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All it can do is rescind a designation, which is politically difficult. After Clinton's Grand Staircase-Escalante designation in 1996, a bill requiring congressional approval of any designation exceeding 5,000 acres passed the House, but died in the Senate.

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   Babbitt is considering a dozen sites. The largest is one million acres on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Others include the Missouri Breaks, along 140 miles of the Missouri River in Montana, and hundreds of thousands of acres in Arizona, Colorado, California and Oregon.

   All the projects are worthy, but as a matter of caution he and the President need to winnow the list to sites most deserving of immediate protection. Western Republicans, complaining about a federal ``land grab,'' are looking for any excuse to revive their attack on the act, which has survived in part because it has been used sparingly.

   Overuse could also divert support from even broader open-space initiatives, including what is expected to be another serious push to seek $1 billion annually in permanent financing for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

   Within these limitations, there is no reason not to use the act, a statute with an honorable history that has produced illustrious results.

--

   Prescription For Forest Health Probably Would Kill the Patient

   The Clinton administration's recent proposal to protect roadless areas in our national forests is already under attack in Congress. One often-repeated objection is that roads are needed for logging, logging is necessary for a healthy forest, and our forests are suffering a health crisis. As prescriptions go, this one verges on quackery.

   The term ``forest health'' is so poorly understood and defined nowadays that it's virtually useless. When first coined, in 1932, it referred solely to insects and tree diseases. Now people use it to encompass fire, storms, or virtually anything. But all of the data, both from the Forest Service and studies by many forestry researchers including me, indicate there's been no change in the real condition of our forests, other than through excess and ill-advised logging.

   In terms of disease and insects, there has been no difference in true forest health for at least 50 years. In fact, a report from the U.S. Forest Service indicated that between 1952 and 1992 the amount of damage from disease, insects and all other major causes--including fire--was less than 1 percent of the standing commercial timber throughout the United States. And the numbers stayed at those levels the entire time, with no ups and downs. The same thing is true of both public and private lands.
* * * * *

   Unfortunately, this basic reality often gets distorted in order to accomplish some kind of cutting plan. In the Pacific Northwest, for instance, we hear that in many regions the Douglas fir is threatened by bark beetles. But when we go to those areas and investigate, we find that a significant problem just doesn't exist. There are some beetles, all right, but the overall beetle population is in decline and the amount of damage is extremely low. Of course if you only look for trees with beetles, you'll find them. But in the whole forest the mortality rates hover around the historical rates of 1 to 2 percent. And this is true of root diseases and other pests, of different species of trees, and in different areas of the country.

   Claiming harm to forest health is merely an excuse to log, but logging in the roadless areas is plain foolishness. The reason they weren't logged long ago is that early loggers knew there was little worthwhile timber in these areas .
* * * * *

   Widespread clearcutting has also brought changes in the water cycles, creating rapid runoff and melting during the spring, leaving little available water during the summer, when it's needed most. Even the local weather has been affected: If you change the structure of the forest, you change wind patterns and rainfall as well.

   In spite of this, I'm more optimistic than I was 15 years ago. Back then, nobody would listen to such concerns. All they could think about was the product and not the results of producing that product. Now even the industry is more sensitive to what it's doing, and it's changing some logging practices.

   We need to continue to improve the way we maintain our forests. If we cut timber, we have to do it more gently than in the past. And we have to stop using wrong-headed excuses like ``forest health'' to log in the few and fragmented remaining roadless areas that America still treasures. If we destroy such areas through needless incursion, we will leave our descendants far poorer than justified by the small immediate profits, and they will wonder what sort of physicians made such poor judgments about health.

--

   Forests Need Protection

   President Clinton has directed the U.S. Forest Service to produce an environmental impact statement and develop a proposal that potentially will protect more than 40 million roadless acres of its 155 national forests and 20 grasslands. Reactions from the two most vocal sides insist Clinton has erred, but he is moving in the right direction.

   The timber industry is angry about losing future access to these woods. Where will its product come from? Hmm. Well, probably the same place it comes from now--and that's not primarily federal forests. Only 5 percent of the annual timber load comes from national land and only 5 percent of that comes from areas that could come under protection. Besides, the 380,000 miles of road already in forests--more miles than the interstate system--will still be usable.

   That the plan provides for only 40 million acres and only inventoried, roadless areas 5,000 acres or larger upsets many environmentalists, as does not including Alaska's Tongass Forest. The heart of the world's largest remaining expanse of coastal temperate rainforest, Tongass is under siege, its supporters feel. Logging does take place in specified areas , and efforts to increase cut levels in Tongass are already in progress. Supporters feel an urgent need for more federal protection and were intensely worried when this proposal that excludes Tongass was chosen by Clinton.

   The plan also deals almost strictly with road-building; it will prohibit it, which hampers development. Environmentalists would of course like the regulation to stop logging, mining, many kinds of recreation and other exploitation.

   Clinton went with what was the weakest of his choices of plans, particularly making no rule to protect wildlife, to avoid needing congressional approval. His is an effort to have something happen instead of nothing. Part of the proposal also calls for a 60-day (only about 45 days to go now) public review and comment process, and all sides are hoping your voice will make a difference on what the final plan becomes. (Send comments to: U.S. Forest Service-CAET, Attn: Roadless Areas NOI, P.O. Box 221090, Salt Lake City, UT 84122.)

   We encourage you to support this effort. Only about 18 percent of the 192 million acres of federal forests are now protected from development. Roadless areas are reference areas for research, bulwarks against invasive species, and as aquatic strongholds for fish as well as vital habitat and migration routes for wildlife species, especially those requiring large home ranges. Tongass by merit of its uniqueness should be included in any plan that will protect it.

   We also would like to see forest lands remain untouched where they can so that they will still be around for centuries to come and our children won't have to explain to their grandchildren what forests were.

   Mrs. BOXER. These editorials are in favor of roadless protections. The two Senators from New Mexico have offered us a great service because they have essentially, by their amendment, stopped us from a very controversial amendment that was antienvironment, that the administration would have been very opposed to, and may well have caused a veto of this bill. I thank them again.

   I say to my friend from Idaho, Senator CRAIG, I hope he will not bring this back to us. I think it would drive a wedge into the heart of our environmental heritage. I hope that will not happen.

   I yield the floor.

   Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment to add $240 million to the budgets of the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service for fuels reduction on our public lands.

   In April 1999, the General Accounting Office reported to the Congress that 39 million acres on the national forests in the interior West are at high risk of catastrophic wildfire. The GAO also stated in that same report to Congress that the ``most extensive and serious problem related to the health of national forests in the interior West is the over-accumulation of vegetation, which has caused an increasing number of large, intense, uncontrollable, and catastrophically destructive wildfires.''

   As we've seen this summer on the Rim of the Grand Canyon in my state of Arizona, on the Hanford Reach in Washington State, in the community of Los Alamos, New Mexico, and now in Colorado and other western states, it's time to pay the piper. If we don't spend the money now to treat the forests and other public lands, mechanically and through the use of fire, we will pay later--and we will pay a lot more.

   The National Research Council and FEMA have recognized wildland fires in California in 1993 and Florida in 1998 as among the defining natural disasters of the 1990s. The 1991 Oakland, CA fire was ranked by insurance claims as one of the ten most costly all-time natural disasters. And in terms of damage, the magnitude of these catastrophic fires was compared with the Northridge earthquake, Hurricane Andrew and the flooding of the Mississippi and Red River.

   As the findings of these organizations reveal, we are setting ourselves up for costly and deadly disaster unless we act now and send money to the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management for hazardous fuels reduction in the wildland/urban interface.

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   In response to the GAO report, the Forest Service is working on a Cohesive Strategy to restore and maintain fire-adapted ecosystems across the interior West. I've seen a draft of that report, and the price tag on the draft is about $12 billion over 15 years to treat 60 million acres on the National Forest. As I understand it, the Forest Service had hoped to release a final Strategy about a month ago, but this Administration's OMB has put a hold on the Strategy as too expensive.

   I'm not willing to wait until Flagstaff or Tucson or any other community virtually surrounded by the National Forest burns. I support providing the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management with emergency funds, assuming that the Administration designates these funds as emergency funds as required by the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.

   Mr. President, I also want to draw my colleagues' attention to the comments of Stewart Udall that were published in the Arizona Republic on Thursday, July 6th. As my colleagues know, Stewart Udall, who now lives in the fire-threatened community of Santa Fe, New Mexico, served as Secretary of the Interior and represented Arizona in the House of Representatives. Mr. Udall notes with complete accuracy that we have altered the ecology of our forests and that it is only a matter of time before these man-made tinderboxes will ignite. Mr. Udall implores citizens to unite and demand restoration plans and aggressive, science-oriented, landscape-scale restoration action plans to prevent Los Alamos-style disasters.

   Mr. Udall praises an organization of which I, too, am proud, the Ecological Restoration Institute, located at Northern Arizona University, and its leader, Dr. Wallace Covington. Mr. Udall opines, and I agree, that with appropriate support, the Ecological Restoration Institute can show other forested states how to use controlled burns and mechanical thinning to eliminate the threat of devastating fires.

   Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that these remarks of Mr. Udall be printed in the RECORD.

   There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

   Let's Begin To Manage Our Forests

   SANTA FE.--As I survey the charred remains of the ``Cerro Grande'' fire that raged through Los Alamos, N.M., and its National Nuclear Laboratory, I am reminded that we have created an environment that invites a monster to rampage through our forests and threaten many communities.

   In the Southwest, we have whetted its appetite by providing an overabundance of ponderosa pines and by mismanagement that has built a ladder of small, sickly trees that allows fires to leap into the crowns of old-growth yellow-bellies and into our mountain towns and homes. Meanwhile, we have wasted precious time looking for someone to blame and arguing over the definition of logging.

   By altering the ecology of our ponderosa pine forest lands for a century, we have created unnatural conditions where fire can no longer play its natural role. Unhealthy forests abound in the West, and it is only a matter of time before these man-made tinderboxes are ignited and hapless ``disaster areas'' are proclaimed by presidents.

   Before Western settlement began, fire strayed mostly on the ground, working its way through the grasses every few years as nature's steward, cleaning up the debris on the forest floor. Scientists at the Ecological Restoration Institute in Flagstaff have been telling us that the size and frequency of the recent fires have never before occurred in our ponderosa forests. They report, too, that the fires are growing larger, more damaging and more expensive and difficult to suppress.

   Concerned citizens must unite and demand restoration plans and action that will reduce dangers and initiate campaigns to restore our forests and make them resilient and sustainable. Party lines and political agendas have no place in the upcoming battle. Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat, have set an excellent example by locking arms and supporting projects to show what can be done to restore forest lands.

   It will be incredibly short sighted if Arizona's affected cities do not, working in concert with the Forest Service, develop aggressive, science-oriented, landscape-scale restoration action plans and begin to implement them soon. Preventing Los Alamos-style disasters from decimating Arizona communities will test the grit and gumption of the Forest Service. And if emergency measures or funds are needed to get action started, it will also test the foresight and leadership of the state's congressional delegation.

   Arizona's Ecological Restoration Institute is a national asset. It is led by Dr. Wallace Covington, a scientist who knows more about the ecology of ponderosa forests than any of his colleagues. With appropriate support, the institute can show other ponderosa states how to use controlled burns and thinning to eliminate the threat of devastating fires.

   In a rich country, it is downright stupid to spend billions each year to put out destructive fires when modest resources can be invested to prevent such disasters. The bill presented to the federal government for fire suppression and reparations at Los Alamos is mounting daily toward $800 million. Experts are telling us this conflagration could have been prevented by forest-management measures costing $15 million to $20 million. When will we get smart?

   Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment introduced by the Senator from Idaho, Senator LARRY CRAIG, to require the United States Forest Service to establish a Federal Advisory Committee Act committee to study and report on the proposed roadless area initiative and proposed transportation guidelines rule.

   I have serious concerns regarding the process implemented by the United States Forest Service in developing these proposed rules. The House Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health initiated a review on October 28, 1999, requesting documents from the Forest Service and the White House regarding development of the proposed roadless rule. While reviewing thousands of pages of documents provided by the Clinton administration, the committee found that the administration had held a number of meetings with, and used draft language, legal memoranda, and survey research data prepared by, a select group of representatives from national environmental organizations including: the Heritage Forest Campaign; the Wilderness Society; Natural Resources Defense Council; USPIRG, Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund, Audubon Society; and the Sierra Club.

   In addition, the committee found no evidence of any effort to meet with or involve other groups or interested parties, and that the USFS' push to complete the proposed roadless initiative led to the use of poor data and errors in documentation, as is evidenced by letters from the National Forests and regional offices to the Washington Office expressing concern over the accuracy of the information being transmitted. For example, in one letter a USFS employee stated, ``This is an estimate that I hope we are not held accountable for.''

   This reliance by a Federal agency upon a select group of individuals for the purpose of obtaining advice or recommendations is a de facto establishment of an advisory committee, an activity that must be conducted in accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). FACA requires any agencies that establishes an advisory committee to file a formal charter, publish notice of all meetings in the Federal Register, ensure that all meeting are open to the public, keep minutes for each meeting, designate a Federal officer who must be present at each meeting, and must ensure that membership of the committee represents a cross section of groups interested in the subject--in this case the management and use of national forests.

   This provision is also contained in the National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA).

   Unfortunately, the United States Forest Service's proposed roadless rule was developed without meeting any of the above FACA requirements. Instead, the Forest Service developed this rule in meetings with a small, insular group that represented only one, limited interest. Furthermore, the meetings were conducted behind closed doors and without any public notice.

   Once again, the Clinton/Gore administration has demonstrated its unwillingness to include those most affected by federal land management decisions in developing land use policy. Instead of finding a way to include state and local governments, industry, recreationists and any other group interested in using and enjoying our national forests, this administration has chosen the politics of divisiveness and has excluded those who will ultimately have to live with the final decision from the development process. The

[Page: S6518]  GPO's PDF

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