'How Do We Keep People Safe?': John Hickenlooper Rips Forest Service Chief Over Firefighting Funding Cuts

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During a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) asked Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz about public land sales.

Transcript

00:00Thank you. Senator Hickenlooper, you're up next. Thank you, Mr. Chair and my

00:08colleague from Idaho. I appreciate all your work. I share a lot of that history

00:12with you. We worked on our roadless rule that got finally enacted in 2012. I came

00:19in and got elected in 2010, so it took a big part of my first couple years to get

00:26everybody around that table and make sure that every single hunters and anglers

00:31and timber merchants and you go down the list, everyone signed off on that

00:37roadless rule and it was an remarkable achievement. I don't think it's been litigated,

00:41to my knowledge, it's never been litigated since. We moved heaven and earth to

00:47make sure that everybody was at the table because it did help, doesn't solve the

00:53problem. I mean, the problem writ large is we have a lot of people in

01:01this country that want to live in the woods and they want to have to

01:04experience wildlife and be closer to wildlife and we see more and more

01:08people living in that wildland-urban interface and I'm deeply concerned about

01:16our ability to keep them safe and we're working on a Fix Our Forest Act. It's

01:21going to help accelerate the ability to allow thinning of forests, ecological

01:30thinning, so that we can make sure that the forests aren't so vulnerable. But the

01:34cuts that look like from, kind of come through your budget in terms of

01:37fire, forest fighters, firefighters, sorry, really concerns me. And we have in our

01:46national forests in Colorado, we've got the maroon bells, we've got, well, I go down

01:52the list, Fish Creek Falls, a whole bunch of iconic views that people talk about and

01:57dream about and come visit. And as every year, we're really worried about when a

02:04wildfire gets out of control, how do we keep people safe? And not just the people

02:09that live in the wildland-urban interface, but it's visitors that don't know their

02:14way around and are going to get caught up in a place where they're, you know, going

02:21to have their entire summer disrupted or actually become in danger. So with the

02:25budget cuts, I guess my first question is, how are you going to keep Coloradans,

02:29but people from all across this country safe?

02:32So, Senator, thanks for the question. I, the first response is that the budget, the

02:3926 budget does not reduce our firefighting resources or capacity. It transfers it

02:44from the Forest Service to Department of Interior to create this new wildland fire

02:47service. But there is no reduction in the firefighting budget that is established.

02:51So there is no reduction in that case. What we have been talking about, though, is

02:55there are reductions on some of the state and private components. And that's maybe

02:59what you're alluding to is the SFA VFA piece. And that's the piece that, as I've

03:04testified previously, that that that would be shifting from the Forest Service

03:08paying for those costs or interior to the states to cover those costs.

03:12Right. Well, I think what I see again and again throughout all the budgets we're

03:17seeing is more costs shifted from the federal government to states and local

03:23areas that are going through their own budget struggles right now. I also

03:29understand that we need to both streamline our permitting and all of our financial services

03:39to look at the wildlife crisis. In what other ways are you promoting resilience in terms

03:48of forest fires and those efforts?

03:51So, Senator, I think a big part of what we look at is, you know, the suppression is just

03:56the back end of this. Ideally, what we want to do is be very active managers and that's

03:59using prescribed fire, it's using mechanical thinning, it's using commercial timber sales.

04:04All of those are critical to making sure that we create resilience and protect communities.

04:09One of the big things I mentioned earlier that Congress did back in December is you all

04:13passed a disaster supplemental and there was funding in there for Sierra Pacific to actually

04:18do fuel breaks on federal lands, on Forest Service lands in California and Oregon. So, to me,

04:23those are some of the innovative approaches that we're looking at. We can partner with industry

04:26and partner with the states. We just signed an agreement with the state of Montana. We're actually

04:30having discussions with the state of Colorado right now looking at a similar type arrangement

04:33where the state could come in and assist in managing some of the federal lands in a broader

04:38way. We've also had discussions about even recreation and how the state can assist in managing

04:42recreation. Pikes Peak, for instance, is an area that the state has expressed interest in managing that site.

04:47So, we are looking very much from a perspective of cooperating with the states to look at how we can

04:52address some of these issues. Appreciate that. Your budget also proposes a land transfer initiative

04:59to right-size the federal land. Coloradans, and I can't tell you how many tens of thousands of notices

05:06we have, do not want public lands put up for sale. Certainly not in any scale. I think we're okay

05:14recognized in certain small areas, isolated circumstances, maybe for workforce housing or

05:21something like that in a small mountain community. But I think county commissioners, town councils,

05:27mayors, republicans, democrats, all called us, wrote us, said, do not sell our public lands at scale. It's

05:38certainly not to try and reduce the deficit. So, hopefully you'll listen to public, local governments

05:44and public citizens to recognize that that's not a constructive direction to take the forest service.

05:52So, Senator, one of the things, I think you alluded to this, there's been a big focus on housing. The

05:56administration has been, has looked at this issue and is concerned that as communities want to grow and

06:00they're surrounded by federal lands, there's, there's limiting opportunities. So, the forest service is

06:05looking at this issue. We've actually done, we did a 99-year lease on the White River Forest.

06:10That is an existing administrative site that is going to be leased for housing. And we're looking

06:14at opportunities in Oregon and in Idaho as well. So, where we have tracks, we have authority to sell

06:1940 acres right now. It's the small track deck. But we also are looking at other ways to dispose. And

06:24those can be long-term leases where we can encourage where communities want to expand ski resorts,

06:28for instance, right, where there's not enough housing for employees, where there are current administrative

06:33sites. We're not talking about going into the back country. We're talking about we have admin sites

06:36that are in areas where they're eroded and those kind of things where you can take those sites and

06:40maybe make affordable housing. So, that's the opportunities that we're looking at right now.

06:44Okay. Well, I'm out of time. But when you use language like right-sizing the federal estate,

06:51I think that, that notion of scale that that language creates is of great concern to a lot of people. So,

06:57just keep that, be mindful.

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