Copyright 1999 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.
Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
November 02, 1999
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 2254 words
HEADLINE:
TESTIMONY November 02, 1999 MIKE DOMBECK FOREST SERVICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT
OF AGRICULTURE SENATE ENERGY & NATURAL RESOURCES FORESTS
AND PUBLIC LANDS MANAGEMENT INCREASED PROTECTION OF FOREST LANDS
BODY:
STATEMENT OF MIKE DOMBECK, CHIEF FOREST
SERVICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Before the Subcommittee on
Forests and Public Lands Management Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
United States Senate Regarding the Promulgation of Regulations Concern
Roadless Areas Within the National Forest System November 2,
1999 MISTER CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE: Thank you for the opportunity
to discuss Forest Service efforts to develop long- term protections for the
important social and ecological values of roadless areas within
the National Forest System. As you know, on October 19, 1999, we published a
Notice of Intent in the Federal Register that outlined a two part process to: 1)
limit certain development activities such as road construction in inventoried
roadless areas and 2) identify the values that make
roadless areas of all sizes ecologically and socially
important. At the direction of the President of the United States, the Forest
Service has begun a public dialogue. We have no proposal yet. There is no
preferred alternative. We have begun a very open and public dialogue with the
American people about how they want their remaining, unfragmented, public lands
to be managed. Mr. Chairman, although we formally began our process on October
13, 1999, with the President's visit to the spectacular Little River
roadless area on the George Washington National Forest, this is
not an issue that just came up recently. Roadless areas are
controversial, in part, because of their important social and ecological values.
Roadless areas provide clean water, habitat for wildlife, food
for hunters, and amazing recreational opportunities. They act as a barrier
against noxious invasive plant and animal species and as strongholds for native
fish populations. Roadless areas serve as reference areas for
research and often provide vital habitat and migration routes for numerous
wildlife species and are particularly important for those requiring large home
ranges. Many roadless areas also act as ecological anchors
allowing nearby federal, state, and private lands to be developed for economic
purposes. Indeed, roadless areas are critically important for
the long-term ecological sustainability of the nation's forests. In recent
years, the public has rightfully questioned whether the Forest Service should
build new roads into controversial roadless areas when the
agency has difficulty maintaining its existing road system. The current national
forest road system includes 380,000 miles of roads, enough to circle the globe
more than 15 times. The agency currently has a road reconstruction and
maintenance backlog of approximately $8.4 billion and it receives only about 20
percent of the annual funding needed to maintain the safety and environmental
condition of its road system. Almost two years ago, during my first
Appropriations season as Chief, I watched as the House of Representatives came
within a single vote of cutting $42 million out of Forest Service roads budget
because of these issues. On January 28, 1998, 1 initiated a process to consider
changes in how the Forest Service road system is developed, used, maintained,
and funded and to suspend temporarily road construction and reconstruction in
certain unroaded areas. This effort lead to the current "interim rule", that has
temporarily suspended road construction and reconstruction in unroaded areas.
The agency has received more than 80,000 public comments on these efforts, the
majority of which called for a permanent halt to road building in
roadless areas. In response to these comments and the
President's October directive, the agency is following a two track process: the
first dealing with roadless areas and the second dealing with
the existing Forest Service road system. The Forest Service published a Notice
of Intent on October 19, 1999, to initiate the scoping process whereby the
Forest Service solicits public comment on the nature and scope of the
environmental, social and economic issues related to roadless
areas. The public has been asked to provide comments by December 20,
1999. The agency is planning to publish a draft environmental impact statement
(EIS) and proposed rule for public review in the spring of 2000. The final EIS
and final rule will be published in the fall of 2000. In terms of the Forest
Service's existing road network, the Forest Service will also publish a proposed
long-term roads policy in the next several weeks that will enable the agency to
better manage the roads it already has. Indeed, as we work on the rulemaking
process for roadless areas, we will continue to work on the
long term roads management policy. There will be some overlap as we pursue these
two separate but closely related actions. Because both of these processes are so
important to the American people and local communities, we will be holding a
series of public meetings across the country, including public meetings on every
National Forest that has inventoried roadless areas. Background
Roadless areas have been an issue for public land management
for a long time. They became a national issue when the agency conducted the
Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE) almost 30 years ago,
following passage of the Wilderness Act. Immediate criticism of the study
prompted a lawsuit regarding the study's comprehensiveness. Thus began the cycle
of controversy and litigation that took us through the RARE 11 process in the
late 1970's and through 20 years of forest plans and project implementation. For
too long, others, such as the court system and interest groups, have controlled
the debate over long-term management of roadless areas. The
President's direction puts this issue squarely back where it belongs, into the
hands of the American people and the resource professionals of the Forest
Service. The Forest Service already has over 380,000 miles of classified roads
yet, we receive less than 20% of the funding needed to maintain them to safety
and environmental standards. As a result, our backlog of reconstruction and
maintenance now exceeds $8.4 billion. Road construction may increase the risk of
erosion, landslides, and slope failure, endangering the health of watersheds
that provide drinking water to local communities and critical habitat for fish
and wildlife. Development in these roadless areas can allow
entry of invasive plants and animals that threaten the health of native species,
increase human-caused wildfire, disrupt habitat connectivity, and otherwise
compromise the attributes that make these sensitive areas socially valuable and
ecologically important. People have also expressed concerns about losing the
potential economic values some of the roadless areas could
provide through timber harvest and mineral development. Other concerns revolve
around limiting treatments that may improve the health of the forests and reduce
the accumulation of hazardous fuels. For all these reasons, it is important that
we hear from the public about the value and importance they place on these
areas. SUMMARY As the impacts of population expansion and land development
spread out across the American landscape, the last vestiges of wildness, the
roadless areas, hang in the balance. We do not want these lands
to become museum pieces. We do not want to block people's access to the forests
they love. Where else in the world can you find 192 million acres without a
single no trespassing sign? Our objective is to ensure that our grandchildren
will be able to marvel and wonder at the land legacy we hold in trust today. Mr.
Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer any questions
you and Members of the Committee may have.
LOAD-DATE:
November 5, 1999 
