhancing this dispersed recreation is through our wilderness management
program. The President's budget includes an increase of $7 million for
protection and restoration of natural conditions in wilderness and to mitigate
the impacts of high use areas adjacent to large population centers. The
wilderness legacy is a crown jewel. I am committed to increasing the Forest
Service commitment to the Wilderness Act and intend to give more emphasis
through increased land management planning and re-establishment of a national
wilderness field advisory group.
Each of the four emphasis areas of the
Natural Resource Agenda links directly to one or more of the goals of the
Results Act Strategic Plan. I am pleased that the President's budget supports
this plan for moving forward.
Forest Service Accountability
Successful
implementation of the President's initiatives and the Natural Resource Agenda is
dependent on having the trust of Congress and the American people. To be
trusted, we have to be accountable for our performance. We have to be able to
identify where our funds are being spent, and what America is receiving in
return. We have to do this as efficiently as possible in order to assure that a
maximum amount of funds are spent on the ground for intended purposes without
being diverted for unnecessary overhead.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, the
Forest Service has had problems with accountability in the past. We have been
the subject of more than 20 oversight reports and internal studies. We have been
resoundingly criticized for having poor decision making, either bloated or
inaccurate overhead costs, and non-responsive accounting systems. While some of
this may be exaggerated, I fully acknowledge that some is true. We've got the
message. We will improve dramatically. Let me highlight several initiatives that
are now underway.
First and most importantly, I have made it clear through
organization changes and personal statements that the business and financial
management functions of this agency are equally as important as attention to
managing the resources. I have placed business management professionals in
operations and financial management positions. We have established a Chief
Operating Officer at the Associate Chief level which reports directly to me,
thus placing our business management functions on an operating level equal to
that of our natural resource functions. We have brought in a new Chief Financial
Officer at the Deputy Chief level to implement the Foundation Financial
Information System. This is her top priority, with a goal of achieving a clean
financial opinion from the General Accounting Office as soon as possible.
It
is also time to reform our budget structure. I want to work with the Congress
and the Administration to design a budget structure that reflects the work we do
and the Results Act Strategic Plan on which the Natural Resource Agenda is
based. The current budget structure does not support the integrated work
necessary to restore and maintain land health while promoting ecological
sustainability.
In order to ensure accountability while implementing a new
budget structure, we will employ land health performance measures to demonstrate
that we can have a simplified budget and improve water quality, protect and
restore more habitat, and improve forest ecosystem health.
In fiscal year
2000 we will begin to implement reforms to our trust funds. We will examine
alternatives for trust fund management in the future to avoid unintended
incentives to pursue forest management activities that are not consistent with
land health objectives.
For the first time, at the direction of Congress, we
have developed and implemented standard definitions for indirect costs which are
in full compliance with the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board. These
definitions have been reviewed by several oversight groups. Based on these
definitions, for the first time we have accurately determined indirect expenses
for the agency, which during fiscal year 2000 we project to be 18.9 percent.As
you know, the issue of indirect costs, often referred to as overhead, received
extensive attention during the 105th Congress, as did the poor quality of our
financial system and records. I want to make a specific request as your
Committee examines our budget in the coming year. I ask for your patience and
support in rectifying much of our accountability problems. The Forest Service's
financial management and reporting of overhead took a decade or more to fall
into disrepair. It will take more than a year to fix the problem. Let me
emphasize that we are devoting extensive resources to implementing new financial
systems, improving our audit processes, and improving decision making. The
resources we devote to make these fixes involves expenditures of an overhead
type nature. As we concentrate on cleaning up our problems, we need to have
flexibility without legislated limitations which could prevent us from being
successful.
In my testimony today, I have reviewed the President's
initiatives, discussed the Natural Resource Agenda, and described our intent to
improve agency accountability. In conclusion, I want to say that a Forest
Service that meets the needs of the American people and restores and preserves
the health of the nations forests and rangelands, is a goal we all strive for.
I'll leave you with some thoughts based on Aldo Leopold's Sand County Almanac:
Let us recommit ourselves to an invigorated nation and land ethic. An ethic
that recognized that we cannot meet the needs of people without first securing
the health, diversity, and productivity of our lands and waters. An ethic that
understands the need to reconnect our communities -both urban and rural- to the
lands and waters that sustain them. An ethic that respects that the choices we
make today influence the legacy that we bequeath to our children and their
children's children.
That concludes my remarks. I would be pleased to answer
any questions you may have.
END
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