- 5/7/2025
The Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, & Forestry Committee holds a hearing on the Fix Our Forests Act.
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NewsTranscript
00:00:00This act that we're going to be considering here today is the first major standalone forestry bill
00:00:06Congress has debated in more than two decades and that's why we look forward to hearing your
00:00:13testimony. We also appreciate the bipartisan work of Senators Hickenlooper, Padilla, Curtis and
00:00:22Sheehy to introduce a Senate version of the bill. As everyone knows in the country earlier this
00:00:29year wildfires raged across Los Angeles killing dozens of people devastating homes and businesses
00:00:35this spring wildfires threatened homes and communities in the Carolinas and Georgia
00:00:40rising temperatures drier summers longer wildfire seasons and earlier snow melt are driving these
00:00:47fires as forests depart from their historical conditions. There are growing threats across the
00:00:54nation. We've seen threats to forests in other ways and in the last farm bill I supported improvements
00:01:02to the good neighbor authority a bipartisan effort and the execution of vegetation management projects
00:01:08to reduce wildfire risk. Now the size and scope of these fires and the level of need for forest
00:01:15restoration make it clear that we must do more to improve current tools like the good neighbor
00:01:20authority and we must invest more in wildfire prevention. In recent years I've supported
00:01:26additional permitting flexibilities and investments in wildfire risk prevention. As a result of these
00:01:32laws a record-breaking 4.28 million acres were treated for wildfire last year alone. Unfortunately we're
00:01:40seeing from this administration cuts to the Forest Service. The recently released budget proposes deep
00:01:46reductions in National Forest Service system funding popular programs that strengthen state and private
00:01:52capacity for managing forests and forestry research. Eliminating the successful bipartisan collaborative
00:01:59Forest Landscape Restoration Program is something that the Fix Our Forest Act seeks to improve and the budget
00:02:08sadly recommends moving wildfire operations out of the USDA's Forest Service. These are concerning proposals that have an
00:02:15impacts on lives and livelihoods. Equally concerning the Forest Service has reportedly lost more than 4,000 employees since January and while
00:02:23many wildland firefighters have been exempted from workforce reduction initiatives I'm concerned that many Forest Service employees with so-called red cards have departed the agencies.
00:02:32These employees are crucial. Funding is another important consideration as the committee discussed this important bill the Fix Our Forest Act. In its latest update on the wildfire
00:02:44crisis strategies strategies implementation. The Forest Service reported that in some areas there's more work to do than workforce capacity.
00:02:51And regardless of what the USDA calls its wildfire strategy what remains the same is the need for tree thinning and prescribed fire to occur on some acres. The new wildfire intelligence center fire shed assessments increasing the pace and scale of forest restoration work and reforestation. All of these new authorities demand resources. We can all agree that more active forest management is needed but we must make sure we have the resources to do it and
00:03:21we keep the employees to do it and we keep the employees to do it and we keep the employees to do it and I just want to thank you Mr. French for being here and again we're really pleased that there's been such good work done on a bipartisan basis and I'm sure some of our colleagues will be here soon.
00:03:37So now I'm going to introduce you Mr. French or should we wait?
00:03:42Okay. Mr. French serves as the Acting Associate Chief for the U.S. Forest Service at USDA. Prior to this assignment he served as the Deputy Chief of the National Forest System where he was responsible for policy oversight and direction for natural resource management and public service delivery programs across the 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands in the
00:04:07national forest system. He has spent a 34-year career as I mentioned at USDA working in a number of positions within the Forest Service and his testimony today will be invaluable. Again thank you for being here this morning, this afternoon Mr. French and you are recognized for your statement and I know we'll look forward to hearing from Chairman Bozeman. Thank you Mr. French.
00:04:32Thank you Ranking Member Klobuchar and members of the committee. My name is Chris French and I am the Associate Chief of the Forest Service and I appreciate the opportunity to provide the perspective of the USDA Forest Service on Senate the Senate draft of the Fix Our Forest Act. Our national forests are facing great challenges, uncharacteristically severe wildfires, insect and disease outbreaks, invasive species and many other stressors.
00:05:00And although the Forest Service has been working diligently with resources and authorities it's been given, there is still much to be done to improve the health and productivity of our nation's forests.
00:05:10President Trump's executive order. President Trump's executive order 14225 and Secretary Rollins' secretarial memo 1078-006 help the agency take immediate action to mitigate risk, protect public health and safety and critical infrastructure, support local and rural economies and mitigate threats to natural resources on the national forest system lands.
00:05:34The Senate draft of Fix Our Forest Act works to address these issues as well as a variety of other new programs and amendments to existing authorities. The bill compiles several separate bills related to wildfire breaks, forest health, forest management and other provisions. USDA supports the bill and would like to continue to work with the subcommittee on technical changes. I'll highlight a few areas.
00:05:58USDA strongly supports streamlining NEPA procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act and expanding existing categorical exclusions to reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health. In order to expedite the implementation of the categorical exclusion for high priority hazard trees proposed in Section 213, we would encourage the committee to establish the categorical exclusion statutorily rather than directing the Secretary to do so within a year.
00:06:16USDA also supports the problematic Cottonwood decision and would like to work with the committee and our federal partners on technical changes to address the issue once and for all.
00:06:23USDA supports provisions of the collaborative tools in Title I, Subtitle B. We support the changes to go into the
00:06:46Good Neighbor Authority and would support the good neighbor authority and would support adding a provision that would allow retained timber receipts to be used for the construction of roads as we saw in the house draft.
00:06:57In addition, we support extending the maximum length of stewardship and result contracting projects from 10 to 20 years as we see in Section 112.
00:07:07Further, we support raising the threshold at which timber sales must be advertised and would encourage the committee to add a provision to make annual increases to the threshold to account for inflation.
00:07:18USDA sees prescribed fire as a critically important tool to support wildfire risk reduction and forest management.
00:07:25We support the subtitle on prescribed fire as it would support our work to reduce the risk that wildfires pose to our communities and resources.
00:07:34Specifically, this subtitle would strengthen our fire workforce by streamlining certification requirements and increasing their interoperability with our non-federal partners, as well as offering our prescribed fire managers more liability protections.
00:07:48We will be able to strengthen our partnerships with a variety of entities through this new cooperative agreements and contracts authorized by this section.
00:07:57We'd like to work with the committee to clarify a few sections, including on the use of pile burning and the nexus to prescribe fire has with regulatory compliance.
00:08:06Lastly, though USDA is largely supportive of our Fix Our Forest Act, USDA does not support the incorporation of containerized systems into our suppression response under Section 306, given firefighter safety and other operational concerns.
00:08:23Chairman Bozeman, Ranking Member Klobuchar, members of this committee, thank you for the opportunity to present USDA's views on this proposed legislation, and I look forward to answering your questions.
00:08:35Thank you, Mr. French, and thank you, Senator Klobuchar, for getting us off to a good start.
00:08:44And we're here to review S-1462, the Fix Our Forest Act, commonly referred to as FOFA.
00:08:56I welcome our witness, Mr. Chris French, Acting Associate Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, for being here today.
00:09:02I know you're a busy guy, but we appreciate you coming and sharing your insight.
00:09:07Members and staff on both sides of the aisle and both chambers of Congress have invested significant time and efforts to bring this legislation in front of our committee today.
00:09:18I want to thank my colleagues, Senator Curtis, Hickenlooper, Padilla, and Sheehy, for their tireless efforts in developing and introducing this bipartisan Senate bill.
00:09:28I also want to thank Senator Marshall and Senator Bennett for your work as chair and ranking member at the subcommittee regarding the hearing you convened on March on H.R. 471, the House passed Fix Our Forest Bill.
00:09:43Finally, I want to thank my friend and fellow Arkansan, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, who, along with Congressman Scott Peters of California, led an exhaustive bipartisan effort to construct and pass H.R. 471 on the House floor with 279 votes in January of this year.
00:10:04As we all know, wildfires are indifferent to federal, state, tribal, and private property lines or political subdivisions.
00:10:13The Fix Our Forest Act provides us with a unique bipartisan opportunity to modernize and right-size some of the tools and processes our federal land management agencies, states, counties, tribes, rural and urban communities, and private partners across the country need to mitigate the frequency and intensity of catastrophic wildfire while helping to keep our forests healthy and working for generations to come.
00:10:42Similar to the House passed legislation, S. 1462 identifies and prioritizes the most fire-prone landscapes and provides federal land-grant management agencies with improved authorities and technologies to mitigate those risks as exponentially as possible.
00:11:04It enhances the federal government's public-private partnership authorities to increase the pace and scale of the work needed on the ground.
00:11:13S. 1462 rectifies certain processes to mitigate frivolous litigation and remove duplicative review processes to facilitate the Forest Service's ability to proceed with its statutorily required environmental review process for progress.
00:11:32For projects on the National Forest System lands.
00:11:37This legislation also elevates the critical need to incentivize innovation and resilience in our nation's forests by prioritizing initiatives such as biochar, nursery capacity, and white oak restoration.
00:11:51This legislation reflects the bipartisan efforts and ideas to mitigate the frequency and intensity of catastrophic wildfire.
00:12:00And I'm pleased members of the committee will have this opportunity to further explore FOFA and hear from the Forest Service on how the legislation will reduce catastrophic wildfires and improve forest health.
00:12:12I'm grateful for the work our colleagues have done on both sides of the Capitol and the aisle that brings us to this point.
00:12:23I look forward to working with my colleagues through the committee process before the end of this work period to deliver these essential improvements and modernized tools to our federal land management agencies.
00:12:37And with that we will start with our questions.
00:12:44If I can find them.
00:12:47Okay.
00:12:48I need all the help I can get here.
00:12:50Mr. French, can you please help the committee again or can you please help the committee gain a full understanding of the agency's use of categorical exclusions and what actions must still be taken in order to use them regardless of size?
00:13:19How will the categorical exclusions in S-1462 help advance the pace and the scale of forest management and should Congress consider additional or even increasing categorical exclusions?
00:13:36Sure.
00:13:37Okay.
00:13:38Thank you, Senator.
00:13:39The categorical exclusion is one of the ways that you comply with the National Environmental Policy Act.
00:13:45It doesn't exempt you from the National Environmental Policy Act.
00:13:48It is an approach for documenting and being transparent to the public about what the effects are of the project you're going to do.
00:14:00It is for projects that we have found to be or Congress has found to be routinely non-significant.
00:14:09For a project that may be considered significant other NEPA we may look at an environmental assessment or we may look at an environmental impact statement.
00:14:17So a CE is a project that has been found to be non-significant and we are disclosing the effects of that project to the public through the categorical exclusion process.
00:14:30You have to comply with the National Historic Preservation Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act and you have to be regulated and go through the processes with those agencies on any of those projects.
00:14:43Very good.
00:14:47Mr. French, can you explain how frivolous litigation has slowed down the forest's ability to conduct proper forest management to reduce fuels and how this legislation would help alleviate these delays?
00:15:02So litigation, especially in certain parts of the country, add a lot of additional process and analysis to the projects that we do.
00:15:14I'll give you a few examples of this.
00:15:17So the most litigated areas that we have in the National Forest System are up in Montana, Idaho, Region 1, California, Oregon, Washington.
00:15:28In these areas, what we generally find is that the level of analysis and disclosure we do through NEPA is considerably longer and more extensive than we do in other places because we're defending ourselves from litigation that we often will get on vegetation management fuels reduction projects.
00:15:48This will add about $100,000 to $125,000 onto the cost of every project.
00:15:55It generally doubles the cost it takes us to deliver, let's say, a board foot from an area that is not litigated than it does to an area that does.
00:16:05And it adds considerable burden in terms of time frame.
00:16:12So for a community that is looking for us to perform a hazardous fuels reduction project in and around their community, we may propose it and be ready to implement it within about a year and a half.
00:16:25But if it goes under litigation, we may not actually be able to implement it for three to four years or longer.
00:16:31Mr. French, can you help the committee understand why, despite limited emergency authorities provided in prior legislation,
00:16:42enactment of FOFA and greater certainty at the agency is necessary?
00:16:47Well, I think FOFA does a few things for us.
00:16:51One, it it recognizes the size of the of the problem that we have across the national forest system in terms of fire and forest health and appropriately sizes the projects and authorities we have to the problem at hand.
00:17:06We're having fires that are impacting sometimes a million acres.
00:17:10We have fires that are 100,000 acres that are no longer considered exceptional.
00:17:16The work that we have to do both to prevent those and to respond after is no longer something that is 250 acres or even 3000 acres, but as much grander and much larger than that, if we're going to be effective.
00:17:31FOFA recognizes that and puts together the set of tools for both us to plan where we need to do our work, but how to do it more quickly and it puts it in statute.
00:17:41So it's not as susceptible to litigation.
00:17:46Very good. Senator Klobuchar.
00:17:48Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
00:17:51Mr. French, the Fix Our Forest Act improves the good neighbor and stewardship contracting authorities that leverage state tribal county and industry partners to achieve more forest restoration.
00:18:03I've long helped champion improvements to these tools, which are a priority for my state and Senator Smith's state, same state, where active forest management is needed to enhance the health of Minnesota.
00:18:16Yeah, I didn't mean Wisconsin.
00:18:18They often confuse Senator Baldwin and Senator Smith, whole nother story, to enhance the health of Minnesota's forests.
00:18:27Mr. French, how will changes to good neighbor authority and stewardship contracting provide more long-term certainty to the forest service partners and assist forest restoration efforts?
00:18:38Understanding that you may want some changes to the bill, there may be other changes proposed here, but talk about that issue.
00:18:45Yeah, I mean, forest management across this country is a very collaborative effort between local, state, and federal agencies, and especially for us.
00:18:54We've found the good neighbor tool to be exceptionally helpful working with state agencies to implement forest management work on national forest system lands.
00:19:05It allows us to essentially do a lot more and more efficiently and effectively given the staffing that we have.
00:19:13The changes that are being proposed here recognizes the costs that go with the state so they can use the receipts to actually fund the program they're doing to help manage federal lands.
00:19:23And that's appropriate and helpful. Otherwise, they're just getting limited resources.
00:19:28Okay. So as I noted, the president's budget, I don't expect you to be the commentator on that, but proposes cuts to national forest system management, staffing, and facilities, state, private, tribal forestry assistance, forestry research.
00:19:44This includes eliminating a program that has reduced wildfire risk across 5 million acres.
00:19:50And then a part of the budget notes that there'll be a shift to the state.
00:19:55Has the USDA evaluated if states have the capacity and resources to assume a greater role in forest management?
00:20:02We're in constant discussions and collaboration with state foresters across this country.
00:20:08In fact, we just sat down last week and talked through them about better ways for us to work together to share capacity.
00:20:15And it's mixed from state to state, they have different capacity.
00:20:19And I think some of the changes that are associated with FOFA actually gives them the tools they need to bring that up.
00:20:25For us, we found the work that we do with counties, tribes, and states through Good Neighbor to be exceptionally helpful, especially when we may have limited capacity on our own.
00:20:40Last month, Senator Heinrich and I sent a letter to the USDA expressing concerns and raising questions about potential workforce reductions at the Forest Service.
00:20:50We recently received a response, but I'm looking forward to more information on workforce reduction efforts and the funding and hiring freezes at the Forest Service.
00:21:00I think we all know these workers are critical.
00:21:03Mr. French, how are you planning around the potential staffing cuts to ensure all these major responses continue to be met?
00:21:10And are you concerned about losing employees who hold so-called red cards that allow them to respond to fires?
00:21:17Yeah, thank you for the question.
00:21:19Our highest priority right now, and we just sat down with our leadership team and assessed the changes that have happened in our workforce,
00:21:28and the changes that we've seen or the losses we've had for people that were red carded to help with fire.
00:21:35Fire is incredibly integrated across the Forest Service.
00:21:38It's not just primary firefighters, but it is thousands of employees across the Forest Service that contribute and help, especially during that season.
00:21:47We've assessed what that looks like.
00:21:50We have prioritized response to wildfire across the agency to be the number one priority for all employees.
00:21:59So that as we're going into this season, we're able to activate, whether that's in support of a camp and the logistics associated with a fire,
00:22:08or delivering the preparedness we need to do on the line.
00:22:11We're working closely with interagency partners.
00:22:14We're actually providing for how we would fill in spaces that we need, but it's going to take an all-hands approach until we rebuild some of those skill sets.
00:22:27And how would additional resources for programs like Watershed Condition Framework or Water Source Protection Program help the Forest Service meet the goals that it has,
00:22:39especially with changes under the Fix Our Forests Act?
00:22:44So, I mean, I think everyone knows that the Forest Service was founded primarily around the ability to deliver clean water to America and a sustainable flow of timber.
00:22:56And so the focus that we have on delivering healthy watersheds, funding that goes there helps us expand and maintain that.
00:23:05We know that right now when we have a wildfire that is, like I said, of hundreds of thousands of acres or a million acres,
00:23:14the consequences of sediment flow, the consequences of water delivery to systems downstream are so consequential.
00:23:23Okay.
00:23:24So anything we can do to fix that is helpful.
00:23:26All right.
00:23:27Just very quick last question.
00:23:28Will the Forest Service be able to continue treating more acres once the additional funding provided in recent years
00:23:34is no longer available?
00:23:39You're specifically referring to the supplemental funds we got through IIJA and IRA.
00:23:44And I'm talking about treating the acres against wildfire.
00:23:47Yeah.
00:23:48So we've invested a lot of those funds so that they will be able to provide work over time with a lot of partners right now.
00:23:56So we should see that continue for a little while.
00:23:59But essentially, we are going to have to change our business model for how we're doing some of that work if we're going to maintain the acres that we're doing right now.
00:24:08We're going to have to depend more heavily on private partnerships, on states to do some of that work, because the funding levels won't be the same.
00:24:18Senator Marshall.
00:24:20Thank you, Chairman.
00:24:21Welcome, Mr. French, to the Agriculture Committee.
00:24:24I think you're going to find that's not only brighter, but much more friendlier than the E&R Committee.
00:24:34You're welcome.
00:24:35Absolutely.
00:24:36our RNGR Support Act, if you're familiar with it. It is a legislation that Senator
00:24:43Hickenlooper and I introduced before, but our bill included a dedicated funding
00:24:49mechanism through the Reforestation Trust Fund to ensure we wouldn't be
00:24:53diverting resources from other essential programs. Given your leadership on
00:24:58national forestry priorities, would you agree that using the Reforestation Trust
00:25:02Fund offers a sustainable path to implementing the bill without impacting
00:25:06other critical programs? As what I've read thus far and understand it, yes.
00:25:13Next, has the U.S. Forest Service provided technical assistance on how to
00:25:18implement RNGR without pulling from existing state, private, and tribal
00:25:22forestry funding? I believe we have. We'll have to get back with you on that one.
00:25:28Thank you. Is the agency open to state representation on the Wildfire
00:25:33Intelligence Center Board, as is the case with other interagency entities in the
00:25:38fire management system, such as the National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group and
00:25:43the National Wildfire Coordinating Group? Absolutely. I mean, Wildfire is an
00:25:48interagency. It is a local county. It is a state. It is a federal response. And the
00:25:55only way to do this effectively is with that representation within Intelligence Center.
00:26:01Okay. It's kind of a general question. Has it been your experience or do they have the potential,
00:26:10I'm referring to mills, whether it be a paper mill or a lumber mill, do they have the potential to
00:26:16contribute to the proper management of forests? Absolutely. I mean, the having a thriving forest product
00:26:24sector is essential for us to be able to reduce wildland fire risk across this country and to
00:26:32provide jobs to local economies. So, you know, essentially what's happening, especially through
00:26:38most of the West, is that when we've been putting out our fires and removing fires, we just have
00:26:43lots more trees than we ever had. Those trees are competing for water resources. They're dying.
00:26:48They're there. They are affected by insect and disease. So, thinning those forests
00:26:54are incredibly important for their health. But they're also, it's also incredibly important to
00:26:59reduce wildfire. Low-level wildfires we can manage. High catastrophic 100,000 million acre wildfires,
00:27:07they're devastating. The forest products industry, a diversifying industry, an integrated industry,
00:27:13allows us to treat those lands so that they're more healthy, they reduce risk, and at a level that is
00:27:21much more reasonable to the American taxpayer because you're able to produce a product to do that work
00:27:26where you're not having to pay as much per acre. And if we don't have any paper mills or timber mills
00:27:32in Kansas, so I'm not familiar with the industry, do they rent the part of the forest and then you're
00:27:38able to take those monies and do good things with it, I would suppose? We, we essentially offer timber
00:27:45or biomass to forest products industry, whether they're making dimensional lumber or they're burning
00:27:51it for, for energy production, we will offer it through sales, timber sales. The revenues from that
00:28:00go back to things such as reforestation. They go back to doing other work on the landscape,
00:28:07like habitat improvement and to the treasury and to counties for their school funds. We also offer
00:28:14it through what are called stewardship agreements where we trade the value of that timber for other
00:28:18work that can be done. We do it through what are called good neighbor agreements where we allow the
00:28:22states to implement that work on our behalf or tribes or a local county. So we have a variety of
00:28:28mechanisms that we use in order to essentially remove that material and put it to market.
00:28:34Have the, the number of mills in the country decreased? Are they staying the same and, and what,
00:28:40what has led to that stability or instability? The forest products industry has significantly reached,
00:28:47uh, constricted, um, since my time of working with the agency. Um, it's, it's based on a number of things,
00:28:56market conditions, um, housing markets. Um, it can be based on, um, softwood lumber that's coming in from
00:29:04other places like Canada, and it's, can be based on not having local supply. And that's usually the
00:29:10issue that can be associated with us. Um, we generally supply somewhere around 6% of the softwood, uh, in the
00:29:17United States. And for some mills, they have a very diversified area. They draw from private lands,
00:29:24state lands, from federal lands. Other areas are very dependent on federal lands. And so when there's
00:29:29a decrease in what we offer, it affects their ability to stay open. Okay. Thank you so much. I yield back.
00:29:36Thank you. Senator Smith. Um, thank you. Thank you, Mr. French, for being with the, um, committee today. And thank you,
00:29:43Chair Bozeman, and also our ranking member for holding this hearing. And before I get to my
00:29:48questions, um, what I would like to do is to highlight two small, um, forestry and lands issues
00:29:53that are really important in Minnesota that I'm working on. Um, the first is my bipartisan Ty Blatnik
00:29:59Act. So this is a bill, this is a law which ensures that these counties in far northern Minnesota,
00:30:05Lake and Cook and St. Louis counties, um, receive a source of revenue for hosting federal, um, forests.
00:30:12Um, they've done this for decades. And this is a small bill, um, with a technical fix that would
00:30:17be a huge, um, make, make a huge difference to these, um, counties. It passed through the Senate
00:30:22last year, um, and we need to move it again this year. And the second bill is a House bill,
00:30:28also bipartisan, passed the House earlier this year, which would just basically facilitate a land
00:30:33exchange between Chippewa National Forest, um, and land held by, um, this, um, family lodge, Bowen Lodge.
00:30:40The exchange is supported by the local community, supported by the local tribal, um, uh, nation,
00:30:46Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. Um, and since it's passed the House, um, it also needs a path here in
00:30:51the Senate. Now, I raise this because I think, um, that it would be, um, um, smart for us to figure out
00:30:57if we can work together, um, with the Forest Service on a lands package in this committee before too long.
00:31:03I think it would just make sense, um, that if we are working on this forest management legislation,
00:31:09that we find a way to move some of these non-controversial and non-expensive, um, um,
00:31:14bills at the same time. So I wanted to raise that and appreciate your attention.
00:31:17No, we appreciate that. And I understand totally, I think every member of Congress understands that,
00:31:23uh, these things are much more difficult than they should be. So we'll help any way we can.
00:31:27Thank you very much. I appreciate your attention to that, Mr. Chair. Um, let me turn to my, um,
00:31:33questions, Mr. French. I, um, want to ask you about an issue, a Minnesota issue. Um, I've heard, um,
00:31:40that, uh, heard from our folks in Minnesota that the Department of Government Efficiency is blocking
00:31:45contracts to distribute seedlings for reforestation in the Chippewa and, uh, superior national forests in
00:31:53Minnesota. And as you can imagine, sure you know, these seedlings are harvested and planted to grow into
00:31:58the next generation of trees that support our timber industry. Um, and, um, the work is time sensitive,
00:32:04especially in places like Minnesota, where, um, the planting window depends on a lot of extraneous
00:32:11factors like weather and snowpack and so forth. So, Mr. French, can you, um, tell me now or could you
00:32:16respond to me, um, when you can, what does the Forest Service plan to do to address these delays and to
00:32:22make sure that seedling plantings can occur on a schedule that will preserve forest health?
00:32:28Uh, thank you, Senator. So, um, for all the contracts and other mechanisms that are being reviewed,
00:32:35uh, through the Office of Government Efficiency, uh, we are batching those in the priority things,
00:32:40such as disaster response, those things that are time sensitive, such as reforestation, seedlings,
00:32:45um, and working very closely with them to get them moving and through the review process.
00:32:51So, could we follow up and see about this specific issue and what we can do to make sure that this
00:32:56happens? Of course. Thank you very much. Um, the second issue, um, is, um, related to the spongy
00:33:03moth. Okay. Okay. So, this, uh, just last month, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, um, had to
00:33:10cancel plans to treat our forests against this invasive, um, species because federal funding didn't
00:33:16come through. So, spongy moths cause millions of dollars in damage to forests across the eastern United
00:33:23States. And now they're moving westward. And as you may well know, these moths eat all of the leaves
00:33:28off the trees. That kills the trees. And then, of course, it increases the likelihood of wildfire as
00:33:33a result. And we're about, sadly, to miss this small window of time where we can effectively treat
00:33:39our forests while the caterpillars are still small. Um, this is a problem. It puts livelihoods in our
00:33:45entire forests at risk. And, and so my question is, how does the Forest Service plan to address
00:33:52forest health and wildfire risk for invasive species like this when we are seeing these funds
00:33:58being cut and personnel being cut? I think, you know, in terms of the funds you're talking about,
00:34:04which has essentially become assistance for states for dealing with forest health issues,
00:34:08we're advocating as our state foresters across the country, um, for the importance of addressing forest
00:34:14health issues and the role that these funds play. So that advocacy is useful, of course, but advocacy
00:34:23without the funds to accomplish the work won't accomplish the work. Do you, can you, I just, I'm not
00:34:30going to put you on the spot because I understand the position that you're in, but I mean, would you
00:34:33agree that you need to, we need to be able to figure out how to pay for this stuff? Uh, I would say is that
00:34:38in the 26 budget that the, the, the president has released, they've, they've made the policy oversight
00:34:44about how they want to see those funds very clear. In the current set of funds, they're going through
00:34:49reviews, uh, through the Office of Government Efficiency. We continue to, um, deliver on those that we've
00:34:56already made commitments on and advocate for why they are important for broader forest health.
00:35:01Well, I, uh, this will be a conversation that will continue. I think this will be, um, this to me
00:35:07is an example of something that is very, um, economically sensible to make this investment
00:35:12in order to protect forests so that we can then get the economic benefit from these forests down the
00:35:17road. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Senator Holden. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I don't want to spend
00:35:24too much of my time on it, but I did want to tell the Senator from West Virginia that Roger Marshall did just
00:35:30take off on his scooter. So in case his staff wanted to get out there and commandeer it.
00:35:37Yeah. I tried to stop him, but he pushed me down.
00:35:44Exactly. Uh, first off, Mr. French, thanks for being here and thanks for the work that you do.
00:35:52You've been out there, stayed a number of times. You've been responsive. You've taken action.
00:35:55And I want you to know, uh, we appreciate it very much. Uh, though, in regard to this issue, um,
00:36:03wildfires, uh, you know, we always think of those as forest fires, you know, smoky bear and all that
00:36:08stuff. But, uh, we had over a hundred thousand acres burned in North Dakota on the grasslands.
00:36:13And it not only killed cattle, but it, it, two people were killed in those fires. And so these
00:36:19grassland fires are a real thing and, and they move, you know, lightning quick and we have dry
00:36:24conditions. I know you know about it. Uh, but that leads to my first question, which is in the,
00:36:29in the Fix Our Forest Act, it primarily, you know, focuses on forest fires, but talk to me about
00:36:35what it's going to do, uh, to prevent, uh, and reduce fires in our grasslands.
00:36:42Okay. So I, you know, there's not really the statutory authorities in Fix Our Forest that would be
00:36:48helpful, um, for streamlining, let's say the NEPA side of things there, but it does provide us
00:36:54mechanisms working with the state, um, and GNA to help. It has some very specific, um, pieces around
00:37:03prescribed fire that would be very helpful. And the Intelligence Center would help us be more responsive,
00:37:09um, to fires across the country so that we're able to move resources into those areas, pre-stage them
00:37:16more quickly. So, uh, chairman asked you right off the jump there about category exclusion. Does it do
00:37:22it? Does that help us at all? Is there any CE authority that would help us in terms of some of the
00:37:28flexibilities and things that we're looking for in the grasslands? In the grasslands? If we're going
00:37:32to do pre-treatment of those areas, it can. Okay. Well, that would be good. Uh, back then on the, uh,
00:37:40on the forest side, how about, you know, that, um, if you're going to get in and, uh, you know,
00:37:48cut trees out of there to try to, to mitigate fires, is there a place for that wood to go?
00:37:52Is that part of the plan? Because, you know, as you cut those trees down, that, that wood's got to have
00:37:56a home. Yep. In some places, um, we have a pretty robust, um, forest products industry that we can move
00:38:04trees to. Um, but then other places were pretty challenged because we've lost that industry. Um,
00:38:10and, and there are programs that we administer right now that help subsidize transportation,
00:38:16especially of low value products. That is very helpful. We offer loans that can help, um, retool,
00:38:22um, uh, mills so that they can handle a more variety of wood products. But I would say that
00:38:29investments in the wood products industry and creating predictable supply for them is probably
00:38:35the most critical thing to keep them sustainable and thriving. Okay. And then have you done any cost
00:38:41estimates? Um, wildfire suppression costs have increased about 80% over the past decade. And,
00:38:47uh, obviously there's, we're getting more of these fires all the time. Um, so have you done any
00:38:52anticipated cost savings with the fixed or, uh, forest act? I am not familiar with what those would be
00:38:59and we could certainly get back with you. Okay. And then, uh, both, uh, both president Trump and
00:39:05actually governor Newsom out in California have, have taken emergency action, uh, on, on some of the
00:39:10wildfire, uh, uh, you know, permitting, uh, some of this wildfire mitigation work to go forward.
00:39:16Um, are those orders something that is also covered on a permanent basis by this legislation? So we would
00:39:23see some of those things on a, on a permanent basis. Yeah. That's one of the strengths of the,
00:39:27of this bill is it actually takes some of the things that we do, um, for emergencies that allow
00:39:34us to move more quickly and codifies them. And that is, um, that is very helpful for us. Is there
00:39:39anything else that's not in this bill that you want to bring up or would recommend that it should be
00:39:45included or considered for this legislation? Well, I could talk your ear off on a set of things that
00:39:50would make us more effective and efficient on any bills. But I would say the one thing here is I do
00:39:54think that the hazard tree removal CE that the Senate has laid out for us here would be more
00:40:01effective if it was statutorily given to us by Congress rather than having us prom promulgated
00:40:07through regulation. Okay. Thank you very much. Again, thanks for being here and thanks for the
00:40:11good work that you do. Thanks. The ranking member on forestry. Thank you. Thank you. Senator Bennett.
00:40:18Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I'm glad I was here for Senator Hoeven's questions. Um, and Mr. French,
00:40:24thank you for joining us here today. I know how experienced you are and I'm grateful that you're
00:40:29in the role that you're in, um, protecting our forests and watersheds, our communities from
00:40:35increasingly severe wildfires in the West is getting more critical every single day. And, um, I really
00:40:43commend the hard work of the sponsors of this bill, including my friend and my fellow senator from
00:40:48Colorado, John Hickenlooper. I think this bill is a meaningful attempt to put forward solutions and
00:40:54find a path forward on addressing wildfires that put communities like Colorado at risk. I want to
00:41:00say to the chairman though, and I would have said this in front of my, my friend, John Hickenlooper,
00:41:04I think it is very important for this committee to be exercising the jurisdiction that we are over this
00:41:11bill. I think this is a place where, um, we can bring the voice of Senator Hoeven and others to,
00:41:19to make sure that in the end, this is a product that we can all be proud of. And I look forward
00:41:24to working with you on that. I'm grateful that you are having this hearing. Um, I know for most people
00:41:31here, uh, we're familiar with the role of the foreign service when it comes to reducing the risk of
00:41:38wildfires in the West and also fighting fires themselves. But could you talk a little bit
00:41:43about the importance of that, Mr. French? And I'm going to, my next question is going to be about
00:41:49the reductions we've seen in force, uh, on the Western slope of Colorado and throughout the Rocky
00:41:56Mountain West and the deep concern that communities have, uh, in my state and in throughout the Rocky
00:42:03Mountains that we, we may not have the personnel that we need as this fire season starts.
00:42:11Thank you, Senator. Um, wildfire, as I said earlier, is it is completely integrated across our entire
00:42:19agency. Um, I started my career in Southern Arizona and spent 10 years in my first permanent position
00:42:26in wildfire. Um, and you learn when you're in a position like that, that when you're running a local
00:42:36engine or you're a part of a shot crew that, um, those communities really depend on you to know the
00:42:42land, to respond quickly and to be able to, um, essentially take care of things in a way that are
00:42:49thoughtful about the community and neighbors that you're a part of. As we've seen wildfire grow across
00:42:54the agency, the interagency approaches, uh, and the role that we play in coordinating those have
00:43:00become incredibly important. Forest Service manages 75% of the wildfire resources in this country.
00:43:07Almost all the aerial contracts that we have that, that states and, and other federal agencies depend
00:43:14on. But more importantly, when you look at that system, we are the people that in most of your forest
00:43:19communities where we have large fires, um, they're the ones staffing along with folks like Cal Fire
00:43:26and others, that local station that is providing a response, um, that people have come to depend on.
00:43:32We have during the, and I'll kind of get to your, your second question, maybe preemptively is that
00:43:38during the workforce reshaping that we've been asked to do, uh, we've made it a priority to exempt
00:43:45our primary firefighters and we've made it a priority to essentially look at other skill sets
00:43:52in the agency that are, um, being left, um, as people are taking some of the programs right now
00:43:59of prioritizing our workforce as the most important piece that we need to do is provide adequate fire
00:44:06suppression response. Well, I would say, um, I appreciate that. It's been deeply, deeply disappointing to
00:44:12us to see the numbers of, um, forest service personnel with red cards who have been, um,
00:44:21separated from the agency at this moment. Uh, I, I think I heard you use the word primary
00:44:28when you described the firefighters who were being protected. My view is that those red card holders
00:44:35are the backbone of, um, uh, our fire suppression efforts and they're going to be hard to replace.
00:44:42And we're already counting on local communities, as you know, um, in partnerships in places like,
00:44:50uh, the right, I mean, the white river and other forests in Colorado. And now it's going to,
00:44:56it's going to more, the burden is actually going to fall on us, I think. Um, and, um, and that's going
00:45:04to be a real challenge for local communities. That brings me to my second question. If the chairman will
00:45:09let me ask it, I see the leader is here. Could I just one more, um, as you were saying, I think
00:45:17it's important to have local knowledge and important to have regional knowledge. Colorado communities,
00:45:22um, really know the risk of wildfire. Well, we've been devastated in recent years by the Cameron peak,
00:45:28these troublesome and pine gulch fires, but we also have a long track record record of working
00:45:35successfully to establish the kind of partnerships that I was just talking about between state,
00:45:41local and federal partners to reduce wildfire risk. I've heard it's in that, it's in that connection
00:45:47that I've heard from 30 local officials just last week in my state that provisions of the Fix Our Forest
00:45:54Act might undermine their ability to meaningfully engage with their federal partners in the development
00:46:00of forest projects. I am worried that the decisions are going to be made by the bureaucracy in Washington,
00:46:07D.C., uh, without the input of people, uh, on the ground in Colorado and in these communities that
00:46:15have been engaged with these incredible partnerships with the U.S. Forest Service all these years.
00:46:20So I'd ask you, Mr. French, whether, um, the, you, you believe that the, as we consider this,
00:46:27the forest service can guarantee that this bill is not going to limit opportunities for local
00:46:32communities to continue to engage the develop, the, the contribution of local communities, um,
00:46:41in these decisions that are of course, most important to them, um, than anyone else.
00:46:48Yep. I can. I mean, um, that's not who we are. We're a part of these communities and we're,
00:46:54when we're designing projects and when we're advocating for projects, we've got to do that in
00:46:59concert with the community that we're a part of. Um, and I don't see anything in Fix Our Forest that
00:47:07would change that commitment of working collaboratively with our local governments
00:47:11and with the people that are there. I get it changes some of the, the fixed processes, but that
00:47:16doesn't change sitting down in a town meeting talking about what needs to be done up the canyon
00:47:21and taking care of it. Um, and, uh, and that's who we are as an agency. We are a very local
00:47:29decision made type approach with our districts and our forests. Um, we, we, these lands, um,
00:47:38will persist when they're relevant to the communities they're a part of. And if we don't make sure that
00:47:44we're doing that, then anything we're do is that we do is at a step. Um, and I would also just say
00:47:51on the firefighter piece, um, we are very, very, very cognizant of the experience and skill sets that
00:47:59have walked out the door. And we are very focused on how to adapt and manage through that, especially
00:48:04with our state and other federal partners. Um, I'm not going to say it's easy, but we're prepared.
00:48:11Okay. Well, thank you for your testimony. And thank you for your long service as well.
00:48:16You're welcome. I look forward to our work together. Thanks. Senator Justice.
00:48:23Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. French. Thank you for coming.
00:48:28Uh, I normally start off and, and, you know, and have a good little, maybe hopefully a good statement.
00:48:39And then I ask a question, but I'm going to lead off with just this question because it's going to lead
00:48:47me to where I think we should go. And that's just this in regard to all the aspect of our force today,
00:48:58especially our fires, you know, because we're, we're looking at a fix our forest act.
00:49:05But if we're, if we're deeply considering the fire component, and then considering our forest component,
00:49:16are we winning the battle?
00:49:20Um, I think we're making a good try, but not yet.
00:49:23I would think, and I know you're brutally honest, but I would think if we were all brutally honest,
00:49:33we'd say, no way. We're not winning this war. So if I could just tell you that I'm the most
00:49:42impatient guy in the room, I mean, really and truly, I rolled in up here with white hair and,
00:49:48and I, I'm, I'm not here for any reason that would be anything to do with me.
00:49:54And I can tell you, we got a big problem. That's all there is to it.
00:49:59You know, when I was a governor of West Virginia, I was a governor for eight years as big time honor
00:50:03and everything. A lot of times people would say to me, they would say, what is the biggest
00:50:08responsibility you have? And I would say the same is true right now for this. Get the economics right.
00:50:17Because the economics drives a lot of this boat and we're missing it in a lot of ways.
00:50:23You see, we got all kinds of forest problems. And I'm an outdoor guy. I'm a wildlife guy.
00:50:30And I can absolutely sit and talk that with anybody because I've done it over and over and over.
00:50:39But with all that being said, if you're the most impatient guy and you don't want anything
00:50:44and you're a real believer in the economics being upside down, in this country today,
00:50:51we've lost our flooring, cabinetry. We've lost our furniture business. All of this stuff is going
00:50:57on in every country of the world, but it's not going on here. And right here, right in this right
00:51:03here, all this carbon is frozen. If everybody's worried about the carbon and everything, think
00:51:08about what happens with a forest fire. All this is frozen. We have all kinds of issues with the
00:51:15health of our forest today and they're affecting our wildlife and they're affecting so many different
00:51:21things. Our waters and on and on and on. And yet in West Virginia, we're cutting a third of our growth,
00:51:30a third of our annual growth, you know. And so the trees are growing three times faster than we're
00:51:36cutting them. They're falling on the ground. They're causing all kinds of issues. And as soon as a
00:51:42small fire goes through, all the carbon is released right into the sky when it could be frozen right here.
00:51:49And we could have industry right here. And we could have jobs right here. And we could have healthy
00:51:57forest right here. We got to get the economics right. I will promise you at the end of the day,
00:52:04the economics are upside down. And I will promise you we're losing the battle. Now, how do we get the
00:52:11economics right? And there's all kinds of different ways. But our forest in West Virginia alone
00:52:18clean up an equivalency of 12, 21 coal-fired power plants a year. It's unbelievable what they do.
00:52:26That's our hardwoods. You know, there's issues all across this country with all kinds of different
00:52:32things. But our forest should be applauded every day for what they do. Our forests are doing so much
00:52:42for all of us. It's off the chart. I'm a real believer in this. Play to your strengths.
00:52:51For God's sakes of living, you have a winning team. You have the most winning team on the planet.
00:52:58The last thing I'd tell you is just this. Now think about it. Think about West Virginia for just one
00:53:02second. Think about Jim Justice in West Virginia. I'm a basketball coach. West Virginia has great,
00:53:10great, great people, unbelievable natural resources, four of the greatest seasons on the planet. And
00:53:16it's located within a rock stroke of two-thirds of the population of the country. It really is. And yet,
00:53:23we continually struggled with being dead last. How could it be? You've got the same kind of team.
00:53:32And we've got to do something about it. We've got to come up with an idea. An idea to drive the
00:53:37economics right to make the forest healthy again. We've got to come up with an idea. You know, just to
00:53:44say, well, we need to do this about the fire or this about... We're not going anywhere. We have to come up
00:53:51with a real live idea. And an idea that would be, that would be something along the lines of,
00:53:59if we could find a way to create some level of, and God forbid this name, this is a taboo bad name,
00:54:07but a subsidy to credit our forest, to credit what our forest are giving us that would bridge us to
00:54:14absolutely doing something that would bring health to our forest. We've got to come up with something.
00:54:19And at the end of the day, it's all going to be one thing. Absolutely. Period. You wait and see.
00:54:26It will be driven by the economics. Get the economics right. Thank you so much, sir.
00:54:35Thank you, Senator Schiff.
00:54:38Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your being here.
00:54:42I represent California and, in particular, two areas that have been very recently devastated by fire. So,
00:54:50this is an issue that is near and dear to my constituents. I'm trying to figure out a way to
00:54:57phrase this question in a way that you can answer it. Okay. So, let me just posit both my interest and
00:55:04my concern. My interest is in making sure that we can better manage our forests so that we can reduce
00:55:10the incidents of fire and how devastating those fires are. And I appreciate all the important work
00:55:16that has been done to improve the Fix Our Forest Act since it left the House. My concern is that
00:55:22we're laying off federal firefighters. We're clawing back grants that are used for brush clearance.
00:55:33A lot of the laudable things that are established in the Fix Our Forest Act aren't funded with any
00:55:38additional money. So, there are laudable collaborative agencies established, but nothing
00:55:44to provide them resources. And my concern is that the bill is used to accelerate the timber industry
00:55:55without a particular focus on reducing fire. Now, some of the harbor, some of the timber that will
00:56:01be harvested will be useful to be harvested in terms of making our forests more resilient. But, of course,
00:56:09there will be interest in the timber industry to go beyond that and harvest timber having nothing to do
00:56:14with fire mitigation. That is not my priority. It is the priority set out in some of the executive
00:56:20orders, but that's not my priority. So, I guess my question to you is,
00:56:26are there any safeguards in this legislation? What would a safeguard look like to make sure that
00:56:34this is really about fire mitigation and not just about timber harvesting?
00:56:39So, that's my question, and I know there are some pitfalls in how you can answer that,
00:56:45but to whatever degree you can answer it, I would welcome your answer.
00:56:48Yeah, I appreciate the question, Senator. You know, I, as stated before, I've worked for the agency
00:56:55for 34 years. I've worked in multiple places in the agency. I was trained as a biologist. I've worked
00:57:01as in forestry and fire, recreation, wilderness, the whole camp. I know our system, and I'm also acutely
00:57:13aware of the issues in California and the situation of the health of our forests and the way our communities
00:57:20right now are at risk. There are so many safeguards in our system right now, whether it's the forest plan
00:57:28that limits what you can do or not do on the ground, regardless of what Fix Our Forest says.
00:57:34Any project we put out there has to follow the safeguards and the parameters that are established
00:57:40in that forest plan. What does that mean? That means there are certain areas you can't treat.
00:57:44There are buffers that you have to put around creeks. There are species that you have to thin in
00:57:50different ways in order to meet the outcomes, like the California spotted owl. It is a broad safeguard for
00:57:57any project we're doing. We are still under this bill on any project we do. We have to consult with
00:58:04the Fish and Wildlife Service. We have to consult with NOAA Fisheries. We have to consult with the EPA
00:58:09for the past Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act with our state and local regulatory agencies. All of that
00:58:16still stays. So there are, like I said, there are multiple, multiple requirements that we have to meet in
00:58:25here in order to do any one of these projects. In the last years, if you look at the number of acres
00:58:32that we've treated, it has greatly increased. And that is addressing fire. And that's under multiple
00:58:38administrations. And yet the number of saw logs we produce have actually gone down. And because the
00:58:44focus of most of our work is on restoration. If you're reducing wildland fire risk or you're trying to
00:58:49restore forests for healthy forests, you're removing a vast amount of material that isn't actually
00:58:58commercial. We do need investments in the forest products industry and biomass and low value wood
00:59:03in order to utilize that. And if you look at the amount of material that we remove through timber sales,
00:59:10we harvest less than one-tenth of one percent of our national forests on any given year.
00:59:16It's somewhere between 200 and 250,000 acres. That is such a low number when you look at what our
00:59:25forest plans actually would allow. And I tell you this as a lifelong career person, as an advocate
00:59:31for our forest, for the habitat within our forests, we do things well and right. And there are just a
00:59:43litany of safeguards that are in place. Most of the arguments that I see around our work is where is it
00:59:50occurring? Is it happening fast enough? And whether we philosophically agree that removing material or
00:59:57timber harvest is appropriate on a national forest? Thank you. If there's time later, I'd love to ask
01:00:07another question. Thank you. Senator McConnell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
01:00:18If people around the world have heard of Kentucky, it's usually for two reasons. The Kentucky Derby,
01:00:24which was last Saturday, and bourbon. Bourbon has a lot of challenges right now because of the terror force.
01:00:37For example, up in Canada, they've taken bourbon off the shelves. So I think it's safe to say people in that
01:00:47that iconic Kentucky industry are not happy about the terror force and hope that it will be over soon.
01:01:00But I want to raise something I'm sure no one has heard of. Our iconic bourbon industry
01:01:09is critical to us. 95% of the bourbon in the world is made in Kentucky. The $9 billion industry supports
01:01:22agriculture, forestry, manufacturing, distilling, bottling, construction, and transportation jobs,
01:01:31just to name a few. Kentucky bourbon is synonymous with the white oak tree, which is used to age our state's
01:01:44signature spirit in wooden barrels. Unfortunately, 75% of the nation's white oak population
01:01:57is rated as mature, meaning there will be a shortage of white oaks within 30 years.
01:02:09Congress must act to ensure the preservation of this invaluable resource.
01:02:15So in February, I introduced the White Water Resiliency, White Oak Resiliency Act with Senator Warner.
01:02:22The bill requires the Department of Interior, USDA, and the Forest Service to coordinate research and
01:02:32conservation efforts ensuring the white oak a stable supply and a viable future. And I'm pleased to see,
01:02:43Mr. Chairman, that my bill is included in the underlying act.
01:02:51Mr. French, in your written testimony, you stated that USDA was supportive of the White Oak Resilience
01:02:59subtitle, but would like to work with the committee on minor technical adjustments.
01:03:08So what changes would USDA like to see regarding White Oak provisions?
01:03:14Mr. Thank you, Senator. We are very supportive, especially with the loss that we're seeing across
01:03:22the country. It's minor stuff in the way it's written that would make it more effective within
01:03:27the context of the laws we have right now. What I mean by that is the National Forest Management Act
01:03:32and some other pieces. It's pretty minor, but it doesn't change any of the broader intent of what we're asking.
01:03:38Mr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Senator Welsh.
01:03:48Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very much for the good work you do.
01:03:56I'm hoping we get this bill to a place where I can vote on it. One of the changes it's made is the
01:04:0210,000 acre designation. Sure. And in Vermont, where we don't have the vast expanses of these forests that
01:04:11are so typical in the western states, that would mean that literally all but one of our projects would
01:04:19be in the exemption. We're not 10,000 acres. Is there a way that you could suggest where
01:04:28it wouldn't be a one-size-fits-all? I mean, a lower number I think would be appropriate for Vermont,
01:04:34but I wouldn't want Vermont to interfere with what would be good for California or good for Colorado.
01:04:40A couple of our sponsors are from there. So could you speak to that? We'd like to have public
01:04:44participation but not have it get in the way also of legitimate desire to move ahead.
01:04:51Yeah. Thank you, Senator. So I think, you know, and I know that for us well. I spent time in
01:04:56Manchester as the district ranger there. Beautiful.
01:04:59And I think that if you look at how these CEs are set up, the context of how they would be used
01:05:08will vary from each geographic place. And so if I'm a forester up in Vermont and I'm looking at
01:05:15at something, one, I may not even be able to fit within these categories because of the way they're
01:05:20set up for wildfire risk and some of the other pieces. And it doesn't mean that you have to do
01:05:2610,000 acres. What it essentially means is it's not that it's excluded from NEPA. It just means that
01:05:34it fits within a category that's not considered significant. But this is what I don't understand.
01:05:42It's not significant if it's got less than 10,000 acres. It is excluded from the inquiry about
01:05:49significance, right? Right. So what I'm saying is that that would mean that basically any project in
01:05:55Vermont would be in that category. If it qualifies for the parameters of what that category is. And
01:06:03and my knowledge of projects up there, many of them would not. In fact, probably most would not.
01:06:09The other thing about this is that... Can you elaborate a little bit on that so I understand?
01:06:13Yeah. I mean, so if you look at the way these are set up, they're specifically for things like
01:06:16hazard tree removal or they're specifically if you are reducing wildland fire risk within these
01:06:22parameters while maintaining certain size classes and things like that. That wouldn't be applicable
01:06:28in most places on the Green Mountain National Forest. The other thing to recognize
01:06:32here too is that, you know, and this is we'll get into a little bit of the NEPA side of things.
01:06:37Most of the projects that are done, in fact, all of the projects, I think, that are done
01:06:41on the Green Mountain use environmental assessments. And they are from, you know, thousands of acres. And
01:06:48every one of those environmental assessments come to a singular conclusion, a finding of no significant
01:06:54impact. Okay, that is essentially what a categorical exclusion is saying, is that projects up to a
01:07:01certain size under certain conditions won't be significant if you meet ESA, if you meet Clean
01:07:07Water Act, and you go through a set of tests called extraordinary circumstances that look to see what
01:07:13are the effects on floodplains, what are the effects on wilderness areas. So it goes through an entire
01:07:18series to make sure that it is actually routinely not significant. Let me get to just two other
01:07:23things. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. I have along the lines of Senator Schiff,
01:07:28I'm having a hard time dealing with the conflict of 5200 Forest Service folks having left their jobs
01:07:37or been fired or whatever term it is we want to use. But we've got about 5200 fewer people. So the work
01:07:44that needs to be done, we don't have the people to do it. And I would also respect that you can't
01:07:51necessarily answer that question. But it seems pretty obvious if you don't have the personnel,
01:07:55the work's not going to get done. Well, right now, we've seen a decline of about 25% of our non-fire
01:08:02workforce across the agency for folks that have voluntarily taken the deferred resignation and other
01:08:08programs. It's not the same in all places. We have some places where we've lost considerable staff and
01:08:14other places. Well, as we proceed, I mean, at some point, we're going to want to get an assessment of
01:08:20how this is affecting the functionality of the work that you do. And that's not your decision. The third
01:08:26thing is on going from six years to 150 days. Say that again, six years to 100 days? Well, this is on the
01:08:34judicial review. Okay. And this bill, as I understand it, used to be six years, it'll go down to 150 days.
01:08:42I'm flexible on that. There's no magic in the number. But that is a big drop. And that's the
01:08:48period of time within which affected groups can bring their case forward. Do you have any experience or
01:08:56examples of how that reduction from six years to 150 days will be helpful or harmful?
01:09:07I mean, I can't give you anything specifically. But I can generally tell you that
01:09:14for projects that are forest management, veg management, and honestly, recreation as well,
01:09:20we would do this way, we win about 80% of our cases. But we win about 80% of the litigation that's
01:09:29brought against us on our projects. That's pretty good record. But the consequences that we see is
01:09:35that often those projects will take anywhere from four or five or six years to be implemented
01:09:40once that they've gone through their analysis, as they get through the court system. And I think
01:09:45that's really a question for Congress and communities of whether that timeframe, especially if you're
01:09:51trying to do wildland fuels risk reduction to a community that's risk is as is acceptable.
01:09:57Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
01:10:03Senator Schiff. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity
01:10:07really following up on Senator Welch's questions, which are largely what I want to explore further.
01:10:14But did I understand you to say there was a 25% reduction in the workforce?
01:10:19Non-fire workforce. So the agency has about 36,000 employees. We've exempted all of the 35,000.
01:10:29We've exempted all the wildland fire, primary firefighters from the workforce reshaping. That
01:10:36workforce is in place. It's the non-fire workforce that can also be
01:10:41help support the fire workforce where we've, there's been a little over 5,000 positions that
01:10:48are people that have taken the voluntary outs. That's really striking.
01:10:56So a quarter of the non-fire workforce have taken advantage of the fork in the road to
01:11:03leave the Forest Service? That's currently what we're seeing.
01:11:08And then you've got the additional people that got the probationary letter or have they been rehired?
01:11:15All the probationary employees have been rehired if they chose to come back.
01:11:21And I think the budget includes another
01:11:25cut to the Forest Service, does it not?
01:11:27It cuts us down about 63%. About 63%. I believe so. On the current budget.
01:11:38How would it be possible to do anything other than timber harvesting contemplated on this bill
01:11:45with those kind of reductions? We're going to need a lot of help from our state partners,
01:11:49our community partners, and others in the work that we do.
01:11:55I mean, do your state partners do the kind of other mitigation work that we're talking about in the
01:12:02national forests? Through Good Neighbor they do, yeah.
01:12:05Wow, that is just staggering.
01:12:10One last question to follow up on Senator Welch's question.
01:12:16Because I had the same concern about going from six years to 150 days.
01:12:25Generally, how soon after there is a decision is litigation initiated? That is,
01:12:31is it may take a long time to get through the suits that are brought, but generally how
01:12:36how soon after decision is litigation brought? And is the problem more how long it takes to get to
01:12:43the end of the litigation than the length of period after which you can file suit?
01:12:49I don't have that data, but we can follow up with you with the specifics on that.
01:12:54What I can tell you is, you know, there's three general effects that we see.
01:12:57The first is it increases our costs considerably in areas that are highly litigious in terms of the
01:13:06price per unit of what we're trying to deliver, like a fuels reduction, a trail, or a timber
01:13:14volume. It increases the time considerably in those areas for the amount of work you have to do
01:13:22to get yourself prepared for a project to hit litigation. So you're doing a higher level analysis
01:13:27with more analysis so that you do better within the court system. So the cost per project is
01:13:33generally going to be 100,000 or so more than a place than we don't have a litigation. And,
01:13:41and then generally what we're going to see is that for those areas where we have high litigation,
01:13:46like I think there's about 360 million board feet of timber product that's held up in region one right
01:13:52now under litigation. Generally with injunctions, those may, might last, you know, three to six years.
01:14:00So it's, it's that period of time and the unpredictability it can create to the forest products industry,
01:14:06but also to the communities that are looking for those at work. Let me ask you one other thing. I,
01:14:10I was in the far north of the state, um, and visited one of the dead forests, uh, where there was aerial seeding.
01:14:20Um, and it, the forest, I think it was mostly spruce that grew up was so dense,
01:14:27light couldn't get to the forest floor, and it's essentially dead forest. But there are a lot of
01:14:32trees still standing in that dead forest that have no limbs, um, that are crowding out the rebirth of
01:14:38redwoods. What has impeded the ability to log those trees? Why are they still standing?
01:14:46Um, is it just not lucrative enough for the timber industry? Well, I mean, no. I mean, this is a huge issue
01:14:54for us. You know, and I talked about earlier about areas that we have fires, and you've seen this from
01:15:00Northern California to Southern California. Like, look at those fires up the Feather River Canyon
01:15:04that go up to Quincy and places like that. We can't get in there effectively and salvage that,
01:15:11that timber. And the importance of doing that, by the way, is not just about driving economic value for
01:15:17what's left in those logs, but it's about going in there and reforesting. It's about removing hazard
01:15:22trees where people can't drive on roads. Like, I can't put a crew in there to plant trees because of
01:15:27the risk of those trees falling on them. So you have to use aerial seeding. We can't go in and
01:15:32effectively salvage those trees because we generally get sued. Those trees lose their, lose their value
01:15:39about a year to two years after the fire has gone through. So if I put all the effort into doing an EA or
01:15:46an EIS that's going to take us somewhere between a year and a year and a half, and then we get sued,
01:15:52which is pretty common on salvage sales. All the value is lost, and we've put all that effort in on
01:15:58hundreds of thousands of dollars to get that thing cleared, and then nobody will buy it because all
01:16:02the woods deteriorated. But you have to move quickly to salvage timber. So that, what you saw, you,
01:16:09if you look at like, like what Sierra Pacific and some of the other local entities do in California,
01:16:15they will be in there within six months to a year to remove that timber. We've even tried to
01:16:20take some of that timber and move it out of state to mills that need wood because there was such,
01:16:25so much left over from fires. But honestly, the issue is the amount of time it takes it to get
01:16:31through the clearance process for NEPA and all the other regulatory pieces we have, and then litigation
01:16:38that keeps us from actually doing at a scale. It's one of the biggest criticisms that, that
01:16:42industry has on us is all that standing dead timber. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate the
01:16:48out of time. Thank you. Uh, Senator Klobuchar? No, I don't have anything to add. I just want to,
01:16:55Senator Schiff wanted to thank you for your questions. We know how personal all this is in
01:17:00your state, and just thank our committee members for working well on this issue with, um, um,
01:17:06your committee members as well, Senator Bozeman. So thank you. No, very much. Thank you again, uh,
01:17:12Mr. French for your time and insights to our committee members for your participation in today's
01:17:18important hearing. I request unanimous consent to submit letters of support for a FOFA to the committee
01:17:26record. Without objection, so moved. Uh, questions for the record are due Thursday, May 8th, by close
01:17:36of business, and the hearing record will remain open for five business days. Again, uh, thanks to you,
01:17:42and thanks to the, to the, uh, committee for, uh, I think a really, uh, thoughtful, really good hearing today.
01:17:49With that, we're adjourned.
01:17:56We're adjourned.
Recommended
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