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   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now resume consideration of H.R. 2466, which the clerk will report.

   The bill clerk (Mary Anne Clarkson) read as follows:

   A bill (H.R. 2466) making appropriations for the Department of the Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, and for other purposes.

   Pending:

   Gorton amendment No. 1359, of a technical nature.

   Hutchison amendment No. 1603, to prohibit the use of funds for the purpose of issuing a

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   Bryan amendment No. 1588, to make available certain funds, by reducing the subsidy for the below-cost timber program administered by the Forest Service and for the construction of logging roads in national forests, for other Forest Service programs including road maintenance, wildlife and fish habitat management, and for threatened, endangered, and sensitive species habitat management.

   Bryan/Wyden amendment No. 1623 (to amendment No. 1588), to make available certain funds for survey and manage requirements of the Northwest Forest Plan Record of Decision.

   AMENDMENT NO. 1623

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is now on amendment 1623 on which there shall be 1 hour of debate which will be equally divided.

   Mr. WYDEN addressed the Chair.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.

   Mr. WYDEN. I thank the Chair. I would like to take just a few minutes now to speak on behalf of the Bryan-Fitzgerald-Wyden amendment and try to offer up to colleagues on both sides of the aisle why Senator BRYAN, Senator FITZGERALD, and I are trying to incorporate some of the important thinking that has been done by the chairman of the Interior Subcommittee, Senator GORTON, as well as the work with respect to forestry done on the floor of the Senate over the last few days by Senator ROBB of Virginia. It seems to me that Senator GORTON, as well as Senator ROBB, are making extremely important points. What Senator BRYAN, Senator FITZGERALD, and I are trying to do is build on the work done by both of our colleagues.

   For example, I think Senator GORTON and Senator CRAIG are absolutely right in terms of saying that the Forest Service has lacked direction, particularly as it relates to the Pacific Northwest. They have known at the Forest Service for many months that they had to comply with each of these survey and management requirements. The Forest Service dawdled and dragged its feet. It has been literally flailing around in the woods.

   I think Senator GORTON and Senator CRAIG have been absolutely right that there has been a lack of accountability and a lack of oversight with respect to the Forest Service.

   At the same time, I think Senator ROBB has also been correct in terms of saying we can't just throw the environmental laws in the trash can because a Federal agency messes up. You can't just set aside the environmental laws of the United States because a Federal agency, in this case the Forest Service, has not done its job. You have to figure out a way to put this agency and this program back on track.

   What the Bryan-Fitzgerald-Wyden amendment seeks to do is to get the Forest Service on track by building on some of the important work done by Senator GORTON and Senator CRAIG, as well as focusing on the environmental principles pursued by Senator ROBB.

   One of the reasons I so strongly support the Bryan-Fitzgerald-Wyden amendment is we have seen in past years that throwing money at the timber sale program does not make things better. Each year, since 1996, this Congress has authorized more money for the timber sale program than the administration has asked for. So we have, in effect, shoveled more money out the door for the timber sale program.

   The fact of the matter is, in spite of the fact the Congress keeps spending more money on the timber sale program, the problems in these rural communities, particularly the rural West --and these are economic and environmental problems--keep getting worse. So the notion that throwing money at the timber sale program is going to solve these problems is simply not correct. The Congress has continued to spend money. The problems are getting worse, both from an economic and an environmental standpoint. And that is the bottom line.

   So what Senator BRYAN and Senator FITZGERALD and I are seeking to do is to link the money that the Forest Service needs for these important programs--not just in Oregon but across the country--to a new focus on accountability.

   What our legislation does is earmark resources for the important environmental work that needs to be done and at the same time places a stringent timetable on the completion of the important environmental work. So, in effect, we have a chance to do some good by getting the environmental work done while at the same time helping timber workers and environmental concerns addressed in a responsible fashion.

   We do direct additional funds for the survey and management program so we can have the protocols for the species that currently lack this data, but we do it in a way that brings new accountability. This is the first time on the floor of the Senate that we have tried to take this program, which has been so mismanaged by the Forest Service, and put in place some real accountability.

   This is not the old days of just throwing money at problems. This is a new approach, a fresh and creative approach, that Senators BRYAN, FITZGERALD, and I are trying to offer which will ensure that not just in the Northwest but across the country there will be the funds that are needed for the timber sale program, but at the same time we are going to have a real process to watchdog the Forest Service to make sure they actually get the work done.

   With respect to the problems that have shut down the forests in the Pacific Northwest, our amendment requires that

   the survey and management draft, the environmental impact statement would be completed by November 15 of this year. The final version of that impact statement would be published by February 14 of 2000.

   So this gives us a chance, I say to my colleagues, to make sure the work that was promised actually gets done. We fund the timber sale program at the levels called for by the administration. We have a chance to learn from years past that just throwing money at the timber sale program does not solve things.

   I hope our colleagues will realize that this bipartisan approach is a chance to solve problems, which is vitally important to rural communities not just in the West but across the country, while at the same time honoring the important environmental obligations this Congress has set out for the Forest Service and other agencies.

   I do hope that however colleagues voted on the Robb amendment, whatever they think with respect to the original language proposed by Senator GORTON, they will look anew at the Bryan-Fitzgerald-Wyden amendment because what we are seeking to do is build on the important principles embodied behind both of those positions.

   My two colleagues are here from the Northwest, the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee, Senator GORTON, and the chairman of the committee on which I serve, Senator CRAIG. They are absolutely right; the Forest Service has lacked direction. Under the Bryan-Fitzgerald-Wyden amendment, we put in place that direction and real accountability.

   For those who voted for the Robb amendment earlier, and want to make sure environmental laws are respected and honored, we keep in place the notion that you do not throw those laws into the garbage can on appropriations bills.

   So I am hopeful my colleagues will support this on a bipartisan basis. I particularly thank the original sponsor of the legislation, Senator BRYAN. He has done yeoman work to try to put in place a bipartisan coalition. I hope this proposal will be attractive to my colleagues of both political parties.

   Mr. President, with that I yield the floor.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.

   Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, good morning.

   I am not quite sure I know, for all of the Senators who are listening this morning or who will be asked to vote in about 45 minutes, how to capture the essence of this amendment--the first-degree and second-degree amendments--brought to us by the Senator from Nevada and the Senator from Oregon.

   I guess the best way to do that is to kind of take a snapshot back to 1989 and 1990 when this country had a vibrant forest products industry and a green sale program on the forested lands, the forested public lands of our Nation.

   I would be the first to tell you, as I have said over the years, that at that

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   Here is an example of the kind of reductions we have seen since 1989. The Senator from Oregon just spoke. In his State alone, 111 mills and 11,600 jobs. The Forest Service, by its action, in response to public policy shaped by the Senate, and interpreted by the courts of this country, caused this to happen by disallowing the availability of public saw logs to 111 mills.

   My State of Idaho: 17 mills, 770 jobs. That is a comparable impact because of the number of mills.

   I spoke yesterday about my community of Midvale--45 jobs in a 300-person community, a big impact. But that mill is gone, torn down, sent to Brazil to cut down the rain forest.

   Literally this mill right here, Grangeville, ID, closed for lack of timber, lack of public timber, lack of public timber by public policy, not for the lack of growth of trees on the Nezperce Forest, torn down and sent to Brazil to cut rain forest trees.

   We have struggled for a decade to try to transform public policy to meet the environmental sensitivity that all of us want the Forest Service to meet. The chairman of the appropriations subcommittee, Senator GORTON, has constantly worked where he could through the appropriations process to shape that new policy.

   We have now reduced the allowable cut on the public forests of our country, from 1990 to today, by 70 percent, a precipitous drop. In other words, if that were the auto industry, GM and Chrysler would no longer exist. They would be gone. Their plants would be torn down and their people would be strewn across the landscape looking for a new job.

   But it wasn't the auto industry, it was the forest products industry. We have recognized that and tried to reshape it to meet the environmental standards all of us want our Forest Service to adhere to, but also to wring the politics out of it.

   So there has been a 70-percent decline in logging for timber harvest since 1990; 140,000 people were employed in that industry in 1990; there are 55,000 today. Think of that tremendous flip-flop. Many of those folks don't have jobs yet. When you come to the public lands-dependent communities and counties of the West and some places in the South and Southeast, the unemployment today is not nearly at full employment as are most of our urban communities. It is at 16 and 17-percent unemployment. These are former loggers, men and women who made their jobs in the logging industry--not cutting trees, but working in sawmills and selling the product.

   So that is a snapshot of time. That has all happened since about 1989 to 1999. In less than a decade, we have seen the collapse of the forest product industry of this country, all in the name of the environment, while we are still growing more trees now than ever in the history of our country. We are growing more trees now than when European man came to this continent. Our forests, in some instances, are more healthy today, and in other areas they are devastatingly old, with 30 to 40 percent dead and dying. They create phenomenal fire potential situations when the climate goes dry, as they do in the Great Basin West about every 6 years. Yet we have Senators who come to the floor and want to reduce the 70-percent reduction again and again and again. That is exactly the intent of the amendment by the Senator from Nevada.

   So I scratch my head most sincerely, and ask why. It can't be because we haven't reduced the program. It can't be because we are trying to build environmental sensitivity and shape timber sales so they are much different than they were a decade ago. It must be because the national environmental movement--and the Sierra Club is the best example--in a national policy shaped 3 years ago, said: zero cut of trees on public lands. We don't want to see another tree cut.

   Somehow, other Senators seem to want to echo that and bring it to the floor. I have to believe that is the driving impetus behind this amendment. I know of no other reason--at least I can't come up with a good one--when you look at the history and recognize what the Forest Service has done. The Senator from Oregon and I are working together to shape policy. The Forest Service has lost its direction. It tried to deal with the National Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act, and as it tried to amalgamate these into the National Forest Planning Act and the national forest plans under which the forest operates. The courts have stepped in time and time again and said, no, you can't do it that way. The reason is that environmental groups have filed lawsuits. We have allowed the courts to become the managers of our public forested lands, not the U.S. Senate.

   You and I were elected to shape public policy. The chairman of the Appropriations Interior Subcommittee is working to do that. The legislation we have here, which dramatically reduces the overall programs in spending, is to do that. Some instructive words are in there. Even the amendment here, while it is argued to do something different, actually goes out on the land to improve existing roads and make them more environmentally sound.

   Now, it would be argued by some that these are going to be brand new roads out through a pristine forest. That is really not true in about 99 percent of the cases because the Forest Service is not opening up new land. They are going back now in the States of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and recutting old land. So they are taking old roads and improving them and putting in culverts and graveling them and making them more environmentally sound so you don't get sediment creating runoff into the streams and damaging the fisheries. Ninety percent of the very money the Senator from

   Nevada wants to take out of this bill will go to that kind of reconstruction of the roads.

   Those are the facts. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management, in the last 3 years, we have held 45 hearings on the U.S. Forest Service. We turned it upside down and we shook to try to figure out why it was the most dysfunctional agency of the Federal Government. Here is part of the reason why: Because the Congress of the United States, over the last two decades of shaping public policy, didn't blend the policy together and it collided, which caused the Forest Service, in large part, to crash because of lawsuits and very dedicated environmental groups who really do want to shut public timber cutting down.

   For the first time, yesterday, the Senator from Pennsylvania spoke on this. You would not expect Pennsylvania to be involved in this debate. Yet they have National Forest lands, hard wood lands. They have the same problem. Now lawsuits are being filed there to disallow the cut of red cherry and other woods that are critical to the furniture industry and to about four counties in Pennsylvania. This amendment affects every State in the United States that has a National Forest so designated within its boundaries. In some form, it will impact every one of those States.

   The second-degree amendment is simply to shift over a little over one-third of the $34 million that is taken out of the program by the amendment of the Senator from Nevada to do research. The Senator from Oregon will argue that it expedites an agenda. I am confident it doesn't because the Forest Service simply can't move that quickly. If they did, they would probably be sued and shut down again.

   So we can argue on the floor, and we will vote; and it will be a vote on politics a lot more than on policy or substance, tragically enough. I hope the Senate will stand up and say, no, we have reduced the timber sales in the United States by 70 percent, and that is enough. We have to cut some for health reasons, to clean our forest floors, for our stewardship programs, for salvage purposes, get rid of the dead and dying in the bug-infested forests that oftentimes breed the kind of death that when the drought cycle comes and creates the catastrophic fires we have seen through the Great Basin, in New Mexico and Arizona, which we will see once again. This is what is at issue today.

   I hope the Senate will agree with the chairman of the subcommittee, who spent a great deal of time with those of

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   I retain the remainder of our time.

   Mr. FITZGERALD addressed the Chair.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.

   Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I am proud to rise in support of the Bryan amendment. In fact, I would like to tell the body that I am a cosponsor of this amendment, the Bryan-Fitzgerald amendment. It is going to be second degreed with Senator WYDEN's amendment. I continue to support the bill. I think it is a reasonable, moderate approach. I have great respect for my colleague from Idaho, Senator CRAIG, and I am very impressed by his concern for his State and the Forest Service, for his knowledge of the area, and for the jobs that are in the timber industry in this country. But I think it is important to notice that this is a very moderate amendment.

   It does not end timber sales in this country. In fact, it simply cuts back an increase that the Appropriations Committee added to the Forest Service's Timber Sales Management Program--an increase that went $32 million beyond what the Forest Service chief requested, what the administration requested.

   This bill simply funds the Timber Sales Management Program at the very same amount that the Forest Service has requested.

   With all due respect, I have to say that many of the horror stories we heard on the floor last night and this morning about what effect this would have on timber sales and logging in this country are not true. It is also a very fiscally conservative approach. Of the $32 million that the Appropriations Committee gave to the Forest Service budget beyond what the Forest Service requested, we are going to apply $10 million to reduce our national debt--to pay down that important debt we are trying to eliminate over time. The rest of it we are applying for other important priorities such as restoring cuts in the fish and wildlife program that were used to, in fact, fund this increase.

   People might ask why do we need this amendment? In my judgment, increasing the timber sales management budget can't be justified either on economic grounds or on environmental grounds.

   First, if I could speak for a moment on the economic grounds, there have been a variety of studies over the recent years that have been very critical of the country's Timber Sales Management Program. All of the different reports have suggested that the program loses money. There have been different studies. Some have suggested--in fact, the Forest Service itself, I believe, estimated its loss in fiscal year 1997 at

   $889 million. But other estimates by other people using different accounting methods have suggested that the true net cash loss to the taxpayers could be as much as $1.3 billion in fiscal year 1997. You get different amounts depending on which type of accounting you would use to estimate the loss from the timber sales in this country. But whatever the true number is, there is widespread agreement that the program loses money and that it is a drain on the taxpayers.

   I have to ask why would we want to put more money into a program that by everybody's measure loses money for the taxpayers? It doesn't seem to make sense economically. Also, environmentally there are many arguments that appropriate management of our national forests and appropriate targeted cuts may actually have a beneficial effect over time.

   I have talked on several occasions to Senator CRAIG. I know he believes strongly that the management of our forests is environmentally sound. I would simply point out we are not curtailing all timber sales. We are preserving the status quo in timber sales in this country. This amendment does not go so far as to end timber sales. It funds them at roughly the same level they were funded last year. But we are not going to increase it.

   Obviously, from an environmental standpoint, the timber sales in this country are very controversial, particularly where you have an old-growth forest. Forests once cut come back. They grow back. But they never quite grow back in the same way in the same original pristine state that they once were.

   Over the August recess, I had the occasion to vacation in northern Wisconsin, in an area that was in the middle of a State forest in Wisconsin. That whole area, as I understood it from reading the history of the region, was completely clearcut in the late 1890s. In the intervening 100 years, the forest has grown back. But I read a study of the forest which showed that it didn't come back in the same way. There were different trees that came back. In fact, some of the more valuable trees were not favored in that regrowth process.

   Once a pure pristine forest is cut, it can never be regained in the beautiful form that it once was. Since those pristine areas in this country are fewer and fewer now as we enter the third millennium, don't we want to think about how much we want to expand the cutting of our national forests?

   Finally, one of the points I make is that timber sales from timber harvested in our national forests represent only a small portion of our Nation's timber supply. In fact, I am told--I have seen estimates--that as low as 3.3 percent of our timber comes from national forests. We are in no way dependent on those national forests in order to meet our timber needs in this country. In any case, this amendment does not cut that amount, whatever it is; it says we are not going to expand it.

   In sum, I think this is a very well balanced, moderate, measured amendment. I compliment Senator BRYAN, my colleague, and also Senator WYDEN for their work on this.

   I am proud to support this amendment. I support it with wholehearted enthusiasm. While I cannot claim to have the extent of beautiful national forests in my great State of Illinois that some of my colleagues from the West may have, we have the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois. It is one of the most beautiful parts of our State. It is something that is of concern to people right in my State--and that we have jobs in that area down in southern Illinois.

   I very much enjoyed spending 5 days with my family in the Shawnee National Forest about a year or so ago.

   I am hoping we can go forward into the 21st century finding a way to make sure we have an ample supply of timber in this country but at the same time preserving some of the pristine natural areas in this country--that we don't go too far in either direction.

   This is a very well-balanced amendment. I am pleased to support it.

   Mr. President, I yield the floor.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.

   Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, in fiscal year 1990, the Forest Service sold 11 billion board feet of timber for harvest and for productive use. For the last 2 years, we have authorized through our appropriations 3.6 billion board feet of harvest. The administration proposed in its budget for this year 3.2 billion, a further reduction, and a reduction from 1990 of 71 percent, as my colleague from Idaho pointed out.

   Peculiarly, or interestingly enough, the Forest Service in its actual National Forest Land Management Plan allows for a harvest of about twice this amount. It is only the appropriations level recommended by the administration, and for that matter by this Congress, that has the level almost 50 percent below what the Forest Service plans say is both economically and environmentally sustainable.

   That is the first peculiar argument.

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   Second, the committee bill does not increase the allowable harvest. It simply allows the same harvest for next year that appropriations bills passed overwhelmingly by this body and signed by the President have permitted for the course of the last 2 years.

   The question is whether or not we should continue to move toward no harvest at all, as many of the national environmental organizations recommend, or whether we should consider continuing the relatively modest harvests that were promised by this President and this administration at the beginning of his Presidency, most particularly in the Pacific Northwest.

   The Senator from Idaho pointed out that this is not exclusively a Northwest issue; that it applies to forests in other parts of the country, including the hardwood forests in the Northeast.

   The original Bryan amendment distributes this money relatively widely--a fairly small percentage of the overall Interior appropriations bill--including a modest amount which simply is not to be spent at all and will go to the national debt. Most of that modest amount, however, is taken up and spent by the Wyden second-degree amendment that is to be directed at surveys of various species in the forests of the Pacific Northwest.

   About those surveys, the Oregonian wrote an editorial 3 days ago. Three paragraphs of that editorial read as follows:

   Maybe now it is finally clear to the Clinton administration that it is fiscally and practically impossible to count every slug, every lichen, every salamander that lives on every timber sale on public forest land in the Northwest.

   The surveys of rare species of animals and plants required in the Northwest Forest Plan are ``technically impossible'' and ``preposterous,'' in the words of the Society of American Foresters, a professional group holding its national convention in Portland this week.....

   Intentional or not, the survey requirement inserted into the Northwest Forest Plan has proven to be a poison pill--a way to block all logging and prevent the plan from working as it was designed.

   That is the end of my quote from that editorial.

   The Wyden second-degree amendment wastes $10 million. It literally wastes $10 million on surveys that are ``impossible'' according to the newspaper, ``preposterous'' according to the Society of American Farmers, and ``a poison pill'' for any timber sales whatever.

   Estimates made during the course of a debate last week on carrying out all of these surveys were somewhere between $5 billion and $9 billion--not the $10 million that is included in this amendment. In other words, we are being asked by this amendment simply to throw away $10 million on useless surveys and at the same time to reduce further a timber sale program, a harvest, that is approximately half of what the Clinton Forest Service and its forest plans has said is environmentally and economically appropriate in the forests of the United States.

   There is no rational ground for either the first-degree amendment or the second-degree amendment, except for the proposition that we wish to drive as quickly as we possibly can to a situation in which there is no longer any harvest of timber products on the national forests or, for that matter, all of the public lands of the United States. That is a conclusion and a goal that is economically unsound, environmentally unsound in the United States, bad for our balanced payments, and bad for the management of forests and the rest of the world whose products would be substituted for our own if that goal were reached.

   I trust that sound judgment and wisdom will prevail and that both of these amendments will be rejected.

   I want to point out once again that the committee report, the Appropriations Committee bill that is before the Senate, does not increase timber harvests on public lands of the United States. It retains exactly the level they were authorized for in the current year by the current appropriations bill, a level that the Senator from Idaho, I, and the junior Senator from Oregon believe already to be unwisely low.

   We did not come here with a controversial point of view; we came here with essentially a freeze. We ask our colleagues to support the committee in that connection.

   Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment introduced by the Senior Senator from Nevada that would drastically cut funding for our schools and rural communities. Over the past ten years the federal timber sale program has already declined by more than 70 percent to an all-time, post World War II low. This rapid decline has brought with it severe economic instability to resource dependent communities in rural America.

   The most visible victims have been rural schools who were dependent on their share of the 25% payments they received from the proceeds of timber sales to fund such programs as, school lunches, nurses, computers for the classrooms, and just about any extra-curricular activity that you now see vanishing from America's education system. Some school districts have been forced to cut back to 4-day weeks, others have been forced to lay off teachers, and others have dropped courses, all in attempts to survive within diminishing budgets.

   This instability has also impacted the rest of the community. Increased unemployment has resulted in an increase in domestic violence, family dislocation, substance abuse, and increased welfare rolls in rural counties in all regions of the country. More and more families and communities have been driven to live near or below the poverty level.

   Many local communities, however, have begun working with their local Forest Service offices to restore economic equilibrium. They have joined with local environmentalists, local governments and industries to form coalitions that they hope can help save their schools while maintaining or improving the forest ecosystems in which they live. And yet, as quickly as they rebuild, new attacks come to reduce or eliminate funding for the federal timber sale program. These attacks are based on the concept that federal timber sales are below-cost and economic boondoggles for the federal treasury.

   As a former accountant, I would like us to take a moment to look at this program and to evaluate exactly what is going on with our Federal Timber Sale program.

   The first question we have to ask is: Does the federal timber sale program constitute a subsidy for the forest products industry, or in other words, is the price paid for federal timber below its actual market value?

   If federal timber contractors were to receive a special benefit and pay less money for the timber they harvest on federal lands, then we could say that there is a subsidy. However, Federal timber is sold by means of a competitive bid system. As a result, these auction sales are the most likely of any type of commercial transaction to generate the returns that meet or exceed market value. Because timber sales are designed to generate market value prices, we therefore must conclude that there is no subsidy.

   Furthermore, the forest products industry has been able to demonstrate time and time again that the benefits gained by the public through the Federal timber sale program far outweigh the costs to the Federal treasury.

   Only twice in the history of the Federal Timber sale program has the Forest Service reported that the costs of operating the program has exceeded revenues, in the years 1996 and 1997. This sudden loss of revenues, however, has not occurred because timber sales are not profitable.

   A quick breakdown of the timber sale program shows that commercial sales still generate a profit for the federal government. The Forest Products industry is still paying its share.

   What has changed is the focus within the Forest Service to implement an increased number of what is called stewardship sales, or timber sales designed to improve forest health without necessarily harvesting merchantable timber. These sales are not, and never have been intended to make a profit.

   Because of this increased emphasis on stewardship, there is now virtually no such thing as a purely commercial timber sale on our National Forests. Almost every timber sale released by the United States Forest Service now includes some form of stewardship element that is intended solely for the purpose of improving the health and fire resilience of our National Forests. In a sense we now have timber companies paying for the privilege of improving forest health. As a result, our national timber sale program continues to be the single most effective tool of

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   According the Forest Service's own records, more than 40 million acres of our national forest system currently exist under an extreme threat of destruction by catastrophic wildfire. An additional 26 million acres suffer from threat of destruction as a result of disease and insect infestation. Without the National Timber Sale program to thin out these forests and drastically reduce the amount of combustible fuels accumulating in our national forests I can guarantee you that when these forests burn, not if they burn, but when they burn, habitat will be destroyed, animals will be killed, water tables will be decimated, jobs will be lost, and more communities have to suffer the pains of rebuilding after another economic loss.

   Mr. President, it does not make sense to take money from our nation's most effective forest restoration program just to give it to another forest restoration program. The Timber Sale Program is currently funded at a level very close to last year--an appropriate figure as we work to restore equilibrium in rural economies.

   This bill, however, does not ignore the other restoration programs. Wherever possible we have increased funding for watershed restoration, road maintenance, and fish and wildlife management and I hope that we can continue to increase funding for these important programs, but where we have limited resources, we need to spend our tax dollars in the most effective manner, which means continuing to support the timber sale program.

   In closing Mr. President, I would like to say that the goals of environmental protection and economic stability are not mutually exclusive. We can save our environment without sacrificing rural America.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. CRAPO). The Senator from Nevada.

   Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, how much time remains for the proponents of the amendment?

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The proponents have 12 minutes 43 seconds, and the opponents have 10 minutes 4 seconds.

   Mr. BRYAN. I reserve 5 minutes.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.

   Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, let me compliment the Senator from Oregon for his leadership in helping craft this very carefully balanced and I believe very modest amendment. Although the Senator from Illinois has left the floor, I want to compliment him for the clarity of his comments. I think he has put this debate in the proper context.

   The Senator from Idaho has framed the issue as being for or against harvesting timber for commercial sales on the national forests. That is not the issue before the Senate today. This amendment does not deal with that issue. This amendment reduces the amount of money allocated for the commercial timber sales program back to the amount the President recommended in his budget and the Forest Service, the professional managers, recommended, which was $196 million.

   That commercial timber program has been subject to much criticism over the years. It is, in my judgment, one of the vestiges of corporate welfare that still exists in the Congress of the United States. Courageously, on a bipartisan basis, both parties worked to reform the welfare system. We have already seen enormous benefits as a result of that bipartisan action. For reasons that are not altogether clear to me, we have had much less success in removing the vestiges of corporate welfare. It is for that reason that such responsible organizations as the Concord Coalition as well as the National Taxpayers Union are strongly in support of the Bryan-Wyden-Fitzgerald amendment.

   The commercial timber sales program has been widely criticized because it is a subsidy. The Forest Service itself has acknowledged that fact. In the most recent fiscal year in which data is available, they have acknowledged that it is an $88.6 million loss to the taxpayer. The General Accounting

   Office, reviewing the data from 1992 to 1997, concluded the American taxpayers have lost some $1.5 billion as a result of this program. The Bryan-Wyden-Fitzgerald amendment is an attempt to bring some balance to the program.

   My friend from Idaho has suggested that somehow this commercial sales program deals with forest management. We should be candid: It deals with commercial sales. We are subsidizing some of the largest logging companies in America. To do so, the appropriators, in changing the President's recommendation, have stripped money from some of the most important accounts in the Forest Service.

   Regarding the road maintenance account, we have in the neighborhood of 380,000 miles of roads in the national forests. That is more miles than we have on the National Interstate Highway System. Each one of those miles of new roads that are cut in requires a substantial amount of ongoing maintenance to prevent environmental damage. The Forest Service estimated it would require $431 million annually to begin to address the environmental consequences of some of these roads that have been cut through the national forest. The backlog is some $3.85 billion. Yet in the bill that the appropriators present to the floor, they have stripped about $11.3 million out of this road maintenance program.

   From firsthand experience, based upon our experience in Nevada and the Tahoe Basin, that is a major contributing factor to erosion and degradation of the ecosystem. Yet in terms of priorities, the appropriators would set as a priority increasing the timber sales program and reducing the amount of money available for the road maintenance program.

   In addition, they have cut substantial amounts of money out of the fish and wildlife accounts.

   Putting the National Forest System in some perspective, only 4 percent of the timber harvested in America comes from the National Forest System. However, it is not the only use that the national forest has. The national forest, as my colleague from Illinois noted in citing his own personal experience, provides an enormous recreational opportunity for millions of people. Yet the programs which they depend upon--the fish and wildlife accounts to make sure the habitat is there, that the fishery is not devastated as a consequence of some of these practices--those accounts have been substantially reduced. The funding that goes to those accounts is an investment in the Nation's 63 million wildlife watchers, 14 million hunters, and 35 million anglers who spend approximately 127.6 million activity days hunting, fishing, and observing fish and wildlife annually on the national forests.

   Those who oppose the amendment have cited some of the economic circumstances that have affected the logging industry. Let me suggest with great respect, those are consequences of changing technology. Those jobs, I regret to say, will never come back because we harvest differently. The technology is more efficient. It is less manpower intensive.

   On the other hand, the moneys that we invest in these programs that deal with fish and wildlife directly result in local community expenditures of billions of dollars, in over 230,000 full-time equivalent jobs.

   One out of every three anglers fishes the national forest waters nationally, and two out of three anglers in the West fish the national forest waters.

   So what my colleagues from Oregon and Illinois have put together is a carefully crafted balance: Maintain the timber harvest program at a $196 million level but do not increase it, because of the massive subsidy involved and the damage that has been done to the national forest system; put money back into the road maintenance account to help address that backlog, which is a major contributor to the environmental degradation that the ecosystem, according to the National Forest Service, is experiencing; restore money to the fish and wildlife accounts so we can help those who use the national forests for recreational purposes and address their needs.

   I think as evidence of how balanced this effort is, the editorial support is not confined to any particular region. The Chattanooga Times expresses its support for it, as does my own hometown newspaper, the Las Vegas Sun, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and the San Francisco Chronicle. All who looked at this recognize this subsidy needs to be limited. What we have done is provide a carefully balanced response to that. I urge my colleagues to

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   I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of our time.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.

   Mr. WYDEN. How much time remains on our side?

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 5 minutes 13 seconds.

   Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, let me wrap up by saying that colleagues can see, year after year, this Congress has increased funding for the timber sale program. You can see that pattern since the late 1990s, going into this year. So all Senator BRYAN, Senator FITZGERALD, and I are trying to say is that there is more to this question, practicing sustainable forestry that will be good for rural communities as relates to their economic needs and to their environmental needs--there is more to this than just throwing money at the timber sale program.

   If throwing money at the timber sale program was going to make things better, all of us in this body would have seen improvements over the last few years. In fact, we have seen the problems get worse. The problems have worsened in so many of these rural communities in both economics and the environment.

   Much has been made of comments in our newspaper, the Oregonian, because of the importance of the forest in the Pacific Northwest. The Oregonian, in their editorial pages, said:

   What is needed is a carefully negotiated agreement on appropriate surveys for rare species and adequate funding to do them.

   That is exactly what the Bryan-Fitzgerald-Wyden package does. For the first time we link adequate funding for the timber sale program to specific requirements for accountability and oversight. Never before on the floor of the Senate have we

   made the judgment that is in the Bryan-Fitzgerald-Wyden package that in fact the Forest Service really has lost direction in complying with a lot of these environmental concerns.

   But we do not throw the environmental laws in the garbage can. Instead, we have the important effort that was launched by Senator ROBB and our good friend, Senator CLELAND, who is here this morning. At the same time, we agree with Senators CRAIG and GORTON that we do need to put this program on track.

   So I am very hopeful my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will see this as a practical approach, an approach that is sensitive to the economic needs of rural communities, an approach that complies with the Nation's environmental laws and at the same time allows us to be a more effective steward of resources for taxpayers in this country.

   This is not the end of the debate. Certainly what the Oregonian called for recently--a negotiated agreement on surveys to comply with the environmental rules and adequate funding--is going to have to be fleshed out when the House and Senate go to a conference committee. But this is the first step to a fresh approach that links adequate funding for the necessary environmental work with accountability that is long overdue at the Forest Service and a chance to meet the economic needs of the rural communities.

   If all that was needed was what some of my colleagues on the other side have called for, which is spending more money on the timber sale program--we would not have many of the problems we are seeing today because year after year this Congress has put more money in the timber sale program. What we need is what Senators BRYAN and FITZGERALD and I have talked about on this floor, an effort to link the new focus on accountability at the Forest Service with compliance with environmental rules and sensitivity to economic concerns.

   I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan amendment, and I yield the floor.

   Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, every year at this time it seems we are here on the Senate floor debating another attack on the Forest Service's Timber Management Program. Every year those who wish to eliminate logging in our national forests come up with another angle which they claim helps protect the environment by eliminating ``wasteful'' spending on logging practices. Every year people throughout northern Minnesota and forested regions across the country see their jobs and their livelihoods threatened in the name of preservation or conservation. And every year, those of us who represent the good people of the timber and paper industry in our states have to fight, scratch, and claw our way to a narrow victory that saves those jobs and those families from economic ruin.

   I come from a state in which the forest and paper industry is vital to our economy. The reduction in the timber program on national forests has had a dramatic impact over the past ten years on the number of jobs and the economic vitality of northern Minnesota. According to Minnesota Forest Industries (MFI), jobs provided by the timber program in Minnesota dropped from over 1,900 in 1987 to less than 1,100 last year, and they continue to decline.

   The reduction in timber harvests on federal lands has had an equally dramatic effect on unrealized economic impacts. MFI estimates that unrealized economic benefits include over $10 million from timber sales, $25 million in federal taxes, $2.5 million in payments to states, and $116 million in community economic impact in Minnesota alone.

   It is important to point out that the timber program in national forests has a very positive impact on the amount of federal money that goes to rural counties and schools. Nationally, the program contributes $225 million to counties and schools each year through receipts from timber sales in national forests. In Minnesota, the timber program provided roughly $1.7 million to counties and schools in 1998 alone. If the timber program would have met its allowable sale quantity in 1998, that number would have risen to nearly $2.5 million.

   I am fascinated by the claims of some of my colleagues that the timber program is a subsidy to wealthy timber and paper companies and the claims that the timber program loses money because we are giving timber away to these companies. If you truly believe that, I challenge you to visit northern Minnesota and speak with the families who have lost their mills and the loggers who have lost their jobs. Talk to the counties and the private landowners who cannot access to their own property because the Forest Service doesn't have enough money to do the environmental reviews. Or talk directly to the Forest Service personnel and let them tell you how lengthy and costly environmental reviews and the overwhelming number of court challenges to those reviews is making the timber program so costly.

   Then go speak with state or county land managers and ask them why their timber programs are so successful. Ask them why their lands are so much more healthy than the federal lands and why they're able to make money with their timber programs. In Minnesota, St. Louis County only has to spend 26 cents in order to generate one dollar of revenue in their timber program and the State of Minnesota spends 75 cents to generate one dollar of revenue. The Superior National Forest, on the other hand, spends one dollar and three cents to get the same result.

   I cannot see how my colleagues can stand here on the Senate floor and tell me that the forest and paper industry in our country, and its employees, are the bad guys. The forest and paper industry in America employs over 1.5 million people and ranks among the top ten manufacturing employers in 46 states. These are good, traditional jobs that help a family make a living, allow children to pursue higher education, help keep rural families in rural areas, and provide a legitimate tax base from which rural counties can fund basic services. These are jobs that we in Congress should be working diligently not only to protect, but to grow.

   Unfortunately, many Members of Congress who advocate these ideas have never taken the time to understand the positive economic and environmental benefits of science-based timber harvests. They have never sat down with a county commissioner who does not know where he is going to get the money for some of the most basic services the county provides to its citizens. They have never considered that for every 1 million board feet in timber harvest reductions in Minnesota, 10 people lose their jobs and over $570,000 in economic activity is lost. And they have never taken the time to go into a

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   If Members of this body want to make the timber program profitable across the country, then we should have an honest debate about what works and does not work in the program. We should discuss frankly the ridiculous number of hoops public land managers have to jump through in order to process a timber sale. I think we need to discuss the fact that under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act the federal government must provide access across federal lands for state, county, and private landowners to access their land. Yet in Minnesota, those landowners either have to wait a number of years or pay for the environmental reviews themselves because the Forest Service claims it does not have enough money. We should also discuss openly the dramatic impact court challenges are having on the ability of the Forest Service to do its job and to carry out the timber program in a cost-effective manner. On top of that, it's clear that under this administration the Forest Service does not want a timber program that shows a profit and they have done an effective job of using the powers of the executive branch to vilify both the timber program and the men and women of my state who rely upon that program in order to meet their most basic needs.

   Virtually everyone in this body, including this Senator, is committed to the protection of our environment and to the conservation of our wildlife species and wildlife habitat. I believe we can expand upon our commitment to wildlife and provide additional resources for habitat protection. But I do not believe we must do so on the backs of timber and paper workers throughout the nation. I am willing to work with anybody in this chamber towards those conservation efforts, but let's not do it by pitting timber and paper workers against conservationists.

   We cannot simply stand here and claim that the Bryan amendment is an easy way to throw some money towards the preservation of public land. Rather, this amendment is going to take jobs from my constituents and hurt the economy of the northern part of my state. The Bryan amendment is just one more step down the road toward eliminating logging on federal land. This amendment is going to reduce the ability of a number of rural counties in my state to make ends meet and to provide necessary services to residents. Those are just a few of the realities of the Bryan amendment and just a few of the reasons why I cannot and will not support its passage.

   Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I want to at least try to shape for the RECORD some of the facts and statistics that have just been brought out. Last year, commercial sales of logs by the Forest Service produced a profit of $14.7 million. Last year's stewardship sales, the kind that the Senator from Nevada is talking about, for the purposes of forest health, the kind that is going on in the Tahoe Basin, lost the Forest Service $57.4 million. Those are the facts from the Forest Service.

   It is understandable because when you go in to clean up the dead and dying and to improve the general health of the forested lands, you are dealing with a less valuable stick of timber. But the reality is that what the Senator from Nevada advocates is, in fact, a losing proposition. But I support stewardship, as does the Senator from Nevada, because it improves the forest health, it improves wildlife habitat, and water quality when it is properly done. It is not a money-maker. It is something that will have to be subsidized.

   Is the Senator from Nevada willing to say that the company that does the stewardship contract for the Forest Service is a subsidized business? He just finished talking about corporate welfare. Is that welfare or is that forest health? Is that an environmentally sound thing to do? I think we are getting our facts a bit mixed up.

   The road maintenance program was not slashed this year; $10 million was added to it. The Senator from Nevada knows the President's budget, when it came to the Hill, was dead on arrival, and we did not really consider any aspect of it. They wanted more money. They wanted $20 million. We gave them $10 million. So the program was not slashed; it was added to by $10 million over last year's level. It was reduced from the President's recommendation. I believe that shapes the reality of the facts a bit differently.

   Let me talk a little more about facts. The Forest Service timber program generated directly for personal and business incomes this last year over $2 billion. Personal and business income from the timber program has dropped by almost $5 billion since 1991, for the very reasons we have given, because the Forest Service has reduced its program by 70 percent. We are dealing with less than the 30 percent that remains, and even that produces an income for working men and women and businesses of around $2 billion.

   The amendment will continue to reduce this. There is no question because you are not going to have the money to do the studies, to do the EISs, to produce the sales, and to recondition the roads necessary to gain access to that timber. There are over 50 timber-dependent communities that each receive over $10 million of personal and business income from the forest timber program. There are almost 150 counties that each receive over $1 million. This income is at risk with the Bryan amendment--no question about it--because he continues to reduce the program.

   The timber sales program generated $577 million in revenue to the Government and returned $220 million directly to school districts and counties for their roads and bridges. That is the reality of the money from the timber program.

   It is important to understand that when we talk of allocating tax dollars to the Forest Service, it is done for the purpose of maintenance and of stewardship. All of these create a healthier, more vibrant forest.

   That is largely the timber sale program today. It is not the large green-cuts program of a decade ago. Still the Senator from Nevada says that is too much and even used phrases like ``corporate welfare'' this morning. I do not think he would say the companies that are in the Tahoe Basin today, thinning and taking out the dead and dying and improving the forest health and ultimately improving the water quality of that basin, are corporate welfare babies. They are industries hired by the Forest Service to improve the health of the forest.

   The Forest Service timber program generated $309 million in Federal taxes in 1997. This kind of significant economic activity is only when we have a viable timber program. We have reduced it dramatically, the timber program contributed over $700 million in income taxes in 1992. Again, the Bryan amendment will continue to reduce that.

   We have already talked of the loss of jobs. One-half of the timber program is stewardship or personal use. Sales are used, again, for the purpose of maintaining or improving forest health--thinning, cleaning, reducing the fire hazards and the fuel loads. These types of sales are always, as I have just said, marginally profitable, some of them not, but they are done as part of the responsibility of the Forest Service to progressively improve the general health of our forested lands.

   We know that Mother Nature, left to her own decisions in forest management, takes a lightning strike where she takes it and oftentimes burns down hundreds of thousands of acres, destroying habitat and dramatically impairing water quality in that immediate area for several years to come. We know that the hand of man, properly directed, can assist in improving the forest health, and that is exactly what many of our programs are about today.

   The amendment will penalize the Forest Service timber program by reducing activities that are improving the health that I have talked about and the ecosystems about which all of us are concerned. At the same time, the amendment will throw a monkey wrench into a program that is already in trouble and will not contribute increased dollars to the coffers of the Public Treasury.

   Those are the general issues at hand.

   Mr. President, how much time remains?

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 2 minutes 45 seconds.

   Mr. CRAIG. I was just informed, and I think it is reasonable, Mr. President,

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   I yield the floor and retain the remainder of my time.

   Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, how much time remains?

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The proponents of the amendment have 58 seconds. The opponents of the amendment have 2 minutes 1 second.

   Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I am prepared to yield back the remainder of the time remaining on my side if my colleague from Idaho is prepared to do the same.

   Mr. CRAIG. I am, Mr. President. I yield back the remainder of my time. I move to table amendment No. 1588 and ask for the yeas and nays.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?

   There appears to be a sufficient second.

   The yeas and nays were ordered.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to table amendment No. 1588. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.

   The legislative assistant called the roll.

   Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. MCCAIN) and the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. GREGG) are necessarily absent.

   Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Florida (Mr. GRAHAM) is necessarily absent.

   The result was announced--yeas 54, nays 43, as follows:

   Abraham

   Allard

   Ashcroft

   Baucus

   Bennett

   Bond

   Breaux

   Bunning

   Burns

   Byrd

   Campbell

   Cochran

   Collins

   Coverdell

   Craig

   Crapo

   Daschle

   Domenici

   Enzi

   Frist

   Gorton

   Gramm

   Grams

   Grassley

   Hagel

   Hatch

   Helms

   Hutchinson

   Hutchison

   Inhofe

   Johnson

   Kyl

   Landrieu

   Lincoln

   Lott

   Lugar

   Mack

   McConnell

   Murkowski

   Nickles

   Roberts

   Santorum

   Sessions

   Shelby

   Smith (NH)

   Smith (OR)

   Snowe

   Stevens

   Thomas

   Thompson

   Thurmond

   Voinovich

   Warner

   Wellstone

   Akaka

   Bayh

   Biden

   Bingaman

   Boxer

   Brownback

   Bryan

   Chafee

   Cleland

   Conrad

   DeWine

   Dodd

   Dorgan

   Durbin

   Edwards

   Feingold

   Feinstein

   Fitzgerald

   Harkin

   Hollings

   Inouye

   Jeffords

   Kennedy

   Kerrey

   Kerry

   Kohl

   Lautenberg

   Leahy

   Levin

   Lieberman

   Mikulski

   Moynihan

   Murray

   Reed

   Reid

   Robb

   Rockefeller

   Roth

   Sarbanes

   Schumer

   Specter

   Torricelli

   Wyden

   Graham

   Gregg

   McCain

   The motion was agreed to.

   Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

   Mr. GORTON. I move to lay that motion on the table.

   The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

   Mr. CRAIG. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. ENZI). The clerk will call the roll.

   The legislative assistant proceeded to call the roll.

   Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

END