[Senate Hearing 113-85]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-85
MISCELLANEOUS PUBLIC LAND BILLS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC LANDS, FORESTS,
AND MINING
of the
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
S. 37 S. 1300
S. 343 S. 1301
S. 364 S. 1309 S. 404 H.R. 507 S. 509 H.R. 862 S. 753 H.R. 876 S. 1169 H.R. 993
__________
JULY 30, 2013
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
RON WYDEN, Oregon, Chairman
TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont MIKE LEE, Utah
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan DEAN HELLER, Nevada
MARK UDALL, Colorado JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
AL FRANKEN, Minnesota TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
JOE MANCHIN, III, West Virginia LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
Joshua Sheinkman, Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Chief Counsel
Karen K. Billups, Republican Staff Director
Patrick J. McCormick III, Republican Chief Counsel
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Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining
JOE MANCHIN, III, West Virginia, Chairman
TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington MIKE LEE, Utah
MARK UDALL, Colorado DEAN HELLER, Nevada
AL FRANKEN, Minnesota JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
Ron Wyden and Lisa Murkowski are Ex Officio Members of the Subcommittee
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS
Page
Barrasso, Hon. John, U.S. Senator From Wyoming................... 3
Baucus, Hon. Max, U.S. Senator From Montana...................... 7
Cantwell, Hon. Maria, U.S. Senator From Washington............... 6
Farquhar, Ned, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Land and Minerals
Management, Department of the Interior......................... 17
Flake, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator From Arizona...................... 6
Hammack, Katherine G., Assistant Secretary of the Army
(Installations, Energy and Environment) U.S. Army.............. 12
Heinrich, Hon. Martin, U.S. Senator From New Mexico.............. 5
Manchin, Hon. Joe, U.S. Senator From West Virginia............... 1
Natsuhara, Roger M., Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy
(Energy, Installations and Environment) U.S. Navy.............. 15
Reid, Hon. Harry, U.S. Senator From Nevada....................... 2
Risch, Hon. James E., U.S. Senator From Idaho.................... 6,11
Tester, Hon. Jon, U.S. Senator From Montana...................... 9
Weldon, Leslie, Deputy Chief, National Forest System, Forest
Service, Department of Agriculture............................. 26
Wyden, Hon. Ron, U.S. Senator From Oregon........................ 2
APPENDIXES
Appendix I
Responses to additional questions................................ 41
Appendix II
Additional material submitted for the record..................... 43
MISCELLANEOUS PUBLIC LANDS BILLS
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TUESDAY, JULY 30, 2013
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:40 a.m. in
room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joe Manchin
presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE MANCHIN, U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST
VIRGINIA
Senator Manchin. The Subcommittee on Public Lands and
Forests and Mining will come to order. This afternoon, the
subcommittee will consider 13 bills, including several bills
that were considered in previous years.
We also have 3 bills on the agenda which would extend
public land withdrawals for military installations in Montana,
New Mexico, and California. The current authorizations for
these areas expire in the near future, so I hope to have these
bills ready for markup at a full committee business meeting as
soon as possible.
Several bills on today's agenda are sponsored by members of
the committee, and I look forward to working with them to get
their bills ready for mark up.
In addition, Senator Baucus and Senator Tester have asked
to speak in support of their bills relating to Federal land
management in Montana. I know both Senators have spent years
developing and refining their proposals, and I will work with
them to address any remaining issues.
In general, I believe the Senators from the affected States
know best about how to resolve land management issues in their
State, and I think their views should be taken very seriously.
I believe many of the bills on today's agenda are
noncontroversial. In particular, I want to note my support for
H.R. 507, which would allow for the conveyance of 2 small
parcels in southern Arizona to the Pascua Yaqui Indian Tribe.
The chairman has met with me and conveyed the importance of
these additions to the reservation. It appears that the tribe
has worked closely with the Arizona congressional delegation so
that the bill has strong local support.
At this time, I'd like to recognize our chairman, Senator
Ron Wyden, from Oregon.
[The prepared statement of Senator Reid follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Harry Reid, U.S. Senator From Nevada
Thank you Chairman Manchin and Senator Barrasso for the opportunity
to address your subcommittee about this bipartisan proposal to
facilitate the remediation and redevelopment of a dangerous abandoned
mine site near Lake Mead.
This February, I reintroduced the Three Kids Mine Remediation and
Reclamation Act of 2013 together with Senator Heller. A companion bill
was introduced in the House, where it is backed by all members of the
Nevada congressional delegation. Last Monday, the bill passed the House
under suspension of the rules.
The onset of World War I nearly 100 years ago required the U.S.
military to replace foreign natural resource imports with domestic
supplies, including manganese needed for steel production. Therefore,
the Three Kids Mine in Henderson, Nevada, began producing manganese in
1917, and continued to support the building of warships and tanks
through 1961, after which it was mostly abandoned and used occasionally
as a storage site for federal manganese reserves. The Three Kids site
was forgotten for decades, until the population explosion in southern
Nevada put the mine right in people's backyards.
Today, the Three Kids Mine site is littered with hazards, including
three large mine pits that are hundreds of feet deep, ruins from the
mine facility, and a sludge pool of mine tailings made up of arsenic,
lead, and diesel fuel.
As a result of how the mine was developed and managed, about three-
quarters of the site is federal land managed by the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) and the Bureau of Reclamation, while the remaining
portion is privately owned. Unfortunately, because of the complicated
land ownership pattern and the immense cost of cleanup, the federal
government was never able to initiate the reclamation process.
To turn the Three Kids Mine site into a job-creating opportunity
while also cleaning up this public health and safety hazard, our
legislation directs the BLM to convey the 948 acres of federal land on
the site to the Henderson Redevelopment Agency at fair market value,
after taking into consideration the cost of cleanup for the whole mine
site.
The City of Henderson will then be able to take advantage of Nevada
redevelopment laws designed to address blight conditions such as the
Three Kids Mine. The land conveyance directed by S. 343 would allow
Henderson to work with local developers to finance and implement a plan
to remediate the abandoned toxic mine site. The cleanup will be
undertaken to meet stringent state and federal standards. Local
officials and developers will finally be able to turn this wasteland
into safe, productive land for the local community.
The project will take decades from start to finish, but the City of
Henderson and the developers are committed to the effort, and have
worked hard to put together a viable plan to fix this old problem
without costing taxpayers a dime for cleanup. Keeping our communities
safe, healthy, and livable is critical. Removing this physical and
environmental hazard from Southern Nevada is a high priority for the
City of Henderson, and for our delegation.
I look forward to working with this committee to move S. 343
through the legislative process.
Thank you again for the opportunity to submit testimony. I request
that my statement be included in the record.
STATEMENT OF HON. RON WYDEN, U.S. SENATOR
FROM OREGON
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Chairman Manchin,
Senator Barrasso, for your courtesy, and also to our witnesses
as well. I know everybody has a tight morning, and I have to
chair a hearing for Senator Murray on health care, something
that Chairman Baucus and I care a lot about, so I'll be brief.
Today, you all are going to look at 3 bills that Oregonians
care a great deal about. The Oregon Eastside Forest legislation
in particular is legislation that encompasses a historic
agreement between the timber industry and the environmental
community.
Certainly, Senator Tester knows something about trying to
put those together.
The heart of the challenge, of course, Mr. Chairman and
colleagues, is the West is on fire. We have millions and
millions of acres of these overstocked stands that are
essentially magnets for fire.
Senator Flake, of course, has seen the horrendous
consequences of this most recently.
What we ought to be doing is going in there, getting that
material, thinning out the forests so they'll be healthier, and
getting that material to the mills so we can get folks back to
work.
This is particularly important in Eastern Oregon, where we
have only a handful of surviving timber mills. What we say, of
course, to the environmental community is, if you really,
really treasure the land, you ought to get in there, work with
all sides, thin these overstocked forests out, because if we
don't, we won't have much of anything left other than a lot of
burn material.
So I'm very pleased, Chairman Manchin, that you're looking
at that legislation today.
I'm pleased that the Forest Service supports the
legislation, in fact, has essentially, even before the bill has
been enacted, tried to put in place some of the provisions of
the legislation.
Then second, you all are considering S. 1309. This is a
bill I've introduced at the request of the administration that
will extend the military withdrawals for key military
installations in California and Montana. This is something that
is time sensitive, and I appreciate your scheduling that.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, on another important forestry matter
that I think all Westerners care about, you are going to be
considering legislation today to reauthorize stewardship
contracting before the authority expires at the end of the
fiscal year. I think this is extraordinarily important
throughout the West. Again, it's something that allows us to
start building a new ethic around forest health, and I
appreciate your consideration of it.
My thanks to you, Mr. Chairman and colleagues, for letting
me intrude this way on a busy morning. I look forward to
working with you.
Senator Manchin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
At this time, we will hear from our ranking member, Senator
Barrasso.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO, U.S. SENATOR
FROM WYOMING
Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
holding this hearing. I welcome each of our witnesses today,
including Senators Baucus and Tester.
Today, we have several Bureau of Land Management public
domain land withdrawals that are important to our Nation's
military readiness. I understand they are time sensitive, so
I'm pleased that we have them able to be included in this
hearing.
There are also complex public land bills before us today
with important policy implications for our land management
agencies that we have to look at very carefully.
I would like to note Senator Flake's bill to renew and
update nationwide stewardship contracting authority for the
Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. I applaud
Senator Flake for his efforts.
I commend my colleagues, Senator Tester and Chairman Wyden,
for offering constructive legislative responses to the
dysfunctional status quo we all agree exists with respect to
forest management.
It's my hope that S. 37 and S. 1301 will serve a greater
purpose. I hope these bills act to advance the debate over
forest management nationwide. I hope they encourage a
bipartisan solution to address the systemic problems that are
preventing the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management
from getting timber out of our forests.
Senator Wyden, our committee chairman, said at our June
26th forest management hearing that there are 3 main obstacles
to getting more timber harvested. One was funding; the second
was planning and NEPA; and the third was litigation. I think
he's absolutely right.
I am committed to working with him and all of my colleagues
interested in active forest management. We need to address
these obstacles head-on, and we need to do it for the sake of
all our forests and rural communities, not just those in
selected States.
Mr. Chairman, I'll submit the remainder of my comments for
the record.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Senator Barrasso follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. John Barrasso, U.S. Senator From Wyoming
Chairman Manchin, thank you for holding this hearing.
I welcome each of our witnesses today including Senators Baucus and
Tester.
Today we have several Bureau of Land Management public domain land
withdrawals that are important to our nation's military readiness.
I understand they are time sensitive so I am pleased we have been
able to get these included in this hearing.
There are also complex public land bills before us today . . . with
important policy implications for our land management agencies that we
have to look at very carefully.
I would like to note Senator Flake's bill to renew and update
nationwide Stewardship Contracting authority for the Forest Service and
the Bureau of Land Management.
I applaud him for his efforts.
I commend my colleagues, Senator Tester and Chairman Wyden . . .
for offering constructive legislative responses to the dysfunctional
status quo we all agree exists with respect to forest management.
It is my hope that S. 37 and S. 1301 will serve a greater purpose.
I hope these bills act to advance the debate over forest management
nationwide.
I hope they encourage a bipartisan solution to address the systemic
problems . . . that are preventing the Forest Service and the Bureau of
Land Management from getting timber out of our forests.
Senator Wyden, our Committee Chairman said at our June 26 Forest
Management Hearing that there are three main obstacles to getting more
timber harvested:
(1) funding,
(2) planning and NEPA and;
(3) litigation.
I think he is absolutely right.
I am committed to working with him, and all of my colleagues
interested in active forest management.
We need to address these obstacles head on.
And we need to do it for the sake of all our forests and rural
communities, not just those in Montana and Oregon.
Legislating forest management state by state is at best bad policy,
at its worst it could unravel the national forest system.
This has been well-researched by Dr. Martin Nie, a professor at the
University of Montana.
Dr. Nie's research led him to the conclusion that Congress and the
Forest Service should oppose forest-specific legislation. He noted that
most of the challenges faced are systemic not place-based and deserve a
national-level response.
I would like to submit Dr. Nie's previous testimony from 2009 on
Senator Testor's bill and his 2011 Environmental Law Reporter article
analyzing place-based national forest legislation to include both
Senator Tester and Senator Wyden's bills.
Some of the bills we are considering today also create more
wilderness.
Currently, there are 110 million acres of land have been added to
the wilderness system.
Additionally, tens of millions of acres are protected as `roadless'
by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
In my view, we need to a more balanced approach between adding
lands to the wilderness system and . . . Congress releasing lands the
agencies currently manage as wilderness study areas.
Despite Congress having the sole authority to designate wilderness
. . . this Administration and the environmental community continue to
manage our public lands as ``defacto'' wilderness.
A good example of defacto wilderness management is the recent
federal court decision in Montana upholding a Forest Service ban on
motorized activities in ``recommended wilderness areas.''
This decision could have far reaching implications for management
of recommended wilderness areas identified in forest plans all across
the country.
This is very troubling to me and something I am taking very
seriously.
Mr. Chairman, we need to restore the balance between environmental
protection, resource development, and access for recreation on our
public lands.
As an example, I would like to submit for the record the
International Mountain Bicycling Association's comments on S. 37.
Their comments illustrate how wilderness designations further limit
public access for recreation.
The federal land agencies must maintain their core mission of
multiple use.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Manchin. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
At this time, do we have any members--Senator Heinrich, do
you have any statements to be made at this time?
STATEMENT OF HON. MARTIN HEINRICH, U.S. SENATOR
FROM NEW MEXICO
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will make a
short statement about S. 753, and I certainly appreciate this
hearing very much.
Earlier this year, I introduced S. 753 with Senator Tom
Udall and Senator John Cornyn to reflect a 3-party agreement
between White Sands Missile Range, Fort Bliss, and the Bureau
of Land Management. This bill allows for land transfers and
withdrawals that will add critical safety, security, and
planning buffers to White Sands Missile Range and Fort Bliss.
It will play an integral role in accomplishing their national
security missions.
Specifically, this bill would transfer 5,100 acres of land
from the Bureau of Land Management to the Army in order to
provide a critical safety and security buffer to NASA's White
Sands Test Facility and the Department of Defense Aerospace
Data Facility, which are both important tenants to the White
Sands Missile Range.
It transfers to 2,050 acres of land in Fillmore Canyon from
the Army to the Bureau of Land Management to create a boundary
that's more clearly identifiable to the public to prevent
accidental trespass onto Fort Bliss.
Finally, it will preclude the BLM from selling or
exchanging approximately 35,000 acres of land in order to
prevent incompatible development for the Fort Bliss Dona Ana
Range complex and training areas. This land is still accessible
to the public for recreation, for grazing, transportation, and
all the other existing uses.
I think I'll wrap it up there, and just jump into the
questions after we get started.
Senator Manchin. Thank you.
Senator Flake.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF FLAKE, U.S. SENATOR
FROM ARIZONA
Senator Flake. I just want to say thank you, Mr. Chairman,
for consideration of this piece of legislation, particularly S.
1300, to renew and update the stewardship contracting.
I want to thank Senator Baucus for his support of that
legislation, and others on this panel, and I look forward to
hearing about it.
Also, 2 other Arizona bills are being considered as well.
That's much appreciated. Thanks.
I yield back.
Senator Manchin. Senator Risch, at this time, do you have
any statements, opening statements?
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES E. RISCH, U.S. SENATOR
FROM IDAHO
Senator Risch. Briefly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I want to thank Senator Tester for his
efforts on the Mount Jefferson bill.
In Idaho, we love Mount Jefferson because, in the
wintertime, you have to come through Idaho to get to Mount
Jefferson, which is a good thing. The southern part of the
Mount Jefferson area is heavily used by Idahoans, particularly
for snowmobiling.
We've had this bill here--how many years, Jon? Is this the
second year? Too many years.
But in any event, the Idaho people were very concerned that
we don't have that southern half closed to snowmobiling.
Senator Tester and I have discussed this ad nauseam and have
come to an agreement on it.
Unfortunately, the bill that was reprinted this year did
not have the agreement in it. As I understand it, we're going
to go back to the portion of the bill dealing with southern
Mount Jefferson that we agreed on previously. If that's the
case, I'm in.
So, thank you very much, Senator.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Manchin. Senator Cantwell, do you have an opening
statement?
STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL, U.S. SENATOR
FROM WASHINGTON
Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
for holding this hearing. I hate to hold up my colleagues, but
I do have an important piece of legislation that's on the
agenda.
So I did want to mention that Senator Murray and I both
introduced an urgently needed piece of legislation, which is
very important to the Pacific Northwest. It is the Green
Mountain Lookout that sits on a portion of the Glacier Peak
Wilderness area and offers spectacular views of Glacier Peak to
the south and Mt. Baker to the north.
Built in 1933 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, it served
as part of a fire detection system for the North Cascades. The
lookouts served this role for more than 50 years.
For these historic roles, the Forest Service nominated the
Green Mountain Lookout, along with 7 other lookouts, to be part
of the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1987, the National Park Service recognized this historic
value and officially listed it in the National Register.
Today, it's one of only 16 of the original 90 that existed.
It's a very, very popular destination for many hikers.
The Forest Service is currently working on an Environmental
Impact Statement to remove the lookout next summer based on a
court decision and things that we're moving through.
So I can't imagine that Congress really intended to remove
or destroy these kinds of historic hiking attractions when it
passed in 1964 Wilderness Act. So my colleague and I would like
to preserve the lookout on Green Mountain.
This has been endorsed by the Wilderness Society, the
National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Nature
Conservancy, the Back Country Horsemen of America, the
Mountaineers, and a variety of other groups and organizations.
So I look forward to hearing any input on that, which is
also on the docket today.
I thank the chairman.
Senator Manchin. Thank you very much.
At this time, we'll hear from our Senators.
Senator Baucus, if you'd like to start?
STATEMENT OF HON. MAX BAUCUS, U.S. SENATOR
FROM MONTANA
Senator Baucus. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Senator Heinrich,
Senator Cantwell, Senator Barrasso, Senator Risch, Senator
Flake, thank you all for being here.
I'm also very pleased to hear Chairman Wyden and also you,
Senator Flake, talk about stewardship contracting and the
importance of it. I might say, in Montana, it's extremely
important. I think it's flagging a little bit, and we need to
reenergize stewardship contracting. Thank you for pushing it.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify on the
Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act.
The late novelist Bud Guthrie described how ``the feel of
the country settled in on the Rocky Mountain Front, the great
emptiness and age of it, the feel of westward mountains old as
time, and plains wide as forever, and the blue sky flung
across.''
Nowhere do the Rocky Mountains proclaim themselves more
spectacularly than in Montana. I might say that photograph here
on my left does not do it justice. It is very difficult to
photograph the feel and the majesty, as you all know, of
landscape. It's much, much more dramatic than that photograph
to your left.
Just think, when settlers came across America, near Jon
Tester's place near Big Sandy, and saw those mountains just
explode out of the plains. It's incredible. It's amazing. What
awe they must have had for Mother Nature, for God, for life,
who they are. It's astounding. That does not do it justice.
The Front is one of the most breathtaking examples of the
Rockies in the West. It is the long staccato wall where the
plains, washboard flat for hundreds of miles, as I mentioned,
dash themselves against the ramparts of the Rockies. Instead of
long foothills, we have an astonishing right angle just leap
out of the plains.
This last spring, I drove down Highway 89 along the Front,
passing the reefs and peaks, Guthrie here, Castle, Sawtooth,
like old friends at full salute. From these peaks, you can peer
out across the Big Sky Country, way far up west into the forks
of the Sun River, the finest elk country in the West, almost up
to Spotted Bear Pass and the Three Sisters swinging their legs
over the Chinese Wall.
No wonder here, Guthrie said, the soul of man finds a
place.
That spring day happened to be the migration season for
snow geese. Tens of thousands of geese flew above us near
Freezeout Lake, bleaching the blue sky on the way north.
That's a photograph over there of some of the geese. I'm
not exaggerating. That day, the sky was just covered with
geese. They blotted out the sun, almost like the eclipse of the
sun.
Tens of thousands of snow geese flying along the Front,
north to feeding grounds and breeding up in Canada and Alaska.
Now, Haystack Butte tells you something important about the
Front. Part of this land was settled. People live here. They
grow crops and livestock. They raise haystacks. They raise
families.
They share the simple reason I'm here this morning.
Montanans want to keep the Front the way it is. It's our
heritage.
I first introduced the Heritage Act 2 years ago on behalf
of thousands of Montanans who support this made-in-Montana
bill. This is not a top-down bill. This is a bottom-up bill.
In the best tradition of public lands, Montanans from all
walks of life came up with the Heritage Act themselves. I'm
determined to bring it to the finish line.
It's good policy today that ensures our moral obligation
for tomorrow, for our kids and our grandkids.
Montanans worked for hours gathering support, walking
trails and pastures together, redrawing boundaries, draining
coffee cups, draining beer taps in towns like Choteau and
Augusta, putting this bill together. I'm so honored to carry
the work of these rugged folks forward.
They came up with a good balance, 200 acres of conservation
management area, 67,000 acres of wilderness additions in places
already managed that way--already managed as wilderness--and a
plan to block the invasion of noxious weeds like spotted
knapweed that damage forage for livestock.
This bill is about jobs. It protects public land for
sportsmen who spend $10 million locally each year.
It limits road building but protects current motorized use.
The version introduced is this Congress further strengths
protections for ranchers who've been responsible stewards in
the land.
Most importantly, it rewards Montanans for being willing
together to write their own destiny rather than reacting to
change when it comes.
The Heritage Act will keep the Front the way we want it,
the way it is.
I thank you and I urge your support. I also want to state
my very strong support for Senator Tester's Forest Jobs bill,
and urge the committee to move forward with Limestone Hills
withdrawal. For those who don't know, Limestone Hills is in
Montana. It's between Townsend and Helena, Montanan. It's
important to our Guard in our State.
Also support for Senator Flake's stewardship legislation.
He's on the right track, and I hope we can move that forward,
too.
Thank you.
Senator Manchin. Senator Tester.
STATEMENT OF HON. JON TESTER, U.S. SENATOR
FROM MONTANA
Senator Tester. I want to thank you, Senator Manchin, and
Senator Barrasso as well, as well as the rest of members on
this committee, as well as Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member
Murkowski for allowing us to have this hearing today, I very
much appreciate it, on the Forests Jobs and Recreation Act.
I think each one of you know the need to break through the
gridlock that has characterized forest management over the
years.
Mr. Chairman, like Senator Wyden and Senator Murkowski, you
understand the importance of bridging the divide in order to
get things done.
Ranking Member Barrasso, I know these issues are as
important in Wyoming as they are in Montana.
It is the same spirit of compromise and the urgent need to
encourage the timber economy of Western Montana that I offer
the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. This Forest Jobs and
Recreation Act is a product of a lot of diverse interests
working together to craft a bill that breaks through the
gridlock, and that's good for Montana and good for the country.
Business owners, loggers, conservationists, sportsmen,
sportswomen, have put aside their differences to support
Montana's timber economy, to restore fish and wildlife habitat,
and to protect some of this country's most breathtaking
landscapes.
It is important to note that many of the stakeholders that
helped craft this bill used to only meet in the courtroom. Now
they meet to find common-sense solutions that create jobs and
protect Montana's outdoor heritage.
The Forest Jobs bill would also help mitigate the
devastating wildfires that are becoming all too common in the
West by actually allowing us to cut some trees again.
I look at this subcommittee and I see many members whose
States grapple with the challenges brought on by wildfires.
In Montana alone, last year, we had more than 1 million
acres burn, and more than a half of dozen fires are burning
right now.
We can all agree that something needs to be done to break
through the gridlock and responsibly manage our forest so the
West isn't up in smoke again.
By mandating responsible logging of 100,000 acres in our
National Forests in Montana, we'll reduce the amount of
hazardous fuels that fires feed on. As I have said in the past,
this bill is a testament to what is possible when diverse
collaboration comes together in good faith and looks for common
ground on tough issues.
Now we've received a lot of great input from folks while
traveling the State. Their ideas and feedback have led to
changes in this bill to make sure it works for Montanans.
Nearly 10,000 acres of the proposed wilderness were dropped
due to mineral potential in the East Pioneer Mountains. There's
a sheep trailing provision that will allow mechanized
transportation through proposed Snowcrest wilderness areas, so
that local ranchers can herd their sheep to existing grazing
allotments.
I'm proud to be a part of this made-in-Montana legislation,
and I look forward to working with all of you to provide my
State's timber and recreation industries with the tools they
need. The timber industry and our forests can't wait any
longer.
If I might say, this timber management, everybody on this
panel understands that the Forest Service needs some tools.
This is a tool the Forest Service can use, and I think you can
see it in their testimony.
Some would say that wilderness is a waste of time and
doesn't create anything. The fact is that wilderness isn't.
Wilderness is something that creates jobs in Montana. We're
recruiting business because of our wilderness climate. So it
helps a lot.
Some would say that cutting trees is unnecessary because
we're not building enough houses anymore to cut any trees.
That's gobbledygook. The fact of the matter is that if we can
keep our timber industry going, if we can keep those mills that
are going in our State right now, we can have a partner in
managing our forests while creating jobs, while creating wood,
while storing carbon in houses, which will also help climate
change.
Some would say that the sportsman stuff is overrated. Look,
in this country, sportsmen's issues raise billions and billions
and billions of economic. This bill will help sportsmen be able
to have clean fisheries, better habitat for elk and deer, and,
quite frankly, better opportunities for snowmobilers and other
motorized users.
So that's the crux of this. For more than 30 years, for
more than 30 years, everybody has been losing on our National
Forests. This is a breakthrough.
As Senator Barrasso said in his opening statement, this can
be used as a template throughout the West, but we have to get
this implemented first.
Thank you for that.
I also want to say that I'm a proud sponsor of Senator
Barrasso's legislation that he just described. He is absolutely
correct. The Rocky Mountain Front is one of the most incredible
places in the world, and we need to make sure that it's there
for future generations. I want to applaud his leadership on
this issue. It just didn't happen this year by the way. He's
been working on this since he came to the U.S. Senate a few
years back.
The other thing I'd like to say is that the Limestone Hills
Withdrawal bill that is before this committee is very, very
important. It's important for 2 things.
First of all, the BLM doesn't need this headache. The Army
needs this to be taken care of, because there's a range there,
unexploded ordnance and other things that are very, very
important. The third thing is there's a mine in there. So it's
very important that they're able to move forward with their
ability to create jobs.
So this is all very, very important. I very much appreciate
your folks' ability to take a look. You have a busy schedule
today with 13 bills. These are 3 bills that I consider very
important.
Thank you for your courtesy.
Senator Manchin. Are there any questions for our Senators
from the committee?
If not, thank you so much.
Senator Baucus. Can we ask questions?
Senator Manchin. Senator, with your seniority, you can ask
anything you want.
Senator Baucus. Thank you very much for getting these bills
passed. Thank you.
Senator Manchin. Thank you so much.
We will have our next panel now come forward.
First of all, I want to thank our panel for being here. But
before we get started with our panel, I would, at this time,
extend privileges to Senator Risch, who has comments to make
and a statement.
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES E. RISCH, U.S. SENATOR
FROM IDAHO
Senator Risch. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and I
apologize but I have another commitment, as many of us do.
I want to speak very briefly about H.R. 876. It was
sponsored by Representative Mike Simpson and has been for some
time.
H.R. 876 is an important issue in the State of Idaho. Back
when the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness and the
Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness areas in Idaho were created, they
were done at a time when Congress was moving forward very
quickly on wilderness areas. Sometimes, issues fell through the
cracks, and this bill addresses one of those issues.
We have in these wilderness areas a number of ranches and
recreation facilities, lodges, if you would, along the Salmon
River and other places. These places use water in various ways,
sometimes to generate electricity from a very small type of
generator, other times for irrigation and what have you.
When the bill was created, it did not provide for the
continuation of these facilities. They should have been
grandfathered in the bill; they weren't.
This particular bill recognizes those facilities, extends
to them the grandfather rights that they should have had, and
allows the private owners to continue to use those.
I'm really not aware of any pushback on these. It was an
oversight when the bills were passed. Congress isn't very good
at fixing mistakes that they make sometimes in a bill. This is
a correction and should be done.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Manchin. Thank you, Senator.
At this time we have our panelists, and we'd like to start
with Katherine Hammack, if you will.
Katherine, your statement, we have for the record your
complete statement, so if you want to summarize your positions
on the bills that pertain to you.
STATEMENT OF KATHERINE G. HAMMACK, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE
ARMY, (INSTALLATIONS, ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT) U.S. ARMY
Ms. Hammack. Absolutely. Thank you very much, Chairman
Manchin, and other distinguished members of the committee, for
the opportunity to talk about 3 bills right here that all
pertain to withdrawal of public lands in Montana and New Mexico
for use by the Army.
We support S. 753 for the withdrawal of over 42,000 acres
of public lands adjacent to Fort Bliss and White Sands Missile
Range in New Mexico.
Senator Heinrich, thank you for your support of the Army
and the important training mission there.
We also support the intent of the Limestone Hills Training
Area Withdrawal Act, S. 1169, and thank Senator Tester for his
support.
The Army does coordinate with the mining operation, as the
Senator mentioned. We support allowing existing mining claims
to proceed in development and in accordance with previously
approved plans. However, we have one significant concern with
the language in the bill.
We object to language that would expand the rights for
mineral disposition or exploration by allowing claimants to
amend or relocate mining claims, and reinstate expired claims.
This provision would give unprecedented latitude to claimants
over lands that may be required for military training,
including live fire impact areas. It would severely limit the
ability of the Army to plan and conduct training on the
property.
Therefore, the Army objects to allowing mining claimants to
operate without regard for withdrawal and reservation.
Of note on the Limestone Hills Training Area Withdrawal
Act, our rights to use this property or our authority to use
this property expire in March 2014. So unless this legislation
is passed, it will have severe impact to the Montana National
Guard.
Finally, the Army supports S. 1309 and thanks Senator Wyden
for introducing it at the administration's request. This
contains the administration's fiscal year 2014 National Defense
Authorization Act legislative proposal for the Limestone Hills
withdrawal.
So I want to keep it short. You do have my written
statement. I look forward to answering any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hammack follows:]
Prepared Statement of Katherine G. Hammack, Assistant Secretary of the
Army, (Installations, Energy, and Environment) U.S. Army
Thank you, Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member Barrasso and other
distinguished Members of the Committee for the opportunity to provide
comments on S. 1169, legislation to withdraw public lands in Montana
for use by the Army, and S. 753, legislation to withdraw public lands
in New Mexico.
Limestone Hills Training Area Withdrawal Act of 2013
S. 1169, the Limestone Hills Training Area Withdrawal Act, would
withdraw and reserve approximately 18,644 acres of federal land that
comprises the Limestone Hills Training Area (LHTA) for use by the Army,
and assign primary management of the property from the Department of
the Interior to the Department of the Army for a 25-year period.
The lands comprising the LHTA are public domain lands, currently
under the control of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The
legislation would enable continued training on the land by the Montana
National Guard (MTNG) and other active and reserve components of the
armed forces that have used the property for training purposes for
several decades. In order for the Army to continue occupying the
property, the land must be ``withdrawn from the public domain,'' which
can only be accomplished by an Act of Congress. Unless legislation is
passed, the Army's current authority to use the property will end in
March 2014.
The LHTA is operated by the MTNG and is their only large-scale live
fire and maneuver training area. It is a critically important training
asset for the MTNG, used by approximately 3,800 Guardsmen annually, for
diverse training involving small arms, crew-served weapons, mortars,
and demolition activities. The LHTA represents a realistic, open
training environment within a reasonable travel distance for most
Guardsmen and for equipment, which is maintained off site. This
regional training asset allows us to avoid the expenditures of time,
money, and fuel that would result if training had to be located
elsewhere.
The LHTA is also used by the active and reserve components of the
other branches of the military and is made available in some cases for
use by other federal, state, and local agencies. Some 10,000 personnel
from other services use the site each year. Many of those personnel are
from special operations units who are preparing for rotations in
Afghanistan and other forward locations. The LHTA is especially
valuable because of the variety of training conducted there, which is
reflected in the number and diversity of organizations that train
there.
There are a number of other, non-federal activities that occur at
the LHTA, and the Army is respectful of the multiple uses of the
property. We are particularly proud of the collaborative relationship
among the MTNG, the BLM, and the other stakeholders in the area. The
Army closely coordinates with the operators of an active limestone mine
within the withdrawal area. The Army firmly supports allowing existing
mining claims to proceed to development in accordance with previously
approved plans of operations, and we are confident this can occur. The
MTNG plans meticulously to ensure that training and mining operations
are held at a safe distance, and that any unexploded ordnance (UXO) is
removed from the mining area. Training activities are also deconflicted
with grazing operations, wildlife habitat, and use of two public roads
that traverse the property. There is a proven track record of
accommodating multiple uses of the property while fulfilling military
training and mission needs.
The MTNG is party to an existing agreement with the BLM and with
Graymont Western US, Inc., the current mine operator. This agreement
specifies the procedures that the parties follow to coordinate and
deconflict their respective activities. As provided for in the
legislation, the Army is prepared to enter into a new agreement to
update those procedures during the withdrawal period. We do not foresee
any difficulty in maintaining procedures to ensure that training and
readiness are maintained while accommodating the needs of other
parties.
While the Army supports withdrawal of the property to enable its
continued use for military training, the Army has significant concerns
with certain language in the bill that would legislatively expand
certain rights for mineral disposition or exploration. The Army opposes
inclusion of Subsection 4(a)(3), which would provide an opportunity for
certain mining claimants to amend or relocate mining claims and to
reinstate expired claims. This provision would give unprecedented
latitude to these claimants, which could impact land required for
military training--including live fire impact areas. This would
severely limit the ability of the Army to plan and conduct training on
the property.
The Army supports allowing existing mining claims to proceed to
development in accordance with previously approved plans of operations
and in accordance with applicable law and regulation. However, the Army
strongly objects to this Subsection as it would grant particular mining
claimants the ability to operate without regard for the withdrawal and
reservation. There is no clear precedent for this provision, which
stands in opposition to the normal purpose and effect of military land
withdrawals. By granting unique privileges to certain mining claimants,
this provision is also contrary to the normal operation of mining laws
and regulations, which provide equal treatment for all claimants who
are similarly situated.
The LHTA is an important asset for the readiness of the armed
forces. If the land is not withdrawn, Limestone Hills will be returned
to the BLM and the MTNG would be forced to conduct its primary training
events at other locations. Changing training venues could markedly
increase the costs to the MTNG over current expenditures. Additionally,
UXO contamination would need to be mitigated if the range were closed.
Since funding for UXO removal from active ranges is controlled and
prioritized differently from funding for cleanup of closed ranges, if
the range is closed, Army priorities and schedules for UXO removal
would be affected. We appreciate the effort to keep this important
training asset open and available.
Noting the strong objection to Subsection 4(a)(3), we support S.
1169 with the exclusion of that provision. The Department of Defense
has submitted a legislative proposal to the Congress for consideration
that would also address the withdrawal requirements for LHTA. The
proposal, introduced as S. 1309, is fully coordinated and agreed to
within the Administration, and would provide urgent and necessary
authority to continue training and operations.
S. 753, a bill to provide for national security benefits for White
Sands Missile Range and Fort Bliss
The other legislation I would like to discuss is S. 753, which
involves the withdrawal of 42,700 acres of public lands in New Mexico
and reservation of 5,100 of those acres for use by the Department of
the Army. The bill would also transfer administration of 2,050 acres
from the Army to the Department of Interior. These lands are directly
adjacent to Fort Bliss and the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR). As the
two largest military installations in the United States, Fort Bliss and
WSMR consist of nearly 5,000 square miles of land that accommodates
military training, research, development, and test and evaluation. In
addition to Army test activities, WSMR hosts several other federal
tenants, including NASA and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
A portion of the withdrawal, totaling 37,600 acres, is adjacent to
the Dona Ana tank gunnery and artillery range complex at Fort Bliss.
Training in this location can generate significant noise, vibration,
and dust, which can all migrate off the installation. Army analysis has
determined that noise levels occurring in the area to be withdrawn are
higher than is recommended for various categories of use and
development. The Army is concerned that residential and commercial
development may occur in that area. The legislation would ensure that
incompatible development does not occur in that area. In doing so, the
legislation would establish an enduring buffer for the live-fire ranges
in the Dona Ana training area.
A separate 5,100 acre portion of the land that would be withdrawn
by this legislation is adjacent to tenant operations at WSMR: the NASA
White Sands Test Facility; the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Systems facility; and the NRO
Aerospace Data Facility--Southwest. These operations are co-located and
have special security and safety requirements. The land set aside for
their use, while large enough to handle the mission, no longer resides
in a remote location. As with many locations in the southwest, this
area has seen a large increase in population in recent years. The
facilities sit close to the border of a public access area, and a
number of security incidents in the area have highlighted the value of
having a controlled stand-off area. This legislation would reserve for
military control a one-mile stand-off area between those tenant
activities and the public access area, which would improve the security
for these facilities.
The bill would also return administration of a small area at Fort
Bliss from the Department of the Army to the Department of the
Interior. The 2,050 acre parcel, previously withdrawn for military use,
would be transferred to the BLM. This parcel has relatively limited
training value for Fort Bliss due to its limited access from the
installation. The Army does not object to the return of this land to
BLM, but we offer one technical comment on the provision. Since the
parcel was originally withdrawn by Public Land Order 833, a partial
legislative revocation of that Public Land Order would ensure a clear
interpretation of congressional intent.
The Army has worked cooperatively with the Bureau of Land
Management and other neighbors and stakeholders in addressing land use
issues in this area. We appreciate the cooperation and interest of all
parties who support the various missions at Fort Bliss and WSMR. The
Army supports this legislation, which would protect those important
national security missions.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss these topics, I look
forward to any questions you have.
Senator Manchin. Thank you so much.
I might state that I'm so sorry that I did not introduce
your full title: Assistant Secretary of the Army, Installations
of Energy and Environment, Office of the Assistant Secretary of
the Army, U.S. Army.
Thank you so much.
At this time we're going to hear from the Hon. Roger
Natsuhara. He's the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
STATEMENT OF ROGER M. NATSUHARA, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
THE NAVY (ENERGY, INSTALLATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT) U.S. NAVY
Mr. Natsuhara. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the
subcommittee. I want to thank you for holding this hearing.
I'm pleased to appear before you today to discuss the
Department of Navy's need for the Land Withdrawal legislation
addressed in S. 1309.
I also want to thank Senator Wyden for introducing the bill
on behalf of the Administration.
I would like to make just a couple brief comments about why
we need this legislation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for entering
my full written statement into the record.
The existing military land withdrawals for Naval Air
Weapons Station China Lake and the Chocolate Mountain Aerial
Gunnery Range expire in October 2014 and require congressional
action. Signed legislation is required this year to preserve
the very important testing, development, and training missions
we conduct at those bases.
The proposed expansion of Twentynine Palms is critical to
national defense. Although Twentynine Palms has served the
Marine Corps well since in 1940s, lack of sufficient training
space inhibits us from properly training Marine Expedition
Brigades today and in the future.
The preferred alternative identified in the February 2013
Record of Decision on Twentynine Palms represents the minimum
area required to support MEB training and is a product of
extensive public outreach efforts that incorporated public
input.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
I welcome your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Natsuhara follows:]
Prepared Statement of Roger M. Natsuhara, Acting Assistant Secretary of
the Navy (energy, installations, and environment) U.S. Navy
Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member Barrasso, and members of the
Subcommittee, I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss the
continuing need for the Department of the Navy's land withdrawals in
the Southwest.
A number of Department of Navy installations are located wholly or
partially on public lands that have been withdrawn from the public
domain for military purposes. Since the passage of the Engle Act, such
military land withdrawals exceeding 5,000 acres must be authorized in
statute. The military land withdrawals for Naval Air Weapons Station,
China Lake and the Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range expire next
year and can only be renewed by an Act of Congress. China Lake supports
the Navy's research, development, acquisition, testing and evaluation
of cutting edge weapons systems for the warfighter. It consists of over
1.1 million acres of land of which over 90 percent are withdrawn public
lands. The installation supports approximately 9000 hours of aircraft
and weapons training annually and is of critical importance in
maintaining national military readiness. The Department has no viable
alternative location where it can perform the testing, training and
operations that are conducted at China Lake.
The aerial gunnery range located in the Chocolate Mountains
consists of about 459,000 acres of which approximately 227,000 acres
are withdrawn public lands. The range supports Marine Corps, Navy, and
Air Force aircrew training in air combat maneuvering and tactics;
airborne laser system operations; air-to-air gunnery and air-to-ground
bombing, rocketry, and strafing. The range is the primary range for the
Marine Corps' advanced aviation tactics school, serves east coast
Marine aviation units by providing capability not available on the east
coast, and is the primary ``backyard'' range for the 3rd Marine
Aircraft Wing. Navy Special Warfare units also use this gunnery range
to conduct ground combat training.
In addition to the renewal of existing military land withdrawals at
China Lake and the Chocolate Mountains, the Department of Navy requests
a new land withdrawal at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in
Twenty-nine Palms, CA to meet current and future training requirements.
Although ground operations are winding down in Afghanistan, the world
is still a very uncertain place, with the threat environment only
growing more complex. As the Nation's premier ``first responders'' in
conflict, the Marine Corps must remain nimble and flexible enough to
engage the enemy with the appropriately sized and right mix of forces
on the battlefield.
This withdrawal is required to expand the existing training
environment and provide sufficient maneuver area, both land and
airspace, to conduct sustained, combined arms, live-fire and maneuver
field training for Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB)-sized Marine Air
Ground Task Forces (MAGTF). A MEB-the primary forcible entry
contingency response force-consists of three battalion task forces and
associated command, aviation, and combat logistics support elements.
MEBs must be capable of performing a variety of missions throughout
the spectrum of conflict because they will encounter complex situations
containing asymmetric threats, nonlinear battlefields, and unclear
delineation between combatants and noncombatants. To overcome these
challenges and operate effectively, MEBs must train in a realistic
setting, which the current installation configuration cannot provide.
Twenty-nine Palms, established in the 1950s and sized for the weapons
and tactics of the time, is simply not big enough to accommodate the
way the Marine Corps must train to fight today's battles.
To accomplish this, the Department intends to purchase private and
state lands adjacent to the Combat Center, pursue the establishment and
modification of Special Use Airspace through the Federal Aviation
Administration and request a military land withdrawal of additional
public lands. Because of the amount of acreage being requested, this
land withdrawal also requires an Act of Congress. We recognize the
public's keen interest in retaining access to Johnson Valley for
recreational purposes. Our land withdrawal request-developed through
public input-preserves public access to Johnson Valley, the area prized
by the off-highway vehicle recreation enthusiasts due to its unique
terrain features. Our withdrawal request represents a reasonable
solution for preserving public access while providing space for
required military training.
As required by the current law, the Department has worked with the
Department of Interior, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Federal
Aviation Administration in preparation for these withdrawals over the
last several years. The Administration has submitted a legislative
proposal through which these land withdrawals would be enacted as part
of Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act.
The need to enact legislation and authorize these withdrawals is
urgent. As our Department of Defense colleagues have stated in previous
testimony earlier this year, the consequences of failing to enact
withdrawal legislation could, in some of these instances, cause severe
impacts on DOD and the military Services if we are forced to stop
training and testing. In all cases, DOD has a compelling need for the
withdrawn land in order to successfully conduct its testing, training,
missions and operations with the capabilities and competence that it
must maintain.
Our Nation's Navy and Marine Corps operate globally, which includes
having the ability to project power, effect deterrence, and provide
humanitarian aid whenever and wherever needed to protect the interests
of the United States. To do this, however, requires forces who train as
they would fight and weapons that deliver as promised. We ask for your
support in giving our men and women what they need to prevail. I look
forward to working with you to sustain the war fighting readiness and
quality of life for the most formidable expeditionary fighting force in
the world. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today
and I welcome your questions.
Senator Manchin. Thank you so much, sir.
Now we have Mr. Ned Farquhar--pretty close--Deputy
Assistant Secretary, Land and Minerals Management, Department
of the Interior.
Thank you, sir.
STATEMENT OF NED FARQUHAR, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, LAND AND
MINERALS MANAGEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Mr. Farquhar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
members of the subcommittee. We appreciate the opportunity to
testify today on behalf of the Department of Interior Bureau of
Land Management. I'm going to very briefly summarize our
position on 8 bills and submit my statements for the record.
The first is that the department supports S. 37, the Jobs
and Recreation Act, and S. 364, the Rocky Mountain Front
Heritage Act, as they apply to lands administered by the BLM.
We defer to the Department of Agriculture Forest Service as
these bills apply to the National Forest system lands as well.
Both of these bills provide conservation designations for
special areas in the State of Montana. Permanent designation in
these lands ensures that hunters, hikers, anglers, and other
recreationists will continue to enjoy these areas of
southwestern Montana and the Rocky Mountain Front.
On S. 1300, this stewardship bill, we would extend BLM
stewardship contracting authority, which expires this year.
This important authority allows the BLM to efficiently and
flexibly accomplish needed restoration work in concert with
local agencies and organizations.
The department supports the extension and would support the
bill if amended to address some technical concerns.
On S. 343, the Three Kids Mine, the Secretary would be
directed to convey 948 acres of Federal land at the abandoned
Three Kids Mine site to the Henderson Redevelopment Agency in
Nevada. In exchange, Henderson would pay the United States for
the value of this land minus the estimated cost of cleanup and
adjacent private parcels. Henderson would then be responsible
for cleanup at the site.
The department supports the goals of 343 and welcomes the
opportunity to work with the committee to make modifications to
the bill as outlined in our fuller testimony.
On H.R. 507, the Pascua Yaqui bill, which provides for the
conveyance of 20 acres of public land near Tucson for the
Pascua Yaqui Tribe, the department supports holding the lands
in trust for the tribe, but has concerns about provisions
regarding a private lease on unrelated lands and its
implications for the Secretary to exercise the trust
responsibilities that the Interior Department has with tribal
partners. We look forward to resolving this and other issues in
the bill.
We appreciate the importance of the military installations
that we're talking about today for the security of the Nation,
and we support the multiple missions of our Armed Forces. We're
proud to work closely with the Department of Defense and the
branches represented today to offer public lands to support
military readiness, training, and testing, and assist the
military in meeting its mission needs.
The main bill today, S. 1309, the Military Land Withdrawals
Act introduced by Senator Wyden at the administration's
request, reflects our 2014 National Defense Authorization Act
legislative proposal for the 3 public land withdrawals in
California and the one in Montana. We urge the Senate to pass
this bill because these withdrawals are expiring soon.
We also support S. 753, Senator Heinrich's bill for the
White Sands Missile Range in Fort Bliss in New Mexico. We'd
like to work with the subcommittee and the sponsor on some
technical modifications.
The administration supports the continued use of the
Limestone Hills training area in Montana by the Army. We have
some concerns as expressed by our partners in the Army about
some of the language in S. 1169 related to location and
maintenance of mining claims. We look forward to working with
you on those as well.
Thank you for inviting us to be here today and to testify.
We'll be happy to answer your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Farquhar follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ned Farquhar, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Land &
Minerals Management, Department of the Interior
on s. 37
Thank you for inviting the Department of the Interior to testify on
S. 37, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. The Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) supports the wilderness designations on BLM-managed
lands included in S. 37.
The vast majority of the designations and other substantive
provisions of S. 37 apply to activities on National Forest System
lands. We defer to the Department of Agriculture on those provisions.
Background
The southwestern corner of Montana is a critically important
biological region. Linking the Greater Yellowstone Area and the
Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho and Montana, these areas include
important wildlife corridors that allow natural migrations of wildlife
and help prevent species isolation. The Centennial Mountains are
particularly noteworthy in this regard. The diversity of wildlife
throughout this area is a strong indicator of its importance. Elk, mule
deer, bighorn sheep, and moose, as well as their predators, such as
bears, mountain lions and wolves, travel through this corner of
Montana.
Outstanding dispersed recreational opportunities abound in this
region as well. A day's hunting, hiking or fishing may be pursued in
the splendid isolation of the steeply forested Ruby Mountains or in the
foothill prairies of the Blacktail Mountains, areas largely untouched
and pristine. For the more adventurous, Humbug Spires offers 65 million
year-old rocks now eroded into fanciful spires, appreciated both for
their climbing challenges as well as their scientific value.
S. 37
Title I of S. 37, applies solely to National Forest System Lands.
Accordingly the Department of the Interior defers to the Department of
Agriculture on those provisions. The majority of the designations in
Title II of the bill are also on National Forest System Lands, and
again we defer to the Department of Agriculture.
Section 203(b) of S. 37 designates five wilderness areas on lands
administered by the BLM in southwestern Montana: the Blacktail
Mountains Wilderness (10,675 acres), Centennial Mountains Wilderness
(23,700 acres), Humbug Spires Wilderness (8,900 acres), East Fork
Blacktail Wilderness (6,125 acres), and Ruby Mountains Wilderness
(16,300 acres). The BLM supports these designations and we appreciate
the Sponsor and the Committee working with us over the last year to
refine these boundaries. All of these areas meet the definitions of
wilderness in that they are areas where the land and its community of
life are untrammeled. These areas have retained their primeval
character and have been influenced primarily by the forces of nature,
with outstanding opportunities for primitive recreation or solitude. We
continue to encourage the Sponsor and the Committee to consider
expanding the boundaries of the Centennial Mountains Wilderness in
order to protect this area as a single coherent corridor, thereby
providing enhanced benefit for the genetic diversity of the fauna
inhabiting the Greater Yellowstone Area and the Bitterroot Range.
Furthermore, we support the transfer of administrative jurisdiction
over the 660-acre Farlin Creek area to the Forest Service for inclusion
in the adjoining 77,000 acre East Pioneers Wilderness Area.
Section 205 of S. 37 proposes to fully release four BLM-managed
wilderness study areas (WSAs) in Beaverhead and Madison counties from
WSA management thereby allowing the consideration of a full range of
multiple uses. In addition, in five other WSAs, some areas would be
released from WSA status and other areas would be partially designated
as wilderness, as noted above. In all, over 66,000 acres of WSAs are
proposed for release, and nearly 66,000 acres are proposed for
wilderness designation; we support these provisions.
Conclusion
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. We look forward to
working cooperatively with the Congress to designate these special and
biologically significant areas in this dramatic corner of Montana as
wilderness.
on s. 343
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on S. 343, the Three Kids
Mine Remediation and Reclamation Act. Over the past several years, the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has worked with the City of Henderson,
Nevada, and other Nevada governmental entities in search of
administrative remedies to redevelopment challenges at the abandoned
Three Kids Mine. The Department of the Interior (Department) supports
the goals of S. 343, which aims to provide legislated solutions to the
issues surrounding the Three Kids Mine area and clears the way for its
eventual redevelopment. However, the BLM would prefer that the
Committee consider H.R. 697 as introduced, which the Department
supported in testimony on March 21, 2013.
Background
The Three Kids Mine is an abandoned manganese mine and mill site on
314 acres of private land located along the south side of Lake Mead
Drive, across the highway from Lake Las Vegas, in Henderson, Nevada.
The mine and mill operated from 1917 through 1961, in part providing
steel-strengthening manganese to the defense industry and contributing
to the United States' efforts in World War I and II. Federal manganese
reserves were stored in the area from the late 1950s through 2003.
Approximately five years ago, the City of Henderson and Lakemoor
Canyon, LLC, approached the BLM with a plan for redevelopment of the
area if the site could be remediated.
S. 343 directs that 948 acres of public lands adjacent to the
private site be conveyed to the Henderson Redevelopment Agency,
bringing the total size of the redevelopment project area to 1,262
acres. Of the 948 acres of public lands, 146 acres are contaminated and
will require mine reclamation and environmental remediation. The most
severe contamination appears to be on the 314 private acres where the
mine and mill were located. No viable former operator or responsible
party has been identified to remediate and reclaim the abandoned mine
and mill site. Today, the site's deep open pits, large volumes of mine
overburden and tailings, mill facility ruins, and solid waste disposal
areas pose risks to public safety and to human health and the
environment. The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (NDEP)
identified the Three Kids Mine site as a high priority for the
implementation of a comprehensive environmental investigation,
remediation, and reclamation program. Representatives of the BLM, the
Bureau of Reclamation, and the Department of the Interior Solicitor's
Office have worked with the City of Henderson and representatives of
developer Lakemoor Canyon to find solutions to the complex challenges
of remediating this site.
S. 343
S. 343 designates the combined 314 acres of private land and 948
acres of public land as the 1,262-acre ``Three Kids Mine Project Site''
and provides for the conveyance of the public lands to the Henderson
Redevelopment Agency. The legislation provides that fair market value
for the Federal lands to be conveyed should be determined through
standard appraisal practices, and that, subsequent to the
determination, the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) should
determine the ``reasonable approximate estimation of the costs to
assess, remediate, and reclaim the Three Kids Mine Project Site.'' The
fair market value would be adjusted by deducting the cost estimate
prepared by the Secretary. The Henderson Redevelopment Agency would pay
the adjusted fair market value of the conveyed land to the United
States, if any.
The bill makes the conveyance of the land conditional upon the
State of Nevada executing a mine remediation and reclamation agreement
that obligates a party to perform the cleanup and which must be backed
up by financial assurances. While the BLM has not established a range
for the cost of cleanup, a proponent of the transaction estimated the
cost of remediating the public and private lands at between $300
million and $1.3 billion. While it is possible that the cost of
remediating and reclaiming the entire project area might exceed the
fair market value of the Federal land to be conveyed, the cost of the
transaction will be known only after the Secretary completes the
appraisal and remediation cost estimate process as outlined in the
legislation.
The Department supports innovative proposals to address the cleanup
of the Three Kids Mine. We support the goals of S. 343, and prefer that
the Committee consider H.R. 697 as introduced, which the Department
supported in testimony on March 21, 2013.
Conclusion
Thank you for the opportunity to present testimony on S. 343.
s. 364
Thank you for the invitation to testify on S. 364, the Rocky
Mountain Front Heritage Act which designates approximately 208,000
acres of Federal land in Montana as the Rocky Mountain Front
Conservation Management Area. S. 364 primarily affects lands managed by
the United States Forest Service (FS). The Department of the Interior
defers to the Department of Agriculture regarding designations on lands
managed by the FS. Over 13,000 of the acres proposed for special
designation under the bill are managed by the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM). The Department of the Interior supports the designation of the
BLM lands as part of the Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management
Area (CMA).
Background
A unique and stunningly beautiful area in west-central Montana, the
Rocky Mountain Front is located within Pondera, Teton, and Lewis and
Clark Counties and contains unparalleled cultural, recreational,
scenic, and biological resources. The lands administered by the BLM are
dominated by massive limestone cliffs rising to an elevation of 7,700
feet and include grasslands, shrub lands, and limber and white-bark
pine forests. Numerous wildlife and fish populations are supported by
the highly varied topography and diverse vegetation that for
generations has provided an outstanding experience for hunters, anglers
and other recreationists. Huntable populations of elk, mule deer, big
horn sheep, mountain goats and black bear all occur within the area
being considered in the proposed legislation. In addition, threatened
species including grizzly bear, Canada lynx, and bull trout are found
on these BLM-managed lands.
Congress recognized this priceless region in 2006 when it included
the withdrawal of the entire area from new mining claims and mineral
leasing in section 403(a) of Public Law 109-432. The BLM currently
manages these lands for their important resource values as
administratively-designated Outstanding Natural Areas (Blind Horse, Ear
Mountain, Chute Mountain and Deep Creek-Battle Creek).
S. 364
S. 364 designates over 200,000 acres of federal land in Montana's
Rocky Mountain Front as the Rocky Mountain Front Conservation
Management Area. Approximately 13,000 acres of public land managed by
the BLM would be included in that designation. Running along the
eastern edge of the CMA, the lands managed by the BLM are largely
closed to motorized access and include a trail system popular with
those seeking a wilder recreational experience.
The overall management scheme envisioned for the CMA is consistent
with current BLM management of these lands. Under the provisions of S.
364, motorized vehicles within the CMA would be limited to roads and
trails designated for their use and grazing would be allowed to
continue where it currently exists.
The BLM recommends that the bill be amended to specify that the
BLM-managed lands within the CMA be included in the BLM's National
Landscape Conservation System (NLCS). The CMA is very similar to BLM's
National Conservation Areas (NCAs) and inclusion in the NLCS is
appropriate.
Conclusion
Thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of S. 364 as it
applies to lands managed by the BLM.
on s. 1300
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on S. 1300, the
Stewardship Contracting Reauthorization and Improvement Act. This
legislation would provide for the reauthorization of stewardship
contracting authority for the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S.
Forest Service. The Department supports the reauthorization of
stewardship contracting authority, would support this legislation if
amended, and would appreciate the opportunity to work with the sponsor
to address a few technical concerns.
Background
Stewardship contracting authority was established for the BLM in
the FY 2003 Omnibus Appropriations Act and expires at the end of FY
2013. The authority allows the BLM to award contracts for forest health
and restoration treatments, including hazardous fuels reductions, for a
period of up to ten years and to use the value of timber or other
forest products removed as an offset against the cost of services
received. The BLM has enjoyed many successes in using stewardship
contracting authority, thereby achieving goals for forest and woodland
restoration and conducting both hazardous fuels reduction and habitat
restoration treatments. In addition, stewardship contracts create jobs
and revenue growth for local communities and help to protect local
communities from wildland fire. From 2003 through 2012, the BLM entered
into over 400 stewardship contracts on approximately 108,000 acres of
BLM-managed lands. The BLM's future strategy for stewardship projects
includes increasing the size and duration of these projects.
S. 1300
S. 1300 extends until 2023 the authorization of stewardship
contracting to achieve land management goals. The BLM supports
stewardship contracting authority, as it provides the BLM with needed
flexibility to work with contractors to achieve the agency's land and
forest health goals, and saves taxpayer resources because the value of
forest products removed are used to offset the cost of the management
action. In addition, changing the requirement to obligate cancellation
costs upfront is inconsistent with budgeting principles and would
understate the Government's liability under the contract. Finally, the
Administration has concerns about broad waivers of long-standing
acquisition laws.
Conclusion
The Department looks forward to working with the sponsor and the
Subcommittee on technical amendments. Thank you again for the
opportunity to testify, and I would be glad to answer any questions.
on h.r. 507
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on H.R. 507, which
provides that certain public lands in the Tucson, Arizona, area are
declared to be held in trust by the United States for the benefit of
the Pascua Yaqui Tribe (Tribe), subject to valid existing rights and to
additional restrictions in the legislation. The Department of the
Interior (Department) supports holding the lands in trust for the
Tribe, but has concerns that the legislation makes the trust
declaration subject to an additional, unrelated restriction.
Background
The Tribe's lands are located in Pima County, near Tucson, Arizona,
and are a combination of lands held in trust by the United States and
lands purchased and held in fee by the Tribe. Some of these fee lands
are the subject of pending ``fee-land-to-trust-land'' applications with
the Department. The Tucson Unified School District (District) operates
the Hohokam School on private lands adjacent to the tribal lands.
The Tribe is interested in acquiring two parcels of public land
totaling approximately 20 acres. One parcel is an undeveloped, isolated
10-acre tract of land administered by the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM). The second is a tract of approximately 10 acres that was
patented under the Recreation and Public Purposes Act (R&PP) to the
District, but never developed.
H.R. 507
H.R. 507 declares that approximately 20 acres of public land are to
be held in trust by the United States for the benefit of the Tribe,
subject to valid existing rights, following the approval of a private
lease agreement by the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary). The lands
include one 10-acre parcel of BLM-managed land (designated in the
legislation as ``Parcel A'') and one 10-acre parcel patented to the
District under the R&PP (designated ``Parcel B''). Parcel B's trust
status is deferred under the bill (Sec. 3(b)) subject to the District
relinquishing its R&PP patent. In addition, under the bill (Sec. 3(c)),
neither Parcel A nor Parcel B can be declared held in trust until the
Secretary or a delegate approves and records a private lease agreement
between the Tribe and the District for the operation of a regional
transportation facility serving the Hohokam School located on
restricted Indian land of the Tribe. The lease agreement pertains to
lands unrelated to Parcel A or Parcel B.
H.R. 507 references a map titled: PYT Land Department and dated
Jan. 15, 2013. The BLM would welcome the opportunity to work with the
bill sponsor and committee on a new land status map to accompany the
legislation.
The Department supports holding these two tracts of public land in
trust for the Tribe. The Department has concerns that the additional
requirement in Sec. 3(c), that the Secretary approve a private lease,
on Tribal lands, for the District and the Tribe, as a precondition to
holding in trust Parcel A and Parcel B--unrelated lands--may have
implications for the Secretary's exercise of trust responsibility to
the Tribe.
Finally, the Department notes that section 5 of H.R. 507 addresses
the treatment of water rights that may be associated with the land to
be taken into trust for the benefit of the Tribe. The Department has
concerns regarding Section 5's restriction on its ability to assert
reserved water rights that the Tribe may have or claim on the two
tracts of public land because it could restrict the ability of the
Tribe and of the United States as trustee on behalf of the Tribe from
fully asserting and protecting the water rights of the Tribe.
Conclusion
H.R. 507 represents an opportunity to improve land use for both the
Tribe and the District on two isolated tracts of public land. Thank you
for the opportunity to testify. I will be glad to answer any questions.
on s. 1169 and s. 1309
Thank you for the opportunity to present testimony on three public
land withdrawal bills, S. 753, S. 1169, and S. 1309. S. 753 seeks to
achieve boundary solutions at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) and Fort
Bliss in New Mexico. The Administration supports S. 753, but would like
to work with the Subcommittee and the sponsor on technical
modifications to the bill. S. 1169, the Limestone Hills Training Area
Withdrawal Act, would withdraw approximately 18,644 acres of public
land for use by the Department of the Army (Army) in Montana. The
Administration supports the continued use of the lands identified in S.
1169 by the Army, but has concerns with the provision related to the
location and maintenance of mining claims. We look forward to working
with the Subcommittee and the sponsor on modifications to address these
concerns. S. 1309, the Military Land Withdrawals Act, was introduced at
the Administration's request. The bill reflects the Administration's FY
2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) legislative proposal for
three public land withdrawals in California and one in Montana. The
Administration urges the Senate to pass S. 1309 to support military use
of the lands at Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range (CMAGR), Naval
Air Weapons Station (NAWS) China Lake, Marine Corps Air Ground Combat
Center (MCAGCC) Twentynine Palms, and Limestone Hills Training Area.
Background
Public lands are managed by the Department of the Interior (DOI)
through the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Public land withdrawals
are formal lands actions that set aside, withhold, or reserve public
land by statute or administrative order for public purposes.
Withdrawals are established for a wide variety of purposes, e.g., power
site reserves, military reservations, administrative sites, recreation
sites, national parks, reclamation projects, and wilderness areas.
Withdrawals are most often used to preserve sensitive environmental
values and major Federal investments in facilities or other
improvements, to support national security, and to provide for public
health and safety. Withdrawals of public lands for military use require
joint actions by DOI and the Department of Defense (DOD). DOD has a
number of installations, training areas, and ranges that are located
partially or wholly on temporarily or permanently withdrawn public
lands. Many of these withdrawals support installations that are
critical to the nation's ability to provide for the readiness of the
Armed Forces. Approximately 16 million acres of public lands are
withdrawn for military purposes.
There was no limit on the amount of public land that could be
withdrawn administratively at a single location for military use until
1958 when the Engle Act (P.L. 85-337) became law. The Engle Act
requires an Act of Congress to authorize military land withdrawals
aggregating 5,000 acres or more for any one defense project or
facility. Similarly, there was no limit on the time period of
administrative withdrawals until 1976 when the Federal Land Policy and
Management Act (FLPMA) (P.L. 94-579) became law. FLPMA allows the
Secretary of the Interior to administratively make withdrawals
aggregating 5,000 acres or more for purposes other than military use,
for a period of not more than 20 years. Legislative military
withdrawals have traditionally included time limits, with renewal
required every 15, 20, or 25 years, depending on the terms in the
legislation.
DOI appreciates the importance of military installations for the
security of the Nation and supports the multiple missions of our Armed
Forces. We are proud to be able to offer public lands to support
military readiness, training, and testing, and are proud to be able to
assist the military in meeting its mission needs. Throughout the
country we have established productive partnerships and other working
arrangements with the military and we intend to continue these mutually
beneficial arrangements. We are especially appreciative of the
military's stewardship of the withdrawn lands they manage. These
arrangements have worked out well for all concerned and should
continue.
The Administration believes that the traditional, periodic review
that is a part of the legislative withdrawal process is vital to
promoting the highest quality stewardship and management of the public
lands proposed for withdrawal in these bills. This process provides
opportunities for DOD and the military branches to evaluate their
continued use of the lands and obtain the participation and assistance
of DOI in sound management, for DOI to ensure that the lands are being
managed in ways that could allow their eventual return to the public
domain for broader public use, and for the Congress and the public to
provide input and oversight.
S. 753, Boundary Solutions at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) and Fort
Bliss
WSMR is a test range of approximately 2.2 million acres in parts of
five counties in southern New Mexico, making it one of the largest
military installations in the United States. WSMR is contiguous to Fort
Bliss to the south, which is used for military training. The majority
of the lands that comprise both WSMR and Fort Bliss, over 2.4 million
acres, are public lands withdrawn and reserved for the use of the Army
under Public Land Order (PLO) 833 and by Public Law 106-65.
S. 753 seeks to achieve boundary solutions at WSMR and Fort Bliss.
First, the bill would withdraw and reserve approximately 5,100
additional acres for use by the Army at WSMR, to allow for an
additional buffer area between the current public access areas and
operations of several WSMR tenants, such as the NASA White Sands Test
Facility and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Tracking and Data
Relay Satellite Systems Facility. The Administration supports the goal
of allowing the use of the lands by the Army. However, these lands
receive significant public use, mainly in the form of hunting and
livestock grazing. Because the introduced bill does not address
grazing, the reduction in the existing grazing permit and removal of
any authorized range improvements within these lands would be carried
out in accordance with BLM's grazing regulations at 43 C.F.R Part 4100.
S. 753 would also withdraw approximately 37,600 acres of public
lands from the operation of certain public land laws, in order to
establish a zone to buffer the noise, dust and vibrations from the live
fire training activities on the adjoining Dona Ana tank gunnery and
artillery range complex at Fort Bliss. These lands would remain under
the full management of the Department of the Interior, but they would
be withdrawn from the public land laws, the mining laws, and the
mineral leasing, mineral materials, and geothermal leasing laws. The
Administration supports the withdrawal of these lands, consistent with
a similar provision included in the Administration's FY 2014 NDAA
legislative proposal.
Additionally, S. 753 would transfer to the Secretary of the
Interior administrative jurisdiction over approximately 2,050 acres of
public lands previously withdrawn and reserved for the Army's use under
PLO 833. The lands are part of an area known as Filmore Canyon, and are
adjacent on two sides to the BLM's Organ Mountains Area of Critical of
Environmental Concern (ACEC). Filmore Canyon is adjacent to the
community of Las Cruces and includes hunting opportunities and scenic
lands that are popular for year-round hiking. The BLM manages the Organ
Mountains ACEC for significant scenic values and endangered wildlife
species, and the ACEC contains cultural sites eligible for listing on
the National Register of Historic Places. The Administration supports
the return of these lands to full management by the Department of the
Interior as part of a cohesive boundary solution at WSMR and Fort
Bliss. We would like to work with the Subcommittee and the sponsor on
technical modifications.
S. 1169, Limestone Hills Training Area Withdrawal Act
The Limestone Hills Training Area consists of 18,644 acres of
public lands in Broadwater County, Montana that have been used for
military training since the 1950s. In 1984, the BLM issued the Army a
right-of-way formally permitting use of the training area for military
purposes. The current right-of-way expires on March 26, 2014. The
Montana Army National Guard is the primary DOD user of the training
area, which is also used by reserve and active components from all
branches of the military services for live fire, mounted and dismounted
maneuver training, and aviation training. The withdrawal of the
Limestone Hills Training area is necessary because the BLM has
determined that it no longer has the authority to permit the use of the
lands for military maneuvers under a right-of-way instrument.
S. 1169 would withdraw and assign general management of the
training area to the Army, but would keep management of grazing and
mineral resources with the BLM. This arrangement is consistent with the
Administration's FY 2014 NDAA legislative proposal, and the
Administration supports the goal of allowing the use of the lands by
the Army under a withdrawal and reservation. However, the introduced
bill contains a provision related to the location and maintenance of
mining claims that is at odds with the Administration's legislative
proposal, and with which the Administration has concerns.
Section 4 of S. 1169 would legislatively expand certain rights for
mineral disposition or exploration. It would set a new precedent for
public land withdrawals by allowing the opportunity to cure
discrepancies in the original location or the failure to maintain
several hundred mining claims in the Indian Creek mine area for the
duration of the withdrawal. The legislative language could be
interpreted to allow mining claimants to take in new land under
existing claims, which could impact land required for military
training--including live fire impact areas. By granting unique
privileges to certain mining claimants, this provision is contrary to
the normal operation of mining laws and regulations, which provide
equal treatment for all claimants who are similarly situated. The
Administration looks forward to working with the Subcommittee and the
sponsor on modifications to address these concerns and on more
technical changes to incorporate general provisions from the FY 2014
NDAA legislative proposal.
S. 1309, the Military Land Withdrawals Act
S. 1309, the Military Land Withdrawals Act, represents the
Administration's legislative proposal to enact four public land
withdrawals as part of the FY 2014 NDAA. This proposal was jointly
prepared by DOD and DOI and represents extensive discussions and
consensus building between the two agencies to achieve common goals.
Presently, the two existing withdrawals for NAWS China Lake,
California, and CMAGR, California, enacted in the California Military
Lands Withdrawal and Overflights Act of 1994 (1994 California Act)
(P.L. 103-433), will expire on October 31, 2014. Additionally, the
Marine Corps seeks a new withdrawal of public lands at MCAGCC
Twentynine Palms, California, to expand its training areas to support
increased requirements. Finally, the Army needs to convert its use of
public lands at the Montana Army National Guard, Limestone Hills
Training Area, from a BLM issued right-of-way to a legislative
withdrawal.
Unlike prior legislative withdrawals which were uncodified, stand-
alone provisions of law, the withdrawals made under S. 1309 would be
codified in a new chapter of title 10, United States Code. This would
make the withdrawal process substantially more efficient for both the
Executive and Legislative branches by providing commonality among the
withdrawal provisions, placing them in a location that is easy to find
and refer to, and, if used for future withdrawals, reducing the need to
reconsider and revise ``boilerplate'' provisions with each proposal.
Also, this codification would allow changes to withdrawal provisions
without having to wait the decades that might pass before the next
withdrawal took place. This new flexibility would greatly aid the
ability of DOD, DOI, and Congress to soundly manage withdrawn lands.
S. 1309 includes many general provisions applicable to all four of
the withdrawals. Among these are provisions for: the development of
maps and legal descriptions; access restrictions; changes in use;
authorizations for non-defense-related uses; management of range and
brush fire prevention and suppression; on-going decontamination; water
rights; hunting, fishing, and trapping; limitations on extensions and
renewals; application for renewal; limitation on subsequent
availability of lands for appropriation; relinquishment; interchanges
and transfers of Federal lands; delegability of certain
responsibilities by the Secretary of the Interior; and immunity of the
United States. Most of these general provisions are similar, if not
identical, to previously applied provisions in existing withdrawal
statutes.
The interchanges and transfers provision is included to address
boundary management issues involving both withdrawn public lands and
acquired real property. For example, there is a need for boundary
adjustment on the northern side of CMAGR to address uncertainties and
resource management conflicts associated with the BLM-managed Bradshaw
Trail. The Bradshaw Trail is popular with off-highway vehicle users,
and is, in part, maintained by the local government, in coordination
with the BLM. However, the trailhead and some of the trail's length
currently crosses acquired real property administered by the Department
of the Navy (Navy) and the Marine Corps. In the case of the expansion
of MCAGCC Twentynine Palms, the Navy will likely seek to purchase
various inholdings within the proposed withdrawal boundary. It could be
beneficial to both departments if these inholdings could be converted,
by interchange or transfer, to BLM public lands. In any case, the
interchange provision is limited to acre-for-acre in order to avoid
expanding the footprint of DOD lands. The transfer provision is limited
to the Engle Act 5,000 acre limit (total) for any one installation over
the 25-year life of the withdrawal. These provisions are designed to
allow for small administrative adjustments to promote sound land
management without impinging upon the role of Congress in managing
Federal lands.
Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) China Lake, California
NAWS China Lake consists of over 1.1 million acres of land in Inyo,
Kern, and San Bernardino Counties, California, of which 92 percent are
withdrawn public lands. Under a Memorandum of Understanding between the
Navy and DOI, the Commanding Officer of NAWS China Lake is responsible
for managing the withdrawn land. The installation is home to
approximately 4,300 DOD personnel and its primary tenant is the Naval
Air Warfare Center Weapons Division. The current 20-year legislative
withdrawal expires on October 31, 2014.
The 25-year renewal included in S. 1309 is modeled on the current
successful management scheme instituted as part of the 1994 California
Act, which allows the DOD and DOI to combine their unique capabilities
and assets for the benefit of the resources and the public by
cooperatively managing natural and cultural resources, recreational
resources, grazing, wild horses and burros, and geothermal resources.
For example, the Navy manages the wild horses and burros on-the-ground
at NAWS China Lake and the BLM manages the gathering, holding and
adoption of the animals. In addition, the BLM and NAWS China Lake have
a unique agreement to collaboratively produce geothermal energy at the
installation, which currently produces over 150 megawatts of power.
Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range (CMAGR), California
The CMAGR was established in 1941. The range consists of about
459,000 acres in Imperial and Riverside Counties, California, of which
approximately 227,000 acres are withdrawn public lands under the co-
management of the Marine Corps and the BLM. The remaining lands are
under the administrative jurisdiction of the Department of the Navy.
The two sets of lands form a checkerboard pattern of administrative
jurisdiction. The Marine Corps primarily uses the lands for aviation
weapons training, including precision guided munitions and Naval
Special Warfare training. The current 20-year withdrawal is set to
expire on October 31, 2014.
S. 1309 provides for a 25-year renewal and would allow the BLM and
Navy to institute the same type of cooperative management that has been
successful at China Lake. The Chocolate Mountain range is home to a
number of species such as desert tortoise and big horn sheep, and
contains a wide range of archeological resources.
Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC) Twentynine Palms,
California
MCAGCC Twentynine Palms currently consists of 596,000 acres of land
in San Bernardino County, California. In 1959, approximately 443,000 of
those total acres were administratively withdrawn and reserved for the
use of the Navy under PLO 1860. DOD is now seeking to expand this
installation with the withdrawal of approximately 154,000 acres of
public lands adjacent to MCAGCC. The added training lands would create
a training area of sufficient size with characteristics suitable for
the Marine Corps to conduct Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) level
training. MEB training requires sustained, combined-arms, live-fire and
maneuver training of three Marine battalions with all of their
associated equipment moving simultaneously toward a single objective
over a 72-hour period.
S. 1309 meets the important training needs of the Marines, and,
recognizing that there will be impacts to public access, also includes
a unique management structure to mitigate some of the loss of access to
lands popularly used for off-highway vehicle (OHV) recreation. The bill
provides for continued, year-round public access to the western third
of the Johnson Valley OHV area. In addition, a shared use area of about
43,000 acres of the withdrawn lands would be available for OHV use for
ten months out of the year, when there is no active military training.
Limestone Hills Training Area, Montana
As previously stated, the legislative withdrawal of the Limestone
Hills Training area is necessary because the BLM has determined that it
no longer has the authority to permit the use of the lands for military
maneuvers under a right-of-way instrument. Under S. 1309, general
management of the training area would be assigned to the Army, but the
BLM would retain management of grazing and mineral resources for the
lands withdrawn and reserved.
Conclusion
Thank you for inviting our testimony on S. 753, S. 1169, and S.
1309. The Department of the Interior, which has always been part of the
Nation's national defense team, is committed to supporting military
missions and training needs, while protecting natural resources and
other traditional uses of the public lands. I would be happy to answer
your questions.
Senator Manchin. Thank you, sir.
At this time, we will have Ms. Leslie Weldon, Deputy Chief,
Forest Service, Department of Agriculture.
STATEMENT OF LESLIE WELDON, DEPUTY CHIEF, NATIONAL FOREST
SYSTEM, FOREST SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Ms. Weldon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the
subcommittee. Thanks for the opportunity to share the
administration's views on bills we have before us today.
We'd like to express our appreciation to Chairman Manchin
and the committee for their continued interest in natural
resources management.
S. 37, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act of 2013 would
direct the Secretary of Agriculture to develop and implement
forest and watershed restoration projects on 70,000 acres of
the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and 30,000 acres of
the Kootenai National Forest within 15 years of enactment.
The bill describes treatment methods, annual acreage
targets, standardized criteria to prioritize areas for
restoration, and hazardous fuels reduction projects.
It also requires consultation with an advisory committee or
collaborative group for each restoration project implemented,
and calls for monitoring.
The bill designates 24 wilderness areas totaling over
666,000 acres, 6 recreation areas totaling over 289,000 acres,
and 3 special management areas of over 80,000 acres.
The administration supports S. 37 and looks forward to
working with the committee and sponsor on the bill to develop
modifications that could provide greater opportunities to
accomplish the shared goals of restoration, recreation, and
economic development.
S. 364, the Rocky Mountain Heritage Act, would establish
the Rocky Mountain Front conservation management area in
Montana. The department supports the designation and
establishment of the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act of 2013.
S. 364 would address noxious weeds, nonmotorized recreation,
road construction and decommissioning, and designate additions
to the National Wilderness Preservation system for the Bob
Marshall and Scapegoat Wilderness. We would like to work with
the sponsor and the committee to define and clarify questions
of scope and timing for noxious weed management and the
nonmotorized recreation plans.
S. 509, the Fruit Heights Land Conveyance Act, would
require the Secretary of Agriculture to convey without
consideration approximately 101 acres of land from the Uinta-
Wasatch-Cache National Forest in Fruit Heights City, Utah, for
public purposes.
While supportive of the city's desire to expand public
purposes, the department does not support S. 509. It is
longstanding policy that the United States receive market value
for any conveyance of National Forest system land.
The parcel to be conveyed was purchased by the United
States in 2002 for $3.2 million for the purposes of securing an
important North-South route of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail
and to protect valuable winter range for mule deer. We would
like to work with the bill sponsors, Fruit Heights City, and
the committee to explore alternatives to this conveyance
without consideration to achieve the goals of the city.
S. 1300, the Stewardship Contracting Reauthorization and
Improvement Act, would repeal the existing stewardship
contracting authority in Section 347 of the Department of
Interior and Related Agencies Appropriation Act of 1999 and
replace it with a provision that would be added to the Healthy
Forest Restoration Act of 2003. The Forest Service supports
reauthorization of stewardship contracting and could support S.
1300, if amended.
The legislation would reauthorize stewardship contracting
for 10 years and provide authority that is substantially the
same as the existing authority with a few exceptions. The bill
contains new authority that would clarify a contracting
procedure, modify a requirement on potential cancellations,
modify fire liability, and provide flexibility and offset
funding.
Stewardship contracting is a critical tool that allows the
Forest Service to more efficiently complete restoration
activities. The Forest Service supports efforts to increase the
amount of forest restoration work on National Forest System
lands, and we would like to work with the committee on several
aspects of the language, including the offset for stewardship
contracts and agreements in this bill, cancelation costs, and
fire liability.
S. 1301, the Oregon Eastside Forest Restoration Act of
2013, would provide for restoration of forest landscapes and
management on National Forests in the Eastside Forest in the
State of Oregon. The administration supports S. 1301, and we
want to continue to work with the committee and chairman on
some aspects of this legislation.
This legislation would authorize the Secretary to select
all or part of one or more National Forests in Oregon and the
Secretary would then be directed to carry out landscape-scale
planning, prioritize vegetation treatments, and hazardous fuels
reduction.
There are numerous concepts in the legislation that the
department strongly supports, including expanding collaborative
restoration efforts, efficient implementation of the National
Environmental Policy Act, greater dialog over areas of conflict
prior to decision, and monitoring to track our results on the
ground.
We believe we are well-positioned to meet the intent of the
bill.
H.R. 404 would amend the Washington State Wilderness Act of
1984 to allow for the operation and maintenance of the Green
Mountain Lookout. The department supports this bill.
This legislation provides sufficient latitude to the
Secretary of Agriculture to consider appropriate management
strategies for the future, including removal of the lookout to
a different location if conditions of the facility or use in
the area warrant such action.
H.R. 862 is a bill designated to correct an erroneous
private survey on the Coconino National Forest in Arizona. The
department supports this bill.
The bill provides a flat rate of compensation for land to
be conveyed rather than the market value of the property. We
would like to work with the sponsor and the committee on this
issue, but otherwise, it's a great efficiency for us.
Finally, the Idaho Wilderness Water Resources Act, the
department continues to support the objectives of this
legislation to assure the permitting of land management of the
water facilities within the Frank Church Wilderness.
This concludes my statement, and I would be pleased to
answer any questions for you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Weldon follows:]
Prepared Statement of Leslie Weldon, Deputy Chief, National Forest
System, Forest Service, Department of Agriculture
on s. 37
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, I am Leslie Weldon, Deputy
Chief, National Forest System, U.S. Forest Service, United States
Department Of Agriculture. Thank you for the opportunity to share the
Department of Agriculture's views on S. 37, the `Forest Jobs and
Recreation Act of 2013.'
S. 37 directs the Secretary of Agriculture to develop and implement
forest and watershed restoration projects on 70,000 acres of the
Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and 30,000 acres of the Kootenai
National Forest within 15 years of enactment. The bill prescribes
treatment methods, annual acreage targets, and standardized criteria to
prioritize areas for restoration and hazardous fuel reduction projects.
It also requires consultation with an advisory committee or
collaborative group for each restoration project implemented by the
Secretary, and calls for a monitoring report every five years. The bill
designates twenty-four wilderness areas totaling approximately 666,260
acres, six recreation areas totaling approximately 288,780 acres, and
three special management areas totaling approximately 80,720 acres.
Some of the designations apply to lands managed by the Bureau of Land
Management and we defer to the Department of the Interior on those
provisions.
The Department (USDA) supports S. 37 and looks forward to
continuing to work with the Committee and Sponsor to develop
modifications to the bill that could provide greater opportunities to
accomplish the shared goals of restoration, recreation and economic
development.
The concepts embodied in this legislation, collaboratively
developed landscape scale projects, increased use of stewardship
contracting, and the importance of a viable forest products industry in
restoring ecosystems and economies are fundamentally sound. USDA does
have reservations about legislating forest management decisions and
would hope that the work the Forest Service is doing to increase the
pace and scale of forest restoration and management of the National
Forests will make this type of legislation unnecessary in the future.
In fact, the Forest Service is currently engaged in numerous programs
and activities on the National Forests of Montana and around the nation
that embrace the concepts in this bill.
Examples of the work we are carrying out in the spirit of this
legislation are underway as large-scale restoration projects on the
national forests of Montana include: the Larry Bass Stewardship Project
on the Bitterroot National Forest where we are completing hazardous
fuel reduction work and are re-investing stewardship receipts to
accomplish hazardous fuel/bark beetle work within and around a popular
ski area on the forest; Sparring Bulls and Young Dodge, two large
landscape projects on the Kootenai National Forest developed with a
local collaborative group; and the Southwestern Crown of the Continent
project, which will treat close to 200,000 acres on the Lolo, Flathead
and Helena National Forests with funding provided under the
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program.
Planned projects are increasingly focused on large landscape
ecosystems to address shared issues across forest boundaries. For
example, the Boulder Vegetation Project and a complex of projects
planned on the Helena National Forest that focus on bark beetle
infestations occurring on the two forests.
Efforts such as these have helped the agency and stakeholders gain
experience in identifying the factors necessary for the success of
large-scale restoration projects, and I acknowledge the Senator's
incorporation of their input into this legislation. I offer our
continued support for further collaboration on addressing remaining
concerns to ensure that it can serve as a model for similar efforts
elsewhere.
We recognize that the proposed bill is the product of a
collaborative effort. Such efforts are critically important to
increasing public support for needed forest management activities,
particularly in light of the bark beetle crisis facing Montana and
other western states. We believe these efforts can significantly
advance forest restoration, reduce litigation surrounding restoration
where parties are willing to collaborate, and make it easier to provide
jobs and opportunities in the forest industry for rural communities.
While we have seen significant successes from collaboration in some
parts of the country, there are areas where groups are not interested
in collaboration and continue to use appeals and litigation as methods
to delay or stop forest treatments that restore resilient forests,
reduce severe wildfire potential and other objectives. Montana in
particular continues to see substantial litigation activity.
As noted above, USDA is concerned about legislating forest
management direction or specific treatment levels on a site-specific
basis. USDA wants to work with the Committee to ensure that this does
not negatively impact other Forest Service priorities in Region 1 or
draw important resources from priority work on other units of the
National Forest System. We also would like to work with the Committee
and sponsor on other aspects of the bill such as defining mechanical
treatments, establishing reporting requirements, and provisions
effecting other funds and road-density standards found in Title I.
Regarding the land designations in Title II that pertain to lands
under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service, we support the wilderness
recommendations made in each Forest's land and resource management plan
given the depth of analysis and public collaboration that goes into
them. Regarding the input from the Department that the Senator has
incorporated, there are two items in S. 37 for which I would like to
express the Department's appreciation in particular: (1) the
adjustments to wilderness area designations in Title II, which more
closely reflect the extensive collaboration, analysis and resulting
recommendations of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge 2009 Forest Plan and other
forest plans; and (2) the incorporation of the CFR 212.1 definitions of
``designated road, trail or area'' in the bill provides for consistency
of implementation.
In closing, I want to thank Senator Tester once again for his
strong commitment to Montana's communities and natural resources. We
appreciate the close work of the Senator's staff with the Forest
Service to refine legislation that would provide a full suite of
significant benefits for the people, economy, and forests of Montana
and the nation. The continuing commitment to bring diverse interests
together to find solutions that provide a context for restoration,
renewal, and sustainability of public landscapes and to foster healthy
rural economies is evident in the legislation being considered by this
Committee today.
We want to underscore our commitment to the continuing
collaboration with the Senator and his staff, the Committee, and all
interested stakeholders in an open, inclusive and transparent manner to
provide the best land stewardship for our National Forest System Lands.
This concludes my prepared statement, and I would be pleased to
answer any questions you may have.
on s. 364
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today and provide the Department of
Agriculture's views regarding S. 364, the ``Rocky Mountain Front
Heritage Act of 2013'', which would establish The Rocky Mountain Front
Conservation Management Area in Montana.
The Department supports S. 364 and would like to work with the
Committee to define and clarify questions of scope and timing for the
noxious weed management and the non-motorized recreation opportunities.
The Rocky Mountain Front area of Montana on the Lewis and Clark
National Forest lies just to the south of Glacier National Park and the
Blackfeet Indian Reservation. It is an area where the plains meet the
great continental divide. The area is marked by spectacular scenery and
lush grasslands and that is home to a broad range of Montana's fauna
and flora. The west side of the area is adjacent to the 1.5 million
acre Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex most of which was designated by
the original 1964 Wilderness Act. The east side of the area is bordered
by vast private ranchlands that have helped define Montana's western
heritage.
S. 364 would designate approximately 195,000 acres of Federal land
managed by the Forest Service and approximately 13,000 acres of Federal
land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) as the Rocky
Mountain Front Conservation Management Area (CMA). The bill would also
designate additions to the National Wilderness Preservation System of
approximately 50,400 acres to the Bob Marshall Wilderness and
approximately 16,700 acres to the Scapegoat Wilderness; both areas
would be managed by the Forest Service. The Department defers to the
Department of the Interior on the designation of lands managed by the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The Rocky Mountain Front CMA would be managed to conserve, protect,
and enhance its recreation, scenic, historical, cultural, fish,
wildlife, roadless, and ecological values. Within the CMA, S. 364 would
permit the use of motorized vehicles only on existing roads, motorized
trails and designated areas. S. 364 would allow for the construction of
temporary roads as part of a vegetation management project in any
portion of the CMA not more than 1/4 mile from designated roads. The
bill also would authorize the use of motorized vehicles for
administrative purposes including noxious weed eradication or grazing
management. Livestock grazing would continue within the Conservation
Area and Wilderness Areas where established prior to the date of
enactment.
S. 364 would require the Secretary to prepare a comprehensive
management strategy for the Rocky Mountain Ranger District on the Lewis
and Clark National Forest to prevent, control, and eradicate noxious
weeds. The Secretary also would be required to conduct a study to
improve non-motorized recreation trail opportunities.
For decades, the Forest Service has worked in partnership with
landowners to protect the economic and social value of the land
considered for designation as the CMA. There are 21 Federal land
grazing allotments in the CMA. The landscape also provides some of the
best backcountry recreation experiences in the world. Because of the
popularity of the area, Federal and private land managers have realized
that there must be specific management emphasis placed on how the lands
are used and protected. As more people enjoy and use this area,
influxes of noxious weeds have occurred that could change the native
ecosystem structure and function and seriously impact the private
ranches. S. 364 calls for measures that would direct Federal agencies
to work with State and private organizations to implement projects that
concentrate on the prevention, control and eradication of invasive
plants such as spotted knapweed (Centaurea maculosa Lam.) that are
threatening to change the ecosystem. The Lewis and Clark National
Forest routinely works with other agencies and land owners to address
noxious and invasive weed concerns. The Lewis and Clark National Forest
is in the process of developing a memorandum of understanding with the
U. S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources and Conservation
Service (NRCS) that addresses how the agencies will work together
regarding noxious weed control measures on the interface between
private and Federal lands.
The Department supports the intent described in the bill to address
noxious weeds. The Department also supports the National Forest System
lands identified for motorized and non-motorized recreation use,
including mountain biking, in the conservation areas. The provisions in
S. 364 are consistent with the current travel management plan for the
Rocky Mountain Ranger District. The travel management plan was approved
by the Lewis and Clark National Forest Supervisor in October of 2007
after extensive public participation. Approximately 67,000 acres of
land are identified in the forest plan for the Lewis and Clark as
either recommended to Congress for wilderness designation or for
further study for their potential as wilderness. The Department
supports the wilderness designations included in this bill.
The Department recognizes the management of vegetation along
current motorized forest roads is an important component of this bill.
Public safety is an important consideration in an area that is impacted
by mountain pine beetle, which has created physical risk to the
roadways and possible increased fire risk due to ignitions from road
users. The Beaver-Willow Road, a previously established road, crosses
through the Bear-Marshall-Scapegoat-Swan inventoried roadless area. As
we understand the bill, the road's location in an inventoried roadless
area would not preclude timber harvest within 1/4 mile of the Beaver-
Willow Road.
on s. 404
S. 404, ``To Preserve the Green Mountain Lookout in the Glacier
Peak Wilderness of the Mount Baker-Snowqualmie National Forest'', would
amend the Washington State Wilderness Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-339;
98 Stat.300; 16 U.S.C. 1131 note) by inserting language that would
allow for the operation and maintenance of Green Mountain Lookout. The
Department supports the bill.
The Green Mountain Lookout represents a slice in time of the
history of the area, and is a feature that is appreciated by many
visitors. S.404 would provide the opportunity for future wilderness
visitors to see how human influence has shaped our wildlands. This
legislation provides sufficient latitude to the Secretary of
Agriculture to consider appropriate management strategies for the
future, including removal of the lookout to a different location if the
condition of the facility or use in the area warrants such action.
The Lookout was built in 1933 for fire detection on Green Mountain
in what is now known as the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. In
1968 the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area was expanded by Congress to
include a portion of the lookout site. In 1984 Congress passed the
Washington Wilderness Act which designated the remainder of the peak as
wilderness. In 1988 Green Mountain lookout was listed on the National
Register of Historic Places. The Forest Service regularly staffed the
lookout through 1984, and subsequently it was used for fire detection
on an as-needed basis. It was closed in 1995 due to its deteriorating
condition which posed a safety hazard to the public.
The 1990 Mt.Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest Land and Resource
Management Plan (Forest Plan) designated Green Mountain Lookout as a
special wilderness allocation that accepted the non-conforming use of
the lookout along with direction to ``stabilize and preserve'' the
structure. An analysis using a categorical exclusion which did not
analyze alternatives for dealing with the lookout was prepared under
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and a decision memo was
completed in September 1998 which authorized the use of a helicopter
and mechanized tools to rehabilitate the lookout. Rehabilitation
efforts, including replacement of the deteriorated substructure,
occurred from 1999 to 2001 with the help of grant money and the
contribution of thousands of volunteer hours. Heavy snow during the
winter of 2002 resulted in damage to the new foundation. Later that
year, after consultation with the Washington State Historic
Preservation Officer, the Forest Service authorized the dismantling and
removal of the structure to a temporary site outside of Wilderness on
the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. In doing so, each piece was
identified and individually tagged so that it could be reassembled and
restored to its exact original location and position, retaining those
features which convey its historical significance. All work on the
lookout was done in conformance with the Secretary of the Interior's
Standards and Guidelines for Rehabilitation of Historic Properties.
Many volunteer workshops over the years repaired and custom-
manufactured missing parts to the original specifications. The lookout
foundation was prepared on-site in 2009 and the disassembled lookout
was flown back to Green Mountain and reassembled on the new
substructure.
A complaint was filed in the United States District Court by
Wilderness Watch during the fall of 2010, alleging the repairs violated
the NEPA and the Wilderness Act. In March, 2012, the District Court
issued a decision in favor of the plaintiff. The Court determined that
the Forest Service failed to justify an exception to prohibited conduct
in a wilderness area with the 2002 decision to rehabilitate and
reconstruct the lookout using helicopters and mechanized tools. The
Court also found a NEPA violation based on the failure to conduct an
Environmental Assessment, an Environmental Impact Statement, or, at a
minimum, a reassessment of whether a categorical exclusion intended for
repair and maintenance of recreation sites and facilities was
applicable to the plans to dismantle, restore, and reconstruct the
lookout in a wilderness area. In September 2012, the Court directed the
Forest Service to determine how to move forward.
The Forest Service is currently implementing the Court's order. The
initial steps have been taken to prepare the plan and draft an
Environmental Impact Statement that will determine the specific action
to be taken. A final decision is expected by June 2014. Should the bill
become law, the Forest Service will use the planning and EIS process to
consider appropriate management strategies for the future, including
removal of the lookout to a different location if the condition of the
facility or use in the wilderness area warrants such action.
on s. 509
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify on S.509, the `Fruit Heights Land Conveyance
Act.'
S. 509 would require the Secretary of Agriculture to convey without
consideration approximately 101 acres of land from the Uinta-Wasatch-
Cache National Forest to Fruit Heights City, Utah for public purposes.
While supportive of the City's desire to expand for public purposes,
the Department does not support S. 509.
It is long standing policy that the United States receive market
value for the sale, exchange, or use of National Forest System land.
This policy is well established in law, including the Independent
Offices Appropriation Act (31 U.S.C. 9701), section 102(9) of the
Federal Land Policy and Management Act (43 U.S.C. 1701), as well as
numerous land exchange authorities.
The parcel to be conveyed was purchased by the United States in
2002 using appropriated Land and Water Conservation Act funds
appropriated for the purpose of securing an important North-South route
for the Bonneville Shoreline Trail and to protect valuable winter range
for mule deer. The land was acquired from a willing seller at market
value for $3,244,000 with the assistance of the Trust for Public Land.
The parcel was conveyed to the United States subject to valid
existing rights, and the conveyance of the parcel by the United States
and subsequent development by the City would be subject to the same
rights. Specifically, the mineral estate is owned by a third party and
there are easements for power lines, two buried irrigation pipelines,
and access easements for multiple private homes.
Under S.509, the conveyance would also be conditioned upon the City
using the conveyed land for public purposes. If the land is ever used
for anything other than public purposes, the land would revert to the
United States at the election of the Secretary. Public purposes are not
defined and could cover a vast array of land uses including municipal
waste treatment facilities and industrial parks. This lack of public
purpose definition could cause future management conflicts with
adjacent National Forest System land.
Although the Department does not support S.509, we are willing to
work with the Bill sponsors, Fruit Heights City, and the Committee, to
explore alternatives to this conveyance without consideration to
achieve the goals of the City.
This concludes my statement and I would be happy to answer any
questions you may have.
on s. 1300
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to present the views of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) regarding S. 1300, the ``Stewardship Contracting Reauthorization
and Improvement Act.'' The Forest Service supports reauthorization of
stewardship contracting and could support the bill if amended.
Stewardship contracting is a critical tool that allows the Forest
Service to more efficiently complete restoration activities.
Reauthorizing stewardship contracting authority and expanding the use
of this tool are crucial to our ability to restore landscapes
collaboratively. The authority allows the government to carry out
restoration work at a reduced cost by offsetting the value of the
services received with the value of forest products removed. In fiscal
year 2012, approximately 25 percent of all timber volume sold on
National Forest System lands was under a stewardship contract. The
stewardship contracting authority has proved to be a valuable tool in
many locations to implement restoration activities and meet multiple
land management objectives including hazardous fuels reduction,
wildlife habitat improvement, forest health improvement, and non-native
invasive plant species control.
S.1300 would repeal the existing stewardship contracting authority
in section 347 of the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies
Appropriations Act, 1999 and replace it with a provision that would be
added to the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003. That provision
would reauthorize stewardship contracting for 10 years and provide
authority that is substantively the same as the existing authority with
a few exceptions. The bill contains new authority that would:
Clarify the contracting procedure for stewardship
contracting by making clear that the various statutes that
apply to normal Federal procurement actions do not apply these
activities;
Modify the requirement to obligate funds to cover any
potential cancellation or termination costs to allow the
obligation of funds in economically or programmatically viable
stages, providing advance notification of Congress and OMB;
Require the Chief and Director to modify the fire liability
provisions for all stewardship contracts and agreements to
mirror the fire liability provisions currently contained in the
Forest Service Integrated Resource Timber Contract and Forest
Service Timber Sale contracts which limit the contractor's
liability for non-negligent fire. Allow the Chief and the
Director to use excess receipts to satisfy outstanding
liabilities for cancelled stewardship agreements and contracts;
and
Allow the Chief and Director to offset spending on
stewardship contracting using any additional amounts that may
be made available to the Chief or the Director for the
applicable fiscal year.
Consistent with the purposes of S. 1300, the Forest Service
supports efforts to increase the amount of forest restoration work on
NFS lands. However, the Forest Service would like to work with the
Committee on several aspects of the language related to the offset for
stewardship contracts and agreements in this bill as well as to rethink
provisions that would waive current acquisition laws and practices and
not require potential termination and cancellation costs to be fully
funded.
I want to thank the Committee for its interest, leadership, and
commitment to stewardship contracting, our national forests and their
surrounding communities. This concludes my prepared statement and I
would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
on s. 1301
Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee, I am Leslie Weldon,
Deputy Chief for the U.S. Forest Service. Thank you for the opportunity
to share the Administration's views on S. 1301, Oregon Eastside Forests
Restoration, Old Growth Protection and Jobs Act of 2013. We would like
to express our appreciation to Chairman Wyden for the leadership,
energy and effort that went into developing this legislation and for
his work to bring diverse interests together.
The Administration supports S. 1301; however, we are concerned that
the agency may not have the capacity required to achieve the management
targets prescribed in the bill. We want to continue to work with the
Committee and the Chairman on this and other issues. USDA also has
reservations about legislating forest management decisions and would
hope that the work the Forest Service is doing to increase the pace and
scale of forest restoration and management of the National Forests will
make this type of legislation unnecessary in the future.
There are numerous concepts in the legislation that the Department
strongly supports including: conducting assessments at a broad
landscape scale to focus our efforts to achieve restoration results on
the ground, reducing our road system to what is needed, maintaining a
much needed wood products industry and infrastructure, promoting
sustainable use of biomass as an energy source, and collaborating with
interested parties. We recognize the need to substantially increase the
number of treatment acres for ecological reasons. We look forward to
working with the Chairman and the Committee to ensure good alignment
between the legislation and our current efforts to achieve our common
goal of restoration that provides ecological, social and economic
benefits.
S. 1301 would authorize the Secretary to select all or part of one
or more National Forests in Oregon as part of the Initiative. The
provisions of the bill would apply to the covered area selected by the
Secretary for a period of 15 years. In the covered area, the Secretary
would be directed to seek accomplishment of certain land management
goals, consider opportunities to carry out certain objectives, use
landscape scale planning, prioritize vegetative management and
hazardous fuel reduction to achieve performance goals, and carry out
projects that would, to the maximum extent practicable, mechanically
treat not less than 60,000 acres in the first fiscal year following
enactment, not less than 80,000 acres in the second fiscal year; and
not less than 100,000 acres in each of the subsequent years.
S. 1301 also would direct the Secretary to delineate areas of
aquatic and riparian resources in the covered area and would provide
that vegetative management projects in the delineated areas protect and
restore those resources and comply with aquatic and riparian protection
requirements in the existing land management plans. The Secretary would
be directed to have an advisory panel prepare a restoration report of
the covered area to establish land management goals and carry out
ecological restoration projects including projects at a landscape
scale.
In implementing these provisions, the Secretary would seek advice
from the scientific advisory panel established under the bill. The
Secretary also would consult with collaborative groups. On National
Forests in Oregon and Washington, we are currently engaged in an
eastside restoration strategy and are engaged in numerous efforts to
encourage and expand programs and activities that embrace many of the
concepts in this legislation.
When Secretary Vilsack articulated his vision for America's
forests, he underscored the overriding importance of forest restoration
by calling for complete commitment to restoration. He also highlighted
the need for pursuing an ``all-lands'' approach to forest restoration
and for close coordination with other landowners to encourage
collaborative solutions.
To that end, the President's FY 14 budget proposal includes a $757
million Integrated Resource Restoration line-item. This integrated
funding approach will allow the Forest Service to apply the landscape
scale concept, similar to the landscape scale efforts envisioned in
this bill, across the entire National Forest System. In addition, the
FY 14 budget provides $40 million, the full authorized amount, for the
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP).
Three notable and selected CFLRP projects in eastern Oregon include
the Skyline Project, the Lakeview Stewardship Project, and the Southern
Blue Mtn. Projects. These three projects represent over 1,600,000 acres
of landscapes in eastern Oregon in desperate need of restoration work,
which has begun. On all three projects, the Forest Service is working
with the associated collaboratives to prioritize accomplishment of
restoration work. CFLRP funding for these three projects is over $5
million dollars per year for the next 8 years. This funding is combined
with matching National Forest System funding to increase the pace of
restoration implementation in the project areas and doubles the amount
of acres we can restore.
The Forest Service is very interested in expanding collaborative
restoration efforts within the State of Oregon and throughout the
country. We are focusing on advancing several principles we believe are
paramount to accomplishing restoration on the entire National Forest
System. These principles include collaboration with diverse
stakeholders, efficient implementation of the National Environmental
Policy Act, greater dialogue areas of conflict prior to the decision,
ensuring opportunities for local contractors, expansion of the use of
stewardship contracting if reauthorized, and monitoring to track our
results on the ground.
As Secretary Vilsack has noted previously, the Forest Service has
reservations about legislating specific treatment levels and other
aspects of our forest plans and identified several items of concern
with the legislation. However, the Senator's office, Committee staff,
and the Forest Service worked together and made significant progress in
addressing these concerns. The Agency has a meaningful national
approach to management of the national forests that takes into account
local conditions and circumstances through the development and
implementation of Land and Resource Management Plans. Achieving
performance levels proposed in this bill may be outside agency current
capacity. USDA wants to ensure that this does not negatively impact
other Forest Service priorities in Region 6 as well as shift funds from
other areas of the country where high priority work is also underway
and important to achieve. In addition, specific levels of treatment may
also result in unrealistic expectations on the part of the communities
and forest product stakeholders that the agency would accomplish the
quantity of treatment required. In addition, we have various
corrections, clarifications, and modifications to suggest and would be
happy to work with the Committee staff to address these matters. They
include the number of forests covered by this legislation, suggested
planning area acres thresholds, the setting of age limits for harvest,
compatibility with PACfish and Infish, Environmental Impact Statement
timelines, and budgets.
We have a strong interest in accelerating our restoration
activities to achieve resilient landscapes and ecologically and
economically healthy communities and we look forward to working with
you to achieve these common objectives.
I want to again thank Chairman Wyden for his leadership and strong
commitment to Oregon's national forests, their surrounding communities,
and forest products infrastructure. I look forward to working with the
Senator, his staff, and the Committee, and all interested stakeholders
to help ensure sustainable communities and provide the best land
stewardship for our national forests. This concludes my prepared
statement and I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
on h.r. 862
Chairman Manchin and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today to provide the Department of
Agriculture's views on H.R. 862, a bill designed to correct an
erroneous, private survey on the Coconino National Forest in Arizona.
The Department supports this bill.
In 1960-61, privately contracted surveyors surveyed two sections of
land in what is now known as the Mountainaire Subdivision, which
largely abuts the Coconino National Forest. Both surveys were found to
be inaccurate when the Bureau of Land Management conducted a survey in
2007. The BLM survey correctly re-established the boundary of the
National Forest System lands.
Because of the erroneous private surveys, approximately 19 parcels
totaling 2.67 acres of National Forest System land now have structures
built on them. Although the Forest Service has authority under the
Small Tracts Act (Public Law 97-465) to sell this land to the
homeowners, H.R. 862 would more quickly and efficiently resolve the
issue with all property owners at the same time.
Section 1(c) of the bill would provide for consideration in a fixed
amount of $20,000. To ensure that appropriate compensation for the land
to be conveyed is recovered on behalf of the American taxpayer, an
appraisal should be done consistent with Federal appraisal standards
and the homeowner would pay the appraised value. The bill should also
provide that the homeowner should bear other administrative costs
associated with the conveyance.
I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
on h.r. 876
Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to share the Administration's views on H.R. 876, the `Idaho
Wilderness Water Resources Protection Act.'
The U.S. Forest Service supports H.R. 876. The bill authorizes the
issuance of a special use permit for the continued use of water
storage, transport, or diversion facility located on National Forest
System lands in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness and the
Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in Idaho. The permits will only be issued
to the water system owners of the water systems identified within these
two wilderness areas and if certain conditions are met. We would like
to work with the committee and the sponsor to locate on a map the water
facilities authorized under this bill.
Currently, there are over 20 water developments within the Frank
Church-River of No Return and Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Areas that
predate establishment of the wilderness, in some cases by decades.
These developments include hydropower developments, irrigation, and
domestic water uses. The legislation establishing both wilderness areas
did not address these pre-existing water developments. H.R. 876 would
direct the Forest Service to issue special use authorizations, if the
Secretary makes the following determinations: the facility was in
existence when the wilderness area on which the facility is located was
designated as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System; the
facility has been in substantially continuous use to deliver water for
the beneficial use on the owner's non-Federal land since the date of
designation; the owner of the facility has a valid water right for use
of the water on the owner's non-Federal land under Idaho State law,
with a priority date that pre-dates the date of designation; and it is
not practicable or feasible to relocate the facility outside the
wilderness and achieve the continued beneficial use of water on non-
Federal land. We understand that the bill does not create any rights
beyond what is provided in the special use permit and that both
maintenance responsibilities and liabilities continue with the permit
holder, and not the Federal government.
This concludes my prepared statement and I would be pleased to
answer any questions you may have.
Senator Manchin. Thank you.
At this time, I will start the questioning and then we'll
go back and forth through our Senators up here for further
questions.
First of all, this will be to Ms. Katherine Hammack.
You mentioned that the Army has significant concerns with
language in Senator Baucus's bill--that's S. 1169--relating to
the activities of the limestone mine operator. I understand
there's an existing agreement that specifies how the mine and
the military training will coexist.
Why is there now a conflict? Is the current operating
agreement with the mine no longer adequate?
Also, I think in this question, do you know if the Governor
of the State of Montana is an agreement with the proposed
withdrawal language from the Montana National Guard, since the
Governor would be the commander in chief for the National Guard
in Montana.
Ms. Hammack. In regards to the first question, we are in
support of the existing mining claims in the existing
agreement. Unfortunately, the language expands that to claims
that have been closed or retired, and allows additional claims
to be allowed. So it goes beyond the existing mining claims.
So that is our objection. It's going beyond the existing
agreement, the existing mining claims, essentially opens up the
whole area.
Senator Manchin. Can I ask a question, the limestone mining
in that region, is it by law required to reclaim that land for
use? I would think if it would be reclaimed properly, you would
still have adequate use of it.
Ms. Hammack. The concern in the legislation is it opens up
the aperture beyond the existing agreements, which have been in
place for many years and are regularly reviewed.
Senator Manchin. I mean, the land that they've already
mined, is it usable after they get done with it?
Ms. Hammack. There is an agreement by which it is restored
to a point where there can be multiple uses of the land whether
it is by the Army, grazing, timber, or other areas.
Senator Manchin. So there's reclamation. Is reclamation
part of this?
Ms. Hammack. That is my understanding, yes, sir.
Senator Manchin. Do you know if the Governor is in
agreement?
Ms. Hammack. My understanding is that the Governor is in
agreement with the withdrawals as specified in S. 1309, which
is the administration's proposal.
Senator Manchin. This question will be to Mr. Natsuhara. In
1309, the military land withdrawals, are the military land
withdrawals for the China Lake and Chocolate Mountain sites
simply renewals of existing authority or are they changing
current uses?
Mr. Natsuhara. They are essentially the same. There is some
additional training, the number of evolution, but the training
and testing are the same in both locations.
Senator Manchin. Also, you discuss the proposal of new
military land withdrawal at Twentynine Palms to be used for
marine field training and noted the area is also popular for
off-road vehicle recreation.
What steps are you taking to avoid conflict between the
military and the recreational use?
Mr. Natsuhara. We work very closely with the public through
the Environmental Impact Statement process. In fact, the
alternative we selected was a new alternative developed during
that process with the off-road vehicle community, and over a
third of the land withdrawals that we're requesting would be
available for 10 months of the year. So it would be shared to
use with them.
Senator Manchin. My final question goes to Ms. Leslie
Weldon. On S. 37 and S. 364, I have a question about those 2
Montana bills, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act and the Rocky
Mountain Front bill.
What will be the effect of the wilderness and conservation
designations on existing hunting and fishing uses on those
National Forest lands?
Ms. Weldon. Thank you. The designation of those areas as
wilderness will allow hunting and fishing to continue. That
hunting and fishing----
Senator Manchin. Is there agreement for that, because
usually, with the wilderness designation, that doesn't happen?
Ms. Weldon. What is interesting about these areas is they
have already been through a public process with the S. 37 that
have them as part of forest plans. The difference would be just
the ability and type of access, but these are already
backcountry areas. So we don't think there would be much
difference.
Senator Manchin. So, basically, the hunters and sportsmen
will still have access?
Ms. Weldon. Yes.
Senator Manchin. Be able to use the lands being used?
Ms. Weldon. Yes.
Senator Manchin. Are they able to do any habitat
rehabilitation, or is it going to be all natural?
Ms. Weldon. Within wilderness, we would favor more natural
through wildfire, compared with other more intensive
mechanical-type treatments.
Senator Manchin. OK, I have no further questions at this
time.
Senator Flake.
Senator Flake. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the
witnesses.
Mr. Farquhar, with regard to S. 1300, you mentioned that
you would support, if there were a couple of amendments to the
legislation. Can you describe those? What do you need in order
for the BLM to support?
Mr. Farquhar. Senator Flake, the stewardship contracting
tools that are provided right now don't have the same ceiling
provisions, and there's kind of a technical budget issue there
that we're concerned about in the administration.
The BLM actually doesn't exercise that very often itself,
because our contracts are smaller and not over as long a term.
But we do think, along with the Forest Service, that that
provision would need to be changed.
Senator Flake. OK, assuming that that could rectified, then
you would be able to support?
Mr. Farquhar. Senator, we're very enthusiastic about
stewardship contracting, very grateful that you've introduced
this bill.
Senator Flake. OK, thank you.
Ms. Weldon, can you speak to that as well? I know there are
concerns for the offsets, but we have to deal with that anyway
here. So assuming that that can be fixed, you'd be OK as well?
Ms. Weldon. Yes, we are quite enthusiastic about the
prospect of having this reauthorized for 10 years. We believe
that there's some opportunity for us to work through the issues
that are there, and we would really appreciate continuing to
work with you on those.
Senator Flake. Thank you. I know that there was some
concern on the ceiling.
Ms. Weldon. Yes.
Senator Flake. Flexibility there. If you look in other
areas, flexibility in this ceiling is used in the Department of
Defense as well.
In fact, in 1998, Jack Lew, who was then acting OMB
Director, issued a memorandum encouraging agencies to look at
cancellation ceiling flexibility to enter into these contracts
with energy efficiency.
They said that out-year costs and potential cancellation
charges are not required to be financed upfront. So what we're
looking at here, which I think everyone has identified as a
potential obstacle--not a potential obstacle, has been an
obstacle, some of these long-term contracts. We see it in other
areas or other agencies being used. So we hope that we're able
to come to an agreement there.
Ms. Weldon. Yes, we're very encouraged to see some other
examples that could hopefully be used as a model here as well.
Senator Flake. Thank you. I don't need to tell you how
desperate we are in Arizona to----
Ms. Weldon. Yes.
Senator Flake [continuing]. To ramp up this process and to
treat more acreage. We've seen over the past 10 years 2 once-
in-a-lifetime fires. We burned nearly a million acres. About a
fourth of our entire forests in Arizona have gone up in smoke
and more are threatened certainly unless we move ahead and go
beyond just the wild land-urban interface but get deep into the
forest.
We believe that this will allow us to move more quickly,
and we would greatly appreciate your input as we go along, and
your support for this legislation.
So thank you so much.
Ms. Weldon. Thanks very much.
Senator Manchin. Senator Heinrich.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman, and I want to thank
my colleague from Arizona as well for his work on stewardship
contracting. That's critically important.
I want to thank Assistant Secretary Hammack for being here
today to provide the Department of Defense's thoughts and
perspectives on our legislation in New Mexico, and to
articulate why these land boundary adjustments are so important
for the military training in the region.
I want to say upfront that I look forward to working with
Deputy Secretary Farquhar to address the technical issues that
you referenced. We're more than happy to make that happen.
This is a very important bill for southern New Mexico and,
frankly, an important bill for our national security. So I
appreciate the subcommittee's work today.
Assistant Secretary Hammack, in your testimony, you kind of
describe how the Dona Ana tank gunnery and artillery range
complex at Fort Bliss can generate an awful lot of noise and
vibration and dust. Can you go into a little greater detail
about why the withdrawal is so important for the future of Fort
Bliss and military training in the region as a whole?
Ms. Hammack. Certainly. What we are seeing on our bases
throughout the United States is encroachment, and encroachment
from residential housing, from commercial enterprises can
conflict with the training activities that occur.
In this area on the southern boundary of Fort Bliss where
we do a lot of our training and it is one of our national
training centers, we are concerned that the continued
encroachment of the city could cause additional conflict. The
withdrawal of these lands as boundary conditions are really
acting as a compatible use buffer. We do not have intention of
doing training on them but preserving them from development so
that the mission of the base can be preserved.
Senator Heinrich. In a related question, S. 753 transfers
jurisdiction over about 5,100 acres from the BLM to the Army, a
little over 2,000 acres from the Army to the BLM, and then this
buffer area, just over 35,000 acres that you referenced, and
keeps the BLM from disposing or developing that particular
part.
Can you talk a little bit to the committee about why it's
important to do these 3 things together as opposed to a more
piecemeal approach?
Ms. Hammack. They all have the same impact, and that's a
very good point. The impact is buffer.
We are not going to do training on them. We're not going to
do live-fire training on them. But it preserves the security
mission.
The 5,100-acre portion that is withdrawn for the benefit of
NASA and the NRO Aerospace Data Facility is a mission that's
close to the boundary. We have security issues. We've already
seen some security issues there, because of the close proximity
to public access.
So giving us this standoff of 5,100 acres still reserves
the lands for use by missions that are not conflicted. So it's
wildlife sustainment, endangered species, et cetera. But it
gives us a physical security boundary to ensure that we don't
have trespassers that could inhibit the mission that we are
doing there.
Binding these all together, they all have the same reason.
It's a buffer that we need for the military.
Senator Heinrich. Better stated than I could have myself,
so thank you.
I did want to ask, Deputy Assistant Secretary Farquhar, on
the 35,000 acres that basically becomes a buffer under this
legislation, would any of the current uses in that area, the
multiple uses that exist there today under Bureau of Land
Management management, be prohibited if this bill is passed?
Mr. Farquhar. Senator Heinrich, I'm not aware of any uses
that would be prohibited, but I'd rather get back to you with
more detail and a correct answer.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you. I appreciate your time.
Thank you, Chairman.
Senator Manchin. Thank you.
Senator Cantwell.
Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I wanted to ask Deputy Chief Weldon, first of all, thank
you so much for your testimony in support of S. 404. I wanted
to just clarify.
The Forest Service, were you looking to remove or destroy
this lookout prior this court decision?
Ms. Weldon. We were not. We were actually looking at
restoring it and having it continue to occur within the area.
Senator Cantwell. OK. Have you talked to people in the
local community? What have they said about it?
Ms. Weldon. There's good support for having it retained as
a historic part of the landscape there within the wilderness.
Senator Cantwell. OK, so if this legislation was passed
this year, the lookout would still be preserved in that time
period?
Ms. Weldon. I believe we would need to finish some analysis
to allow us to do the complete job of the restoration work we
want to do there. But that is something that doesn't require an
extensive NEPA process. We think it could be done relatively
soon, but I'm not sure if it would be within the year.
Senator Cantwell. OK, my point was if this legislation,
404, passed by the end of the year, you wouldn't be destroying
the lookout tower before then, is my point.
Ms. Weldon. No, we would not.
Senator Cantwell. OK, all right.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Manchin. Are there any more questions from the
Senators?
If not, we're going to in recess just for a minute. Senator
Barrasso is coming back. He had to go to another committee
hearing. Then he had a few questions to ask, if you could just
remain where you are now, we'll be right back with you.
Thank you.
[Recess.]
Senator Manchin. Senator Barrasso will not be able to make
it back, so at this time, the committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIXES
----------
Appendix I
Responses to Additional Questions
----------
Responses of Leslie Wallace to Questions From Senator Barrasso
Question 1a. I would like to inquire about the budget and resource
capacity for the two bills, S. 37 and S. 1301. As I stated in my
opening, I appreciate the concern with the status quo on our forests
and the desire to get more timber produced. I also recognize that for
the foreseeable future the Forest Service budget will be severely
constrained.
In your past testimony from May 18, 2011 on S.220, a similar
version of S. 1301, the Forest Service said:
``Achieving performance levels proposed in this bill is outside
agency current capacity and could result in the shifting of funds from
other areas of the country where high priority work is also underway
and important to achieve.''
Now this time your testimony changes slightly to ``may be outside
current capacity'' and
``USDA wants to ensure that this does not negatively impact other
Forest Service priorities in Region 6 as well as shift funds from other
areas of the country . . . ''
This language about USDA concerns also appears in your testimony
regarding S. 37.
It seems this is a distinction without a difference. Does the
Forest Service still have the same basic concerns about these bills?
Answer. Yes. Funding issues are still a concern.
Question 1b. If these bills are signed into law, as currently
written, does the agency have the money needed to implement all of the
timber work without negatively impacting other priorities?
Answer. At the current budget level, no.
Question 1c. If increased funding is necessary but not provided by
Congress to accomplish the performance levels in these bills, will the
Forest Service direct funds from other forests or regions to accomplish
them?
Answer. It would depend on the language in the bill, and on our
priorities as determined at the time.
Question 1d. How will the USDA ensure that these bills don't result
in shifting of funds from other areas of the country?
Answer. It is true that USDA may need to shift funds from other
areas. Depending on the language in the bill we will continue to
evaluate needs in all national forests and allocate funds accordingly.
Question 2. Both S. 37 and S. 1301 legislate forest management
direction and, in some cases, specific treatment levels or harvest
mandates that apply on a state or forest-specific basis. From your
testimony it appears that you believe this is a poor idea.
As a land management agency, do you support Congress legislating
management prescriptions on a state-by-state and forest-by-forest
basis?
Answer. As a general rule, we don't support legislating
prescriptions on a state- by-state or forest-by-forest basis, as new
research and data often suggest new management approaches. In addition,
site specific attributes need to be considered in developing optimum
prescriptions to meet the objectives for individual analysis areas.
Question 3a. I'd like to clarify some specifics in S. 1301 that may
have policy implications nationwide.
Last Congress's version of this bill would have sunset after 15
years, this version permanently legislates management for the Eastside
Forests including legislating diameter caps and age limits for tree
harvest.
Congress has never legislated diameter caps or age limits on tree
harvest. That would be a significant new precedent.
Does the Forest Service support legislating diameter caps on tree
harvest?
If yes, Will you provide me the scientific basis for this
precedent?
If no, Why not?
Answer. No. Site specific attributes and best available science
needs to be considered in developing optimum prescriptions to meet the
objectives for individual areas.
Question 3b. Does the Forest Service support legislating age limits
on tree harvest?
If yes, Will you provide me the scientific basis for this
precedent?
If no, Why not?
Answer. No. Site specific attributes need to be considered in
developing optimum prescriptions to meet the objectives for individual
analysis areas. In addition, the age of a tree cannot be discerned with
a visual inspection, necessitating boring of the tree, which is time
consuming and can be harmful to the tree.
Question 4a. Section 4(e)(2)(C)(i) references the Decision Notice
establishing the 21'' diameter ``eastside screens'' prohibitions as an
alternative to the 150 year old age prohibition included in Section
4(e)(1). However, Section 4(e)(2)(C)(ii) maintains a prohibition on
cutting any live tree over 150 years of age. Please provide the
following information:
What purpose does the Forest Service see for the exception to use
the 21 ``eastside screens located at 4(e)(2)(C)(i) if it is still
prohibited from harvesting any tree older than 21'' (150 years).
Answer. The proposed text appears to try to give some flexibility
to cut trees greater than 21 inches as long as they are less than 150
years old. This would be hard to implement, though, because one cannot
use visual inspections to determine the age of a tree, and boring trees
can be harmful and be quite time consummg.
Question 4b. By including a reference to the eastside screens
decision notice in legislation, would the Forest Service be barred from
administratively changing the eastside screens requirement in future
forest plan revisions?
Answer. Possibly. We need to do a more thorough legal analysis of
this issue.
Question 5. This year there is a new provision in S. 1301, an
earmark carve out of 5 percent of the national funds for the `Forest
Health-Federal Lands' budget line item under the State and Private
Forestry appropriation which would provide approximately $2.4 million
of national funding to just three forests in Oregon.
How would this carve out affect other national forests and your
program priorities nationally that receive funding from this
appropriation program account?
Answer. It would reduce the amount available to other regions and
forests.
Question 6a. S.404 is a great example of how broken our legal
system really is with respect to implementation of environmental laws.
In this case, it's the Wilderness Act. First, the Forest Service as I
understand it made 65 helicopter trips to repair and restore a lookout
tower in a wilderness. Now, the Forest Service is being told by a
judge, who agreed with an environmentalist lawsuit, to remove the
historic lookout tower built in 1933.
This one example of an unintended consequence is why many people
are so skeptical of wilderness designations. Today we have legislation
before us to preserve a man-made historical structure that the
Wilderness Society calls a ``local wilderness treasure.''
Answer. The flight costs were approximately $100,000. The cost to
rebuild the structure was approximately $108,000.
Question 6b. How much did thelitigation cost the Forest Service?
Were any legal fees requested to be reimbursed by the plaintiffs? If
so, how much?
Answer. The Forest Service does not collect data on Forest Service
costs for litigation. For the Plaintiffs, the legalfees requested were
$89, 392 and the final dollar amount awarded was $70,804.19.
Appendix II
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
----------
Montana Forest.org,
July 26, 2013.
Hon. Ron Wyden,
Chairman, Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, 221 Dirksen Senate
Office Building, Washington, DC.
Hon. Lisa Murkowksi,
Ranking Member, Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, 709 Hart
Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
Hon. Joe Manchin,
Chairman, Subcomittee on Public Lands, Forests & Mining, 306 Hart
Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
Hon. John Barrasso,
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests & Mining, 307
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairmen and Ranking Members,
We write as representatives of a diverse Montana coalition who
strongly support S. 37, Senator Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation
Act. Thank you for scheduling a hearing on this legislation, and we
look forward to working with you on this important bill.
As business owners, loggers, conservationists, sportsmen and
sportswomen, we have worked hard to put aside our differences to ensure
that: rural Montana has a healthy economic future, we restore fish and
wildlife habitat, and protect some of the state's most deserving wild
places. Collaboration is a common buzzword meaning different things to
different people. To us, it means sitting down with our neighbors and
sometime adversaries long enough to get to know one another and
discover the values that we share as Montanans. It means respecting one
another and forging a common vision for our communities' future. We
have done this in laying the foundation for the Forest Jobs and
Recreation Act.
It wasn't easy. Montana's history of disputes over natural
resources management and land protection is long and bitter. Over time,
we've realized these fights haven't produced any winners. Our way of
life and outdoor heritage has suffered as a result.
The timber industry and some native trout populations have both
been in decline and are just hanging on. Iconic elk populations in the
state saw their vital habitat continually fractured by road building.
Some of Montana's pristine--and popular--backcountry never got the
protection it deserved, costing us precious wilderness quality lands.
Passage of S. 37 moves us beyond this divisive past.
Combining a solid plan for forest stewardship with the protection
of key public lands will help to ensure Montana's future economic
prosperity. Montana's outdoor heritage makes our state unique, and our
public lands are an important economic driver. Many businesses and
individuals come to Montana because of the high quality of life
associated with abundant public lands and outdoor recreation, bringing
jobs, investment, and economic development to our communities.
As you are aware, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act advances four
major goals:
Maintain a healthy timber industry that provides wood
products and jobs in rural Montana communities.
Improve degraded but important fish and wildlife habitat.
Protect public land to ensure access for future generations.
Support a robust recreation economy including both motorized
and non-motorized use.
The bill achieves these goals by:
Designating 677,000 of wilderness across western Montana.
Implementing forestry projects designed to reduce fuel loads
in fire-prone areas, decrease road densities, and produce wood
products.
Designating national recreation and special management areas
to provide a variety of outdoor recreation opportunities.
By achieving these goals, Congress will help advance Montana's
economic development by:
Providing direct jobs in the timber industry, and the
communities that rely on it;
Expanding economic opportunities through restoration
activities as well as increased recreation and tourism;
Providing a desirable place to live and work that will help
attract new businesses and jobs.
This legislation will help to resolve forest management conflicts
that have remained unresolved for decades. Much of the measure focuses
on one primary outcome: protecting and restoring critical watershed and
forest health and function.
Some parts of Montana's national forests are impaired by previous
management, beetle and disease infestations, and excessive fire
suppression. High road densities, clogged culverts, and compromised
forest stand structure have altered wildlife habitat and water quality.
Our wood products infrastructure--the very tools necessary for
restoration--is at risk of disappearing. This legislation aims to
increase the pace and scale of restoration of forestlands, while
reducing the Forest Service's road maintenance costs, leading to
important improvements in ecosystem health.
Many years of hard work created this legislation. Montana's
forests, wood products industry, communities, fish and wildlife
populations deserve a chance to see it enacted. We welcome the
opportunity to work with you and our entire congressional delegation to
achieve passage of a bill that rewards the promise of so many working
together for a common goal.
Thank you for your leadership and for considering our support for
this important legislation.
Sincerely,
Sherm Anderson,
Sun Mountain Lumber.
Barb Cestero,
Greater Yellowstone Coalition.
Robyn King,
Yaak Valley Forest Council.
Peter Aengst,
The Wilderness Society.
Brian Sybert,
Montana Wilderness Association.
Dan Daly,
Roseburg Forest Products.
Ed Regan,
RY Timber.
Tom France,
National Wildlife Federation.
Bruce Farling,
Montana Trout Unlimited.
Loren Rose,
Pyramid Mountain Lumber.
Wayne Hirst,
Wayne Hirst and Associates.
Tim Linehan,
Linehan Outfitting Company.
Nick Gevok,
Montana Wildlife Federation.
______
Statement of Three Rivers Challenge Partnership, Troy, MT
on s. 37
It humbles us for the Senate committee to receive this testimony
about our small but vital place-based peace proposal. With all the
pressing domestic obligations of the Senate, we are keenly aware of the
time demands upon the committee's members.
The immensity of the domestic concerns of the day are familiar to
us. Our own domestic issue is important to us-it is as vital to us at a
local level as it is to all the rest of the country, shared
stakeholders in these public lands, whether they ever visit or use
these lands directly or not, and passage of this bill will bring peace,
solace, and solitude to future generations, and will preserve a way of
life in northwest Montana that is otherwise fast-vanishing, but we will
get to the specifics of that momentarily. We first wish to thank our
Senators for their leadership, and the committee, with its oversight on
these beloved federal lands upon which so many of these diverse
interests take place.
Although our issue is smaller than the federal deficit, smaller
than immigration, smaller than global warming-smaller, perhaps, than
anything else you will look at this year-and how odd, for such a state
as Montana to submit so compact and modest a proposal-it is huge in our
hearts. In the Yaak Valley of extreme northwest Montana, up on the
Canadian and Idaho borders, we have been waiting for over 45 years for
such a proposal, and quite frankly, the success of this venture came
only when the local environmental community stopped exclusively
pressing for what it wanted and needed, and thought to ask what it was
their opposition wanted-what they were for, rather than simply what
they were against-that the Three Rivers Challenge's various interest
groups first began to consider what useful and effective collaboration
might create a map of common ground, and the value such a map would
hold for land managers.
In this regard, though our proposal is an extremely local
suggestion for a relatively small portion of one ranger district on one
National Forest, the much-beleaguered Kootenai-we hope there might be
larger benefits and implications for polarized communities who seek to
choose collaboration over the gridlock and crippling social and
economic and ecologic effects of unthinking and ceaseless war. We hope
and believe the success of our project can serve as a model for the
rest of the West, and the country-or any community, anywhere-on any
issue, with our mapping of common ground.
Our meetings have been open to the public, with an invitation to
any and all who are interested in coming up with positive solutions for
the creation of such a map-such an experiment-and through hundreds of
meetings over the last five years we have performed extensive outreach
to not only local individuals and groups, but state and regional and
national interests as well. Our supporters are comprised of a gold-
standard mix of what were once the most unlikely of allies, and include
representatives from hunting and fishing guides, local snowmobile
clubs, the local ATV club, stewardship forestry contractors, loggers,
roadbuilders, local and state and regional environmental groups, school
boards, and the general business community.
In a nutshell, with regard to the Three Rivers (``Yaak'') portion
of Senator Tester's and Senator Baucus' bill, the following goals are
accomplished: wilderness and special areas are protected in the Yaak;
overstocked forests will be treated to reduce fire risk and to help
provide a sustainable flow of fiber for the local and regional wood
products industry; forest restoration needs will be accomplished,
resulting in healthier watersheds and wildlife habitat, and local
employment; and the needs of motorized as well as nonmotorized
recreation are addressed. Guides and outfitters benefit as well from a
healthier local economy and by being able to provide wilderness and
backcountry experiences to their clients, and by the retention of trout
and elk populations.
Please accept our general testimony above, and the specific
testimony below.
Wildlife.--Hand-crafted over six years, contour by contour, in
consultation with state and federal biologists, the Three Rivers
Challenge protects-and increases-critical grizzly bear habitat. It
protects the headwaters of the imperiled inland redband trout, a
species whose habitat local conservation groups are working to improve
in order to recover the species, hopefully without the expense of an
Endangered Species listing. The Yaak Valley is about more than
grizzlies, trout and wolverine, however-it is home to salamanders,
frogs, vireos in the springtime, carnivorous sundews, ferns and
orchids, and protecting some of the wildest and farthest reaches of the
valley will help ensure protection for the habitat of these and so many
other species. The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, and the Three Rivers
Challenge component within that bill, is good for wildlife, and the
state's rod and gun clubs, and guides and outfitters, ask you to
support it.
Timber Industry.--The timber industry in Lincoln County and the
West is dying. Slower growth rates that elsewhere in the country,
diminishing ecological thresholds, at-times overzealous litigation,
unfair foreign competition, dramatic increases in labor-saving
technology, the bursting of the housing bubble, increased insurance
costs, fluctuating interest rates, and other factors, all in play even
before the recession hit, have resulted in one mill after another
closing. Particularly hard hit are the independent family-owned mills.
Not only are we losing good-paying manufacturing jobs that are the
backbone of many families' existence in our community, we are also
quickly losing the infrastructure and skillsets required for forest
management in sensitive and overstocked areas-next to towns and homes-
at the precise time when we can least afford it, as many forests begin
to collapse from fire suppression, heat, drought, and insects.
The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, and the Three Rivers Challenge
component within it, is good for what little remains of the Montana
timber industry, and the Three Rivers Challenge asks you to support it.
Community Dynamics.--Success for local forest collaboration and
more effective execution of land management prescriptions rests upon
the success of Senator Tester's and Senator Baucus' Forest Jobs and
Recreation Act, as does the hope that future political leaders will,
with positive reinforcement, match their courage on this measure that
has been decades in the making. Multigenerational conflict and
hostilities so deepset and established that their reasons or causes are
sometimes not even remembered are fading quickly now, as a result of
the fledgling trust and shared hopes of the parties involved in this
historic proposal. The decades of polarization-and their associated
lack of productivity-will be a thing of the past, with the passage of
this relatively small but landmark legislation.
Wilderness.--The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, and the Three
Rovers Challenge component within it, protects the first wilderness
area in the Yaak ever, since the Yaak's first omission from wilderness
designation in 1964, when the Wilderness Act was originally passed. The
Yaak Valley is one of Montana's wildest and most biologically diverse;
it is the only valley in the Lower 48 for which it can be said no
species has gone extinct since the end of the last Ice Age. The Yaak
has been identified by the public as well as the U.S. Forest Service as
the most under-represented forest-type in the National Wilderness
Preservation System in Region One, and some of the lands protected in
the Three Rivers Challenge agreement within this legislation contain
lands that received the highest wilderness capacity rating of any place
on the Kootenai National Forest.
Further, passage of the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act will help
through its collaborative nature to detoxify the concept of wilderness
in the region, which can only help the concept and future of wilderness
in Montana. The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, and the Three Rivers
Challenge component within it, is good for wilderness, and we ask you
to support its passage, after 45 years of waiting.
Recreation Community.--The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act will
protect access for motorized as well as nonmotorized recreation
opportunities, providing permanent access to current existing use by
snowmobiles in portions of the Northwest Peaks, Buckhorn Ridge, and Mt.
Henry Roadless areas, while identifying adjacent areas to be set aside
for wildlife displacement. The needs of primitive campers and
backcountry skiers have also been identified and provided for in our
agreement. As well, our agreement calls for a study to help identify
noncontroversial loop routes for ATV usage. By codifying existing usage
and identifying protected areas, wise allocation of various
noncompatible resource use is established, and recreational interests
are rewarded and encouraged.
We thank you again the committee for your kind attention to this
matter on which we have labored with such diligence and commitment for
so long-nearly half a century, in some instances-and we look forward to
the positive community and cultural changes that will be accomplished
at the state and regional level, and we wish to reiterate, again, our
gratitude to our Senators for their bold leadership, which we hope the
committee will fully support.
Three Rivers Challenge Partnership Representatives: Wayne Hirst,
Hirst and Associates Robyn King, Yaak Valley Forest Council Jerry
Wandler, member, Troy Snowmobile Club Joel Chandler, member, Kootenai
Ridge Riders Tim Linehan, Linehan Outfitting Company Donna O'Neil,
member, Lincoln County Sno-Kats Rick Bass, Yaak Valley Forest Council
______
Statement of Scott Morris, President, Darrington Historical Society,
Darrington, WA
Greetings from the Pacific Northwest,
Thank you for the opportunity to testify about an issue that is
very dear and personal to my community. My name is Scott Morris, and I
am the president of the Darrington Historical Society. On behalf of the
Historical Society, as well as many friends and neighbors, I
respectfully request that the honorable members of this Subcommittee
support S. 404 to preserve the Green Mountain Lookout in the Glacier
Peak Wilderness. The lookout is threatened by a lawsuit that is
attempting to remove it from the wilderness.
Green Mountain Lookout is a symbolic icon for our small town in the
North Cascades. It was built in 1933 with a strategic and expansive
view of the forests up the Suiattle River and on the flanks of Glacier
Peak's volcanic ridges. In World War II it served as part of the early
warning network of lookouts designed to spot aerial invasions of the
West Coast.
In the 1960s, it survived, avoiding the fate of most of its
counterparts, which were burned and dismantled by the Forest Service.
Fear of liability and the advent of airplanes spelled doom for most
lookouts. Today, only 16 remain of the more than 90 that were built in
northwest Washington state.
A few of those, such as Green Mountain Lookout, found themselves
inside wilderness boundaries after passage of the Wilderness Act in
1964 and subsequent wilderness expansions. In some cases, Congress has
specifically exempted a few key lookouts from the law's requirement
that structures be left to rot naturally in the wilderness.
Unfortunately, in 1984 when the Glacier Peak Wilderness was expanded to
include Green Mountain's summit, Congress did not make such an
exemption for that lookout. I suspect the reason is simply because
nobody could have foreseen that anybody would take issue with a
historic restoration of the lookout two decades later. The lookout was
placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
Indeed, as the members of the Historical Society and the Darrington
community came together during the 1990s to dream up and carry out the
eventual historic restoration, the comments received by the Forest
Service about the project were overwhelmingly supportive, with little
or no opposition.
The restoration that began in the late 1990s was completed on the
mountaintop following appropriate environmental and historical
restoration procedures, with a minimum of helicopter support. But by
the summer of 2002, it became apparent that the foundation design was
faulty. The lookout was leaning badly from heavy snows the previous
winter. It was in clear danger of falling off the summit to its
destruction under the weight of the next winter's snows.
Faced with a difficult decision, the Forest Service decided to
remove Green Mountain Lookout, taking care to number and label the
boards and windows so they could be reassembled in their proper places
on a new, stronger foundation.
Extreme floods and road washouts delayed the restoration until
2009, when the lookout was finally restored atop Green Mountain. In
2010, an out-of-state, hardline group called Wilderness Watch sued the
Forest Service, alleging that the restoration violated the Wilderness
Act. A U.S. District Court judge in Seattle agreed in 2012 and ordered
the Forest Service to remove the lookout. Later, the judge remanded the
issue to the Forest Service as to how to comply with his order, and
those who sued are pressuring the agency to remove the lookout as soon
as this summer.
Obviously time is of the essence. We are grateful to this
subcommittee for giving this bill a hearing. A companion bill is
already moving in the House. I testified in person last week at the
House subcommittee hearing. Fortunately, fixing this problem is easy--
Congress can simply exempt Green Mountain Lookout from the Wilderness
Act and allow the Forest Service to maintain and restore it. Indeed,
Wilderness Watch and U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour each
pointed out that Congress has done so in other instances, including the
Evergreen Mountain Lookout in the new Wild Sky Wilderness to the south
of us.
The legislation that our Washington state delegation in Congress
was kind enough to move forward is a modest proposal, designed to build
widespread, bipartisan support. We are not asking for a far-reaching
bill that substantially changes the Wilderness Act. The exemption of
Green Mountain Lookout does not represent some kind of camel's nose in
the tent that would somehow lead to resurrecting a bunch of long-dead
lookouts in wilderness areas. The historical trend is that we are
losing most of the CCC-era lookouts, and thus, Green Mountain Lookout
merits an exemption.
But don't just take our word for it. We have a long list of
supporters for this bill. The Wilderness Society, notably, supports S.
404. They see the lookout as enhancing the public's enthusiasm for
wilderness areas. The Nature Conservancy also supports this bill. A
broad range of local, state and national groups and legislators have
joined with us to protect Green Mountain Lookout, from the National
Trust for Historic Preservation (and its state affiliate), to the
Forest Fire Lookouts Association, the Snohomish County Council and the
Darrington Town Council, among others. Support among legislators is
bipartisan--Republicans and Democrats alike stand behind this bill. The
Everett Herald and Seattle Post-Intelligencer have each editorialized
in favor of protecting the lookout.
In the end, though, the reason so many of us feel strongly about
this simple 14-by-14-foot mountaintop cabin is the sense of magic it
conveys. I had the great fortune to visit Green Mountain Lookout last
summer, and I was lucky enough to see firsthand the classic North
Cascades lookout sunrise, with clouds filling the valleys, and only the
tallest mountaintops peeking through while the sun turned everything
pink. Standing on the catwalk, Green Mountain Lookout felt like a time
machine, taking us back to the 1930s. It was easy to understand what
drove the first generation of men and women in the Forest Service to
staff these lookouts. Today, we face a vocal, extreme minority with no
imagination who don't get it. But for the rest of us, we have a legacy
we are asking you to protect. Thanks for your time, and thanks for
supporting S. 404.
Sincerely,
______
Statement of Michael R. Brown, Director Operations, Western US Region,
Graymont Western US Inc.
on s. 1169 and s. 1309
Graymont Western US Inc is a member of the Graymont family of
companies.
Graymont is the second largest producer of lime in North America
with facilities across Canada and the United States and a partnership
with Grupo Calidra, the largest lime producer in Mexico. Graymont is a
family owned company committed to improving our world by responsibly
meeting society's needs for quality lime and stone products.
Graymont takes a long term view of its business and the lime
industry, where investments are made based upon decades of expected
production. Graymont has been in the lime business for over 50 years
and operates facilities on sites that have been in operation for up to
200 years. Graymont is among the leaders in the industry in adding new
efficient plants and equipment and operates some of the most modern
facilities on the continent.
Graymont would be directly impacted by S. 1169 and S. 1309 as these
bills would authorize a withdrawal of public lands which includes the
entire mine associated with the Graymont Indian Creek facility.
Graymont supports S. 1169 as introduced by Senator Baucus and notes
that this bill (and the related House of Representatives bills) is the
only Limestone Hills withdrawal bill supported by the full Montana
Congressional delegation. Graymont does not support S. 1309; specific
comments on the two bills follow.
Comments Specific to S. 1169
The language in S. 1169 related to the protection of Graymont's
rights is similar to the Limestone Hills withdrawal language in H.R.
1672 and H.R. 1960, both of which Graymont supports. While Graymont
prefers the language in the House bills we appreciate the work of
Senator Baucus and Senator Tester (cosponsor of S. 1169) and Graymont
supports S. 1169 as currently drafted.
In the written testimony received by the Subcommittee from the
Department of the Army in connection with Subsection 4(a)(3) of S. 1169
it was stated that ``the Army strongly objects to this Subsection as it
would grant particular mining claimants the ability to operate without
regard for the withdrawal and reservation.'' In addition, oral
testimony on this issue was provided by Ms. Katherine Hammack at the
July 30, 2013 hearing in response to a question from Chairman Manchin
on the Subsection 4(a)(3) language. Ms. Hammack stated that:
`` . . . we are in support of the existing mining claims and
the existing agreement . . . the language expands that to
claims that have been closed or retired and allows additional
claims to be allowed. So, it goes beyond the existing mining
claims and so that is our objection is going beyond the
existing agreement, the existing mining claims; essentially
opens up the whole area.''
Graymont appreciates that the Army supports the existing mining
claims and the existing agreement among Graymont, the BLM, and the
Montana Army National Guard.
However, the stated concern that the Subsection 4(a)(3) language
allows Graymont to establish additional mining claims inside the entire
withdrawal area is not supported by the language in S. 1169. Subsection
4(a)(3) does not mention additional claims and the Opportunity to Cure
is clearly restricted to the land area subject to the approved plan of
operations. There are 1,940 acres included in the approved plan of
operations compared to a total of 18,644 acres included in the
Limestone Hills withdrawal. Thus, in stark contrast to the provided
testimony, 90% of the withdrawal area is unaffected by the language in
Subsection 4(a)(3).
Graymont submits that it has properly secured exclusive possession
and enjoyment of its mining claims. Without the language of Subsection
4(a)(3) Graymont's ability to maintain its existing mining claims under
the Mining Law could potentially be adversely impacted by the
withdrawal.
Any legislative language that causes a reduction in Graymont's
rights must be evaluated as a cost of the withdrawal. Graymont's mining
operations began before the issuance of the improperly issued right-of-
way and must be fully protected as a part of the withdrawal
legislation.
Comments Specific to S. 1309
The language contained in S. 1309 mirrors the Administration's
proposal as part of the Senate National Defense Authorization Act
(NDAA), or S. 1034. Graymont does not support the S. 1309 (and related
S. 1034) language.
Graymont is concerned with the attempt to include the Limestone
Hills Withdrawal as a part of a group of multiple withdrawals. The
situation in the Limestone Hills is quite unique and does not lend
itself to inclusion with other, more `traditional' withdrawals. There
is no other place in the United States where the military is proposing
that a withdrawal surround a large existing mining operation with valid
existing rights.
More specifically, there is a significant inconsistency between the
General Provisions language in Section 2933(a) being proposed for the
group of several withdrawals and provisions unique to the Limestone
Hills. Section 2933(a) would give the Secretary concerned the ability
to unilaterally ``require the closure to the public of any road, trail,
or other portion of the lands withdrawn and reserved by a subchapter of
this chapter, the Secretary may take such action as the Secretary
determines necessary or desirable to effect and maintain such
closure.'' (Emphasis supplied). This is in conflict with the language
of Section 2957d(a) which states: ``The Secretary of the Army shall
make no determination that the disposition of or exploration for
minerals as provided in the approved plan of operations is inconsistent
with the defense-related uses of the lands covered by the military land
withdrawal.''
It is not realistic for Graymont to conduct its mining operations
if the company was constantly exposed to the possibility that the
Secretary could close the area of the withdrawal to mining operations
simply because it was determined to be desirable.
Graymont also has a concern that S. 1309 lacks the level of
specificity regarding the issues to be included in the Implementation
Agreement for Mining Activities (Subsection 2957d(d) of S. 1309
compared to Section 4(c) of S. 1169. S. 1309 also lacks reference to
continuing the existing 2005 Memorandum of Agreement signed by
Graymont, the BLM, and the Montana Army National Guard until the
Implementation Agreement is executed.
Finally, Section 2961c(b) includes language specific to the
Twentynine Palms, California withdrawal. However, this section includes
puzzling language which states that the Secretary of the Army may pay
Broadwater County, Montana $1,000,000 to offset the 25-year loss of
payments in lieu of taxes for lands included in the Limestone Hills,
Montana withdrawal. In contrast, S. 1169 at Section 7 provides that the
withdrawn lands will remain eligible for payments in lieu of taxes
citing ``section 6901 of title 31, United States Code.'' Graymont is
unclear if this language in S. 1309 was included in error or why the
language related to a Montana withdrawal has been included in the
details of a California withdrawal.
Due to the above issues, Graymont requests that the current
Limestone Hills withdrawal language be removed from S. 1309 and the
language of S. 1169 be adopted as a separate withdrawal without
amendment.
Background Information on Graymont's Limestone Hills Montana Operations
Graymont's Montana facility is the Indian Creek plant located near
Townsend, Montana. The plant is just north of the Limestone Hills and
is connected to the mine by a conveyor belt. Graymont currently
employees 34 full-time employees in both the mine and the processing
plant. In addition, there are 11 persons on the contract mining crew
that works predominantly in the mine. These are stable, high paying
mining jobs that are vital to the economy of Townsend, Broadwater
County, and the State of Montana.
Under its previous name of Continental Lime, Inc., Graymont began
its activity in the Limestone Hills in 1979 when the first unpatented
mining claims were located. In 1981 Continental Lime obtained Bureau of
Land Management (BLM) approval of its first plan of operations and
mining in the Limestone Hills has been continuous since that date.
Under the Mining Law of 1872 (30 U.S.C. Sec. 26.), in order to conduct
its operations a mining claimant ``shall have the exclusive right of
possession and enjoyment of all of the surface included within the
lines or their locations.'' Maintaining exclusive possession and
enjoyment of the area of its operations is critical to Graymont.
In October 2010 the BLM and the Montana Department of Environmental
Quality approved Graymont's most recent life-of-mine plan of operations
covering a total land area of 1,940 acres.
Lime is produced at the Indian Creek plant in two coal/coke fired
preheater kilns. The plant is equipped with lime sizing and storage
facilities allowing Graymont to produce and store a full range of bulk
quicklime products. High purity limestone from the quarry is trucked to
a crushing plant where it is sized and conveyed to a large storage pile
adjacent to the preheater kilns. Bulk truck loading facilities are
provided at the plant site and rail loading is available through a
terminal located on the Montana Rail Link line in Townsend.
Value of the Graymont Indian Creek Facility
The Final Legislative Environment Impact Statement prepared by the
Montana Army National Guard and the Bureau of Land Management in 2008
in connection with the Limestone Hills Training Area Land Withdrawal
contains, as an appendix, a report titled ``Geology, Mineral
Occurrences and Economic Resources Potential of the Limestone Hills
Training Area.'' The report contains an economic evaluation of the
Indian Creek Mine. Subsequent to the time the report was prepared
Graymont has obtained the approval of both the BLM and The Montana
Department of Environment Quality for the ``life-of-mine'' expansion
described in the report. Therefore, Graymont has the needed life-of-
mine permit to continue its operations as far south as the area
identified in the report as the Southeastern Extension Zone.
Page 48 of the geologic report notes that the value of the material
quarried at Indian Creek is between $9 and $12 per ton of material
quarried. The report also estimates approximately 121 million tons of
quarry reserves under the ``Moderate Mining Scenario''. Thus, a very
rough calculation yields an economic value of the mineable resource of
at least $1.1 billion.
It is Graymont's position that any language that is contained in
the withdrawal legislation which results in a taking of Graymont's
existing rights will be actionable and should be calculated and used in
scoring the proposed legislation.
History of Montana Army National Guard Activity
The Montana Army National Guard has conducted training activities
in the Limestone Hills for over 50 years. In the early days those
training activities were conducted pursuant to periodically issued BLM
special land use permits. All special land use permits expired prior to
1984. The Guard currently conducts its training activities under a 30
year right-of-way issued to the State of Montana effective on March 26,
1984. By its terms the right-of-way is both ``nonexclusive'' and
``nonpossessory.'' Neither a special land use permit nor a right-of-way
prevents the location of mining claims.
By letter dated January 15, 1993 the BLM informed the Guard that
``a 20,080 acre training range is beyond the scope of activity to be
authorized by a right-of-way and your current use is not properly
authorized according to the IBLA decision.'' (Emphasis supplied). The
letter went on to say: ``Therefore, we are requesting the MTARNG to
submit an application for withdrawal of the Limestone Hills training
range by the end of 1993, and to take all possible action toward
securing a withdrawal by the end of 1997.'' The suggested withdrawal is
the subject matter of the present proposed legislation. The Guard has
continued to conduct its operations under the terms of the unauthorized
right-of-way pending the action by Congress on the withdrawal
application. The right-of-way will terminate on March 26, 2014 and the
BLM has indicated it will not be extended.
Cooperative Relationship
The BLM's 1993 letter was, in part, in response to a Graymont
application to expand its mining operations further into the area where
the Guard was conducting training activities. The BLM was concerned for
public safety and liability issues given the joint activities in the
area. Following extensive negotiations in 1997, the BLM, Guard and
Graymont agreed that continued multiple use of the Limestone Hills area
was possible. The parties arrived at a consensus as to how the joint
use could occur.
Subsequently the three parties have worked cooperatively to ensure
that joint operations can occur while protecting public safety and
appropriately allocating liability. The most recent confirmation of
that relationship is contained in a Memorandum of Agreement among the
three parties dated in February, 2005.
Graymont looks forward to continuing the joint use of the Limestone
Hills in a manner that will allow both Graymont and the Department of
the Army to accomplish their respective missions.
______
Greater Yellowstone Coalition,
July 29, 2013.
Hon. Ron Wyden,
Chairman, Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, 221 Dirksen Senate
Office Building, Washington, DC.
Hon. Lisa Murkowksi,
Ranking Member, Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, 709 Hart
Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
Hon. Joe Manchin,
Chairman, Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests & Mining,306 Hart
Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
Hon. John Barrasso,
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests & Mining, 307
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
RE: Greater Yellowstone Coalition Support for the Forest Jobs and
Recreation Act
Dear Mr. Chairmen and Ranking Members,
Thank you for the opportunity to offer written testimony for the
record on S. 37--the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, representing 40,000 members and
supporters from across the country, strongly supports S. 37, the Forest
Jobs and Recreation Act of 2013. As a regional conservation
organization, the Coalition's mission is to protect the lands, waters
and wildlife of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem now and for future
generations. The protection, restoration and stewardship of southwest
Montana's public lands which will result from this bill's passage will
substantially benefit the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Because of
their proximity to Yellowstone National Park, these lands are of
national significance and critically important to the long-term
conservation of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The bill's passage
will benefit the American people as well as future generations by
protecting and restoring important habitats that safeguard the region's
iconic fish and wildlife.
The people of Montana strongly support of this legislation. The
bill has united diverse interests to work together toward better
conservation of our public lands. For this reason, the Forest Jobs and
Recreation Act enjoys broad, bi-partisan support from across the state.
Conservation Benefits:
This bill will protect and restore Greater Yellowstone's natural
heritage. Wilderness designations in Greater Yellowstone--the Snowcrest
and Centennial Mountains, the Ruby Mountains, additions to the Lee
Metcalf Wilderness, and the Blacktail range--protect some of the last
and best unroaded backcountry habitats in the Montana part of the
ecosystem. These core habitats are vital to the ecosystem's iconic
wildlife. These wilderness areas also protect the headwaters of many of
Greater Yellowstone's most famous rivers, including the Ruby, Missouri,
Jefferson, and Madison. Further west, designations in the Pioneers, the
Big Hole, Italian and Lima Peaks and Sapphires will protect important
linkage habitats, ensuring wide-roaming species continue to disperse
across southwest Montana's landscape. Such dispersal is essential for
maintaining the long-term genetic viability of sensitive species such
as grizzly bears and wolves.
The restoration and stewardship projects provided for in the bill
will heal lands damaged by past practices, restoring fish passage in
cold water streams and reducing road densities that diminish habitat
quality for a variety of species. These restoration activities will
become increasingly important to ensure our fish and wildlife
populations are resilient in the face of a changing climate.
Broad Coalition and collaboration
The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act is the result of three place-
based collaborations that brought diverse interests together to solve
the challenges confronting Montana's national forests. As a regional
conservation organization, focused on only a portion of Montana, the
Greater Yellowstone Coalition was not a part of these original
collaborations. In July, 2009, because of the benefits to the Greater
Yellowstone Ecosystem resulting from S. 37, we joined the coalition
supporting this legislation. Our involvement and input has been
welcomed by all of the diverse partners. Key components of the bill,
particularly the inclusion of the Bureau of Land Management Wilderness
Study Areas, reflect the responsiveness of the original collaborations
and Senator Tester to our input.
The collaboration that forms the foundation of the bill has
continued throughout the bill's legislative journey. Senator Tester
hosted numerous public meetings to gather feedback from diverse
Montanans. He used that input, as well as his work with the Forest
Service to address their concerns, to strengthen the bill which is
reflected in the version introduced to the 113th Congress. The Greater
Yellowstone Coalition is committed to the continued collaboration
necessary to both pass and implement the Forest Jobs and Recreation
Act.
We greatly appreciate the hard work of Senator Tester and his staff
on S. 37 and urge the subcommittee to support its passage.
Wilderness designations
Approximately 170,000 acres of the almost 670,000 acres of
wilderness proposed in the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act lie within
Southwest Montana's portion of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Places such as the Ruby and Centennial Mountains, the additions to the
Lee Metcalf Wilderness and the Snowcrest Range are hidden gems in
Greater Yellowstone where Montana families and visitors hunt, fish,
hike and camp. These lands provide important wildlife habitat for big
game, rare predators and other wildlife that roam across the landscape.
In particular, these areas boast some of the state's largest elk herds,
longest antelope migrations, and most robust moose populations. Given
these wildlife values, it is no surprise that 50 percent of the state's
elk harvest comes from this part of Southwest Montana.
Wolverine, grizzly bears and wolves also depend upon these wild
lands for core, secure habitat far from roads as well as important
linkage habitats that ensure they can roam the landscape. The wild
lands protected under S. 37 which lie beyond the Greater Yellowstone
Ecosystem serve as vital stepping stones, keeping Greater Yellowstone
connected to central Idaho wildlands and the northern Continental
Divide ecosystem, ensuring wildlife can continue to disperse across
southwest Montana. Such dispersal and migration is essential for the
long-term genetic health of these rare, crucial and vulnerable species.
For these reasons, we support all of the wilderness designations
contained in the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.
We offer the following specific comments regarding several of the
proposed wilderness areas of particular importance to the Greater
Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Mount Jefferson
This 4,500 acre proposed wilderness on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge
National Forest generates passionate attention from many constituents
and vocal opposition from snowmobile interests. Mount Jefferson
deserves wilderness protection both on its own merits and to protect
the integrity of the adjacent BLM Centennial Mountains wilderness, also
included in S. 37. The wilderness boundary as proposed in S. 37 should
remain intact for the following reasons:
1. High conservation value.--The Mount Jefferson proposed
wilderness includes Hellroaring Creek basin, the farthest and
highest headwaters of the Missouri River. Contiguous with the
proposed BLM Centennial Mountains wilderness, the two areas
combined create almost 30,000 acres of wilderness on the north
side of the Centennial Mountains.
Mount Jefferson and the Centennials provide secure habitat
for Greater Yellowstone's most valued and iconic wildlife.
Moose winter among the sub-alpine fir along Hellroaring Creek.
The area provides important security cover for elk in the fall
during big game hunting seasons in both Montana and Idaho.
Grizzly bears and wolverine, both icons of wildness that need
remote backcountry to survive, use the Hellroaring drainage as
important habitat.
As a rare east-west trending mountain range, Mount Jefferson
and the Centennial Mountains function as an important linkage
between the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the wildlands of
central Idaho. Wide-ranging species such as wolves, bears and
wolverines use this important corridor. Ensuring this region
can still function as a linkage requires protecting large
chunks of public land from habitat fragmentation.
The new wilderness proposed in S. 37 is adjacent to federally
designated wilderness on the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife
Refuge, a 32,350-acre wetland wilderness in the heart of the
Centennial Valley. Over 20,000 acres in conservation easements
protect private lands surrounding the wildlife refuge. Thus,
the wilderness designations included in S. 37 add to a
remarkable conservation legacy--resulting in over 80,000 acres
of protected land--in an ecologically important part of Greater
Yellowstone.
2. Montana jobs and economic opportunity
Locally owned Montana businesses depend upon the quiet
recreation opportunities found on the Montana side of the
Centennial Mountains. Hellroaring Ski Adventures based in West
Yellowstone, operates a backcountry hut and guided ski touring
business in the Hellroaring Creek drainage. This is the only
such operation in this part of Montana, providing a unique
experience for the public on BLM and National Forest lands.
In the summer and fall, Centennial Outfitters, in Lima, MT,
offers backcountry pack trips and fishing adventures in the
area. Both of these businesses are negatively impacted by
increasing snowmobile use on the Montana side of Mount
Jefferson. Centennial Outfitters routinely finds broken
windshields, oil cans, pieces of rubber, and other debris from
snowmobiling. Hellroaring Ski Adventures' clients have
experienced direct conflicts with snowmobilers, including
noise, while seeking a quiet winter recreational experience.
Outdoor shops catering to quiet recreation in the communities
surrounding the Centennial Mountains support wilderness
designation for Montana's side of Mount Jefferson.
3. Ensuring a balance of recreational opportunities in
Southwest Montana
In addition to providing refuge for wildlife, Mount Jefferson
and the Hellroaring drainage offer outstanding opportunities
for quiet recreation in every season. Hunting, fishing, skiing,
hiking, camping and horse packing are all popular activities.
There is only very limited motorized access from the Montana
side of the Centennial Mountains. As a result, Mount Jefferson
and the northern Centennials are known as some of the wildest
backcountry in Montana, offering solitude and quiet for those
seeking a wilderness experience.
With regard to winter recreation specifically, the
snowmobiling community's interest in continued access to
Montana's portion of Mount Jefferson must be understood in the
context of snowmobiling opportunities across the broader
landscape. To suggest that closing Montana's side of Mount
Jefferson to snowmobiling will negatively impact the economy of
communities in Eastern Idaho is inaccurate. In fact, leaving
the Montana side of Mount Jefferson open to snowmobiling
eliminates one of the few opportunities for quiet, human-
powered winter recreationists to escape the din of snow
machines. Analysis of data for public lands within a 20-mile
radius of Island Park, Idaho shows that 98 percent of those
lands, or 297,933 acres, are currently open to snowmobiles. The
Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, by protecting the entire
Hellroaring basin and the Montana side of Mount Jefferson,
would reduce this acreage by a mere 2,344 acres, bringing the
percentage of public lands open to snowmobiles in the Greater
Island Park area to 97 percent. (See Attachments* A and B which
include maps depicting this analysis).
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* All attachments have been retained in subcommittee files.
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On a broader scale, of the 3 million total acres on the
Caribou-Targhee National Forest, which surrounds Eastern
Idaho's communities, nearly 2.5 million acres are open to
snowmobiles while just 545,000 acres are protected for non-
motorized winter activities. In Montana, on the Beaverhead-
Deerlodge National Forest, 2,049,099 acres are open to
snowmobiling. Immediately north of the Centennial Mountains,
much of the Gravelly Range is open for winter motorized
recreation.
Furthermore, the Idaho side of both Mount Jefferson and Rheas
Peak will remain open to snowmobiling, offering similar terrain
and high marking opportunities in the vicinity of Island Park.
(See Attachments C and D which include photos of these peaks).
For Mount Jefferson and the Centennial Mountains, the
relevant compromise on land use was struck in 1991. Of the
93,000 acres in the Centennials evaluated for wilderness
suitability (including lands in both Idaho and Montana), the
BLM recommended 28,000 acres for wilderness designation in
Montana--including Mount Jefferson--and released 70 percent of
the study area for non-wilderness use. No adjacent lands in
Idaho were recommended for wilderness designation.
4. A partial designation will not work: Over a decade of
experience managing the Hellroaring drainage to protect both
wilderness values and to allow snowmobiling access clearly
demonstrates that a partial wilderness designation for Mount
Jefferson will not work.
Documented illegal snowmobile use in the BLM Centennial
Wilderness Study Area led the BLM to repeatedly request that
the Forest Service close the Mount Jefferson area to
snowmobiles. Since 2001, the Forest Service has partially
closed Forest Service lands in the Hellroaring basin to
snowmobiles. During the winter, routine agency patrols
consistently find evidence of trespass into both the BLM
Wilderness Study area and the portion of Forest Service land
closed to snowmobiles. Increased signage and patrols, aimed at
reducing violations, have met with little success. (See
Attachment E which provides photo documentation of snowmobile
trespass).
In its final Forest Plan, the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National
Forest dropped the southern half of the Mount Jefferson/
Hellroaring area from its list of recommended wilderness,
leaving it open to snowmobile access. This decision is
topographically unenforceable as the boundary between the open
and closed areas runs along an indistinct ridge from the summit
of Mount Jefferson. Although the closed area is well signed,
enforcement of the boundary continues to be extremely
difficult. Continued violations of the BLM Centennial
Wilderness are certain under a partial closure, leading to more
conflicts. (Attachment F includes a topographic map of the
area).
Recognizing that this partial designation would create
ongoing enforcement challenges, the final Forest Plan commits
the Forest Service to monitoring, enforcement, and a
reassessment of the decision if illegal intrusions into closed
areas continue. Specifically, the Forest Plan Record of
Decision states:
`` . . . The combination of uses allowed on Mt. Jefferson
under the Revised Forest Plan represents a management
challenge, because the boundary between the motorized and non-
motorized use areas does not follow an effective topographical
barrier to illegal motorized entry . . . If monitoring reveals
that non-compliance is an issue, the decision to allow
snowmobiling on Mt Jefferson will be re-evaluated.''.p. 21,
Record of Decision, Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest
Revised Forest Plan)
To protect the integrity of the proposed wilderness
designations for the Centennial, it will be imperative that the
Forest Service follows through on this management promise to
close the area to snowmobiling if trespass continues.
Snowcrest Mountains
The Snowcrest Mountains proposed wilderness--the largest wilderness
included in S. 37--represents a unique addition to the National
Wilderness System. The Snowcrest Mountains, considered in conjunction
with the adjacent Blacktail and Robb Ledford State Game Ranges, provide
a large block of secure wildlife habitat at the western edge of the
Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The Snowcrest Wilderness will protect
unique and varied habitat types, including rolling sagebrush hills,
whitebark pine stands, aspen, and alpine grasslands. The Snowcrests
offer some of the highest quality wolverine habitat in southwest
Montana. Wolves, bears, mountain lion and large elk herds roam these
remote mountains. Due to the abundance of big game, the Snowcrest
Mountains are among the most heavily hunted areas in Montana. Streams
on the eastern side of the Snowcrest Mountains feed the famed Ruby
River which is noted for both trout and grayling fisheries.
Traditional ranching uses will continue in the Snowcrest Mountains
under S. 37, and specific language in Section 204(m)(1-2) provides for
continued motorized access to maintain existing water impoundments and
to trail sheep across the range to summer pasture. We appreciate the
improvements made in this section, especially language tying the
continued trailing of sheep across the Snowcrests to the tenure of the
grazing allotments in the Gravelly Mountains. We believe as currently
written, this section captures a workable compromise that maintains the
Forest Service's authority to appropriately manage grazing in
Wilderness.
BLM Wilderness Study Areas
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition specifically requested that
administratively designated Wilderness Study Areas within the Dillon
Resource Area be addressed by S. 37. These island mountain ranges
provide important wildlife habitat and connectivity for wide-ranging
species that reside in southwest Montana. We strongly support the
proposed wilderness designations for portions of the Ruby, Blacktail
and Centennial Mountains Wilderness Study Areas managed by the Bureau
of Land Management. As wilderness, these lands will continue to
function as refugia for critically important wildlife.
We also strongly support the addition of the East Fork of Blacktail
Wilderness Study Area to the BLM proposed wilderness areas. In earlier
versions of the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, this BLM WSA was slated
to be released from wilderness study status. This WSA sits in the
middle of a landscape managed for wilderness and conservation purposes
because it is contiguous to the Forest Service Snowcrest proposed
wilderness and adjacent to two Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
Wildlife Management Areas. This WSA has significant value for the
conservation of Greater Yellowstone's wildlife and fisheries, and will
be an excellent addition to the National Wilderness Preservation
System.
GYC also recommends that the Peet Creek/Price Creek parcel in the
western Centennial Mountains be added to the proposed Centennial
Mountains Wilderness with a cherry stemmed boundary to accommodate the
existing improved logging road in the E. Fork of Peet Creek. This is
the largest of the five parcels recommended for release from the BLM
Centennial Wilderness Study Area (approximately 3,800 acres). This
parcel has significant conservation value for big game, wolverine,
bears and westslope cutthroat trout. Its protection as wilderness
enhances the Centennial Mountains wildlife linkage area and
connectivity between Greater Yellowstone and Central Idaho.
Forest Management & Stewardship
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition supports the restoration emphasis
of S. 37. Using stewardship contracts to fund road rehabilitation,
stream restoration and habitat revitalization will benefit native fish
and wildlife. In the southwest Montana portion of Greater Yellowstone,
there are areas, such as the West Fork of the Madison River and the
southern Tobacco Root Mountains, that would benefit from the
stewardship projects conducted under S. 37.
The impact of this legislation on inventoried roadless lands on the
Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest not recommended as wilderness is
of particular importance to us. Three elements of the bill combine to
sufficiently ensure these roadless lands will continue to provide core,
secure habitat for fish and wildlife. The following elements of the
bill must be retained in final legislation:
Section 104 (a)(4) of S. 37 directs the Secretary to
prioritize lands for stewardship projects which already have
road densities in excess of 1.5 miles per square mile; that are
within the wildland-urban interface; where habitat connectivity
is already compromised due to past practices; and where forests
are at high risk of severe wildfire. We believe this language
appropriately focuses stewardship logging and restoration
activities in previously roaded and developed areas of the
Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.
All stewardship projects are to be conducted in accordance
with existing environmental laws, regulations and
administrative directives. Thus, the 2001 Roadless Area
Conservation Rule currently in effect in Region 1 of the U.S.
Forest Service will continue to apply to projects conducted
under the provisions of this bill.
Forest Plan designations of appropriate lands for timber
harvest will guide where stewardship projects occur. On the
Beaverhead-Deerlodge, lands designated as ``suitable for timber
production'' do not include any inventoried roadless lands.
Lands designated as ``timber harvest allowed to meet other
resource objectives'' do include inventoried roadless lands;
however, projects in this category must comply with national
roadless policies and directives.
For these reasons, we believe S. 37 sufficiently protects the
conservation values of inventoried roadless lands. We believe the
Forest Jobs and Recreation Act will help improve the stewardship and
management of national forest lands in Montana and benefit the
northwest corner of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Conclusion.--S. 37 is a balanced vision for protecting and restoring
public land
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition strongly supports S. 37 and
believes it provides a balanced approach to protecting and restoring
public land in Montana. By protecting key public lands in southwest
Montana, S. 37 contributes significantly to the long-term conservation
of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, an area of great importance to
Montanans and all Americans. We appreciate the hard work that has gone
into strengthening the bill since it was originally introduced in 2009.
We look forward to working with the Subcommittee, the Forest Service,
the Obama Administration, and everyone who shares the goals of this
bill to continue to refine and implement this vision for protecting our
most cherished lands, restoring our forests and sustaining our
communities.
We sincerely thank Senator Tester for his leadership in drafting
this important legislation and his ongoing work to see it enacted. We
also thank Senator Baucus for his co-sponsorship. This legislation
enjoys unprecedented support across Montana as diverse interests unite
behind our Senate delegation to protect and restore our treasured
public lands.
GYC supports S. 37 as a new way to do business for the Forest
Service and for Montana. We urge the Subcommittee to approve the bill
and forward it to the full Senate for its consideration.
Sincerely,
Caroline Byrd,
Executive Director.
Barb Cestero,
Montana Director.
______
Back Country Horsemen of America,
Graham, WA, July 8, 2013.
Hon. Ron Wyden,
Chairman, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Hon. Lisa Murkowski,
Ranking Member, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Hon. Doc Hastings,
U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Hon. Ed Markey,
U.S. House of Representatives Washington DC.
RE: Support for H.R. 908/S.404, the Green Mountain Lookout Heritage
Protection Act
Dear Chairman Wyden, Chairman Hastings, Ranking Member Murkowski
and Ranking Member Markey,
On behalf of Back Country Horsemen of America, I urge you to take
timely action to consider HR 908/S.404, the Green Mountain Lookout
Heritage Protection Act, introduced in February by Representatives
DelBene and Larsen and Senators Murray and Cantwell.
H.R. 908/S.404 would ensure the continued operation and maintenance
of the historic Green Mountain fire lookout within Washington's Glacier
Peak Wilderness Area. For decades, the Green Mountain lookout has been
a popular destination for hikers seeking to enjoy impressive vistas,
endless acres of wildflowers and the experience associated with
visiting a historical fire lookout. Even though horse use is not
allowed on the Green Mountain Trail, we nonetheless support H.R. 908/
S.404 as an important means to promote human use and enjoyment of
wilderness.
Built in 1933 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, the historic
Green Mountain lookout is listed with the National Register of Historic
Places. The Forest Service still utilizes Green Mountain as a
functioning fire lookout as well as to house seasonal staff who provide
educational information to wilderness visitors.
The Green Mountain lookout provides important benefits to the
preservation of the Glacier Peak Wilderness and the education of
wilderness visitors. If Congress does not act, the lookout will be
removed or destroyed and a local treasure will be lost. We urge you to
ensure passage of the Green Mountain Lookout Heritage Protection Act to
ensure the permanent preservation of this important resource. We stand
ready to support you in this effort. Page 2 Green Mountain Lookout
Heritage Protection Act HR 908/S.404July 8, 2013 Thank you for your
efforts to preserve America's wilderness.
Sincerely,
Michael K. McGlenn,
Past Chairman, BCHA.
______
Statement of Andy Hafen, Mayor, City of Henderson, NV
Summary Overview
The Three Kids Mine legislation is essential to the implementation
of an innovative public/private partnership that the City and its
Redevelopment Agency have pursued to resolve a longstanding blight in
our community, namely, environmental contamination and public safety
hazards associated with the abandoned Three Kids Mine.
Henderson is located just south of the City of Las Vegas. From its
origins as the townsite adjacent to a World War II-era federal
magnesium production plant, Henderson has grown since its 1953
incorporation to become the second largest city in Nevada, with over
270,000 residents and encompassing over 100 square miles of land.
Henderson has been nationally recognized for the quality of life
oiTered to its residents as well as its favorable business climate. We
are proud of our progressive approach to careful planning and
sustainable development as well as our demonstrated commitment to the
environment.
The proposed remediation and redevelopment site consists of
approximately 1,262 acres of Federal and private lands within the City.
The Three Kids Mine was owned and operated by various parties,
including the United States, as an open pit manganese mine and milling
operation from approximately 1917 through 1961. The site also was used
to store Federal manganese ore reserves until 2003. In the half century
since mining operations ceased, residential development has occurred
next to the site. The site today contains unstable open pits as deep as
400 feet, large volumes of mine overburden and tailings, and mill
facility foundations. Contaminants of concern include arsenic, lead and
petroleum compounds.
S. 343 would require the Secretary of the Interior to convey the
948 acres ofFederallands at the overall 1,262-acre project site to the
Henderson Redevelopment Agency or the responsible party designated by
the Henderson Redevelopment Agency to complete assessment, remediation,
reclamation and redevelopment of the Three Kids Mine Project Site. Fair
market value would take into account the costs of investigating and
cleaning up the entire mine and mill site, which includes 314 acres of
now-private lands that were used historically in mine operations. Such
costs would be calculated only after a comprehensive site assessment,
and using nationally recognized remediation cost estimating
methodologies. Finally, before the Federal lands are conveyed, the
State must execute a comprehensive Mine Remediation and Reclamation
Agreement with a private sector entity under which the cleanup of the
entire site will occur. The enforceable agreement must include
financial assurances to ensure timely performance and completion of the
cleanup project. At this time, the City has an agreement in force with
Lakemoor Development, known as the Master Development Planning
Agreement that was executed on August 3, 2011.
Reclaiming the Three Kids Mine site will require the management of
at least 12 million cubic yards of mine residue. The proposed
``Presumptive Cleanup Remedy'' is to use the existing onsite mine pits
as permanent repositories for the mine residue, but only after site
characterization, detailed engineering, and in accordance with a step-
by-step work plan that will be implemented pursuant to the required
Mine Remediation and Reclamation Agreement. Complete, permanent, and
protective cleanup of the site is a high priority for the Nevada
Division of Environmental Protection as well as for the City and its
residents. It is time to remove this blight from our community and it
is for this primary reason that the City is engaged in this effort.
There are two important aspects of this planned remediation project
to be highlighted. First, the estimated 350 million dollar cleanup will
be ilnanced with private capital and Nevada tax increment financing at
no cost to the Federal Government. The Nevada Community Redevelopment
Law allows the Henderson Redevelopment Agency to ilnance the cleanup of
blight conditions such as an abandoned mine through use of an
``increment'' of property taxes collected within a designated
redevelopment area over a 30-year ``capture period.'' The ``increment''
is a portion of the assessed value of the property which increases in
value following cleanup and as the subsequent commercial and
residential redevelopment build-out occurs. Henderson annexed the Three
Kids Mine site and placed it in the Lakemoor Canyon Redevelopment Area
in 2009. The use of tax increment financing available through the
Henderson Redevelopment Agency is critical to the long-term success of
this project.
Second, only through the assemblage of the 948 acres of Federal
lands with the 314 acres of private lands can a cost effective and
comprehensive cleanup be achieved. As the large pits suitable for use
as mine residue repositories are located on the private lands, cleanup
of the Federal lands without having the pits available as on-site mine
residue repositories would require cost-prohibitive excavation,
transportation and off site residue disposal at a permitted landfill.
Cleanup solely of the private lands also is not a viable option because
limiting the redevelopment area to only 314 acres would not generate
sufficient tax increment to render cleanup and redevelopment
economically feasible. In addition, it would be inappropriate for the
City to authorize residential and commercial development on what
effectively would be an ``island'' of property immediately abutting
unremediated environmental and public safety hazards.
In summary closing, enactment of S. 343 is essential for the City
and its Redevelopment Agency to move ahead on this unique public/
private partnership strategy to clean up the Three Kids Mine site. For
over four years, the City of Henderson has worked closely with
stakeholders including the Department of the Interior and the Nevada
Division of Environmental Protection to advance this project. While
much work remains ahead, we are confident that the Three Kids Mine site
can be successfully reclaimed through this program, ultimately
resulting in the resolution of a longstanding environmental problem. We
are working with the author to make some minor changes to clarify that
the responsible party will be a private sector entity designated by the
Henderson Redevelopment Agency to complete assessment, remediation,
reclamation and redevelopment of the Three Kids Mine Project Site.
Policy Rationale for Adjustment of Fair Market Value
The policy rationale behind the provision of the bill which would
obligate the Secretary of the Interior to administratively adjust the
fair market value of the 948 acres of Federal land proposed for
conveyance based on a reasonable approximate estimation of the costs to
investigate and remediate both the Federal land and the 314 acres of
private land included in the overa11 1,262-acre project site.
Manganese is essential to iron and steel production and during the
1940s and 1950s, the Three Kids Mine was one of the primary domestic
sources of manganese in the United States. Historical documents
gathered from the National Archives indicate that the United States was
integrally involved in mining and milling operations at the Three Kids
Mine site during this period. In addition, the United States leased
portions of the private land at the site until 2003 for the storage of
Federal stockpiles of manganese.
In 1942, the Defense Plant Corporation (DPC), a federal
instrumentality, acquired from Manganese Ore Company surface rights to
approximately 446 acres at the site, including most of the now-private
land, for the development of an ore processing mill and related
facilities. The DPC contracted with Manganese Ore Company to construct
the mill. Title to the plant site and mill facilities was vested in the
DPC.
The DPC leased the plant site and mill facilities to another
federal instrumentality, the Metals Reserve Company (MRC), which in
turn entered into contracts with Manganese Ore Company for the
procurement of crude ore, the operation of the mill, and the purchase
of manganese nodule output for national defense purposes. The DPC and
MRC contracts vested the Federal government with rights to approve all
significant aspects of the construction and operation of the mine and
mill, which included the use of large tailings ponds that today contain
several million cubic yards of contaminated waste material up to sixty
feet in depth.
The WWII-era mill was deactivated in 1944, although Federal ore
stockpiles remained at the site. The DPC interests transferred Erst to
the War Assets Administration, which tried unsuccessfully to sell the
mine facilities, and then to the General Services Administration. In
the early 1950s, the mill was updated and the mine and mill were
reactivated by Manganese, Inc. under contracts with the GSA. In 1955,
Manganese, Inc. purchased the real property at the Site that had been
under Federal ownership. Manganese, Inc. continued to mine and
benef1ciate ore for the United States under the GSA contracts until
closure of the mine and mill in 1961. In addition, until 2003 private
land at the site was leased to the GSA and, later, the Defense
Logistics Agency, for the storage of processed manganese nodules under
the Federal strategic materials stockpile program. These mining,
milling, stockpiling, and associated activities resulted in extensive
environmental contamination of the project site, including most of the
now-private land and substantial portions of the Federal land.
In light of the extensive involvement of the United States in
historical mine and mill operations on both the Federal and private
lands at the site, Henderson believes it only appropriate for the
estimated costs of cleaning up the entire site to be addressed by the
Secretary of the Interior in administratively adjusting the fair market
value of the 948 acres of Federal land as would be required under S.
343. It is the assemblage of the Federal land with the private land as
facilitated by the legislation that makes remediation of the entire
site feasible and economically practicable.
______
Statement of Roger Natsuhara, Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Energy,
Installations & Environment) Department of Navy
I write today to request that you introduce the Administration's
legislative withdrawal proposal, which includes reauthorization of two
existing Department of the Navy military land withdrawals, Chocolate
Mountains Aerial Gunnery Range (CMAGR) and Naval Air Weapons Station,
China Lake (NAWSCL), both of which are in California and will expire on
October 31, 2014; and a withdrawal proposal to expand the training
capacity and capability ofthe Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at
Twentynine Palms, California.
These withdrawals are critical to national defense. CMAGR is the
Marine Corps preeminent aerial bombing range and their only aviation
range capable of supporting precision guided munitions. It is also
where Navy Special Warfare units complete their final complex pre-
deployment training. NAWSCL is the Navy's premier weapons test and
evaluation center. The expansion of Twentynine Palms is necessary to
address a critical and documented training and readiness shortfall.
Although Twentynine Palms has served the Marine Corps well since the
1940s, lack of sufficient training space inhibits us from properly
training Marine Expeditionary Brigades, the Marine Corps' preeminent
21st Century fighting force. Successful training ofthis highly
specialized and complex war fighting unit of 15,000 Marines requires
air-ground training on land dedicated to exclusive military use that
allows for simultaneous air and ground live-fire.
Under existing law, only Congress can withdraw public lands,
exceeding 5,000 acres, from the public domain for defense purposes. The
Administration's legislative proposal to extend the CMAGR and NAWSCL
land withdrawals and to withdraw Department of Interior (Dol) lands in
Johnson Valley to expand Twentynine Palms, was included in the
Administration's Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act
legislative proposal and is the joint product of a Department of
Defense and Dol agreement after a more than two year collaborative
process. Failure to withdraw these lands would materially affect
military readiness.
I look forward to working with you and your staff in pursuit of
this important legislation. I pledge the full support of my staff
should you need any information or assistance as this legislation is
considered. Thank you for your continued support.
______
Montana Wilderness Association,
Helena, MT, August 1, 2013.
Hon. Ron Wyden,
Chairman, U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, 304
Dirksen Senate Building, Washington, DC.
Hon. Lisa Murkowski,
Ranking Member, U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources,
304 Dirksen Senate Building, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Murkowski,
On behalf of the Montana Wilderness Association, and our more than
5000 members, thank you for the opportunity to submit this written
testimony in support of S. 364, the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act.
I also want to express my deep gratitude to Senator Baucus for
sponsoring the Heritage Act. For the record, the Montana Wilderness
Association strongly and enthusiastically supports the Heritage Act.
About the Montana Wilderness Association
The mission of the Montana Wilderness Association is to protect
Montana's wilderness heritage, quiet beauty, and outdoor traditions,
now and for future generations. Founded 53 years ago by Montana
hunters, conservationists and small business owners, The Montana
Wilderness Association was established to prevent further loss of
Montana's wilderness heritage. Our founders were instrumental in the
passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964, and the Montana Wilderness
Association subsequently led the fight to win designation for virtually
every wilderness area in the state, including the Scapegoat, Absaroka-
Beartooth, Rattlesnake, Lee Metcalf, Great Bear, and Welcome Creek, as
well as Wild and Scenic designations for the Flathead and Missouri
rivers.
Our members view Montana's remaining wild country as a public trust
that should be managed so Montanans will always have access to great
hunting, fishing, camping under the stars, and quiet mountain trails.
The Rocky Mountain Front
Known as the place in Montana where the Great Plains meet the Rocky
Mountains and where grizzly bears still venture out onto their native
prairie habitat, the Rocky Mountain Front is a wild and rugged land
that provides clean water for nearby communities and habitat for prized
big game animals such as elk and bighorn sheep. By providing some of
the highest quality backcountry experiences and opportunities for
solitude, the Rocky Mountain Front supports a way of life for many
Montanans. Whether it be hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, or just
watching wildlife, the Rocky Mountain Front holds the essence of that
what defines Montana. To put it simply, Montana would not be Montana
without the Rocky Mountain Front.
The backcountry recreation opportunities provided by the Rocky
Mountain Front also have a significant economic impact on local
communities. According to data collected by Montana Fish Wildlife and
Parks over the past five years, sportsmen have been spending $10
million each year as they hunt along the Rocky Mountain Front. It is
the local hotels, restaurants, taverns, grocery stores, and gas
stations that feel the benefits of this $10 million pulse of economic
activity. Protecting the Rocky Mountain Front so backcountry recreation
opportunities remain tomorrow as they do today will ensure the economic
impact of the Rocky Mountain Front is sustained and local communities
benefit well into the future. Protecting the Rocky Mountain Front will
maintain a lifestyle and quality of life that attracts people to
Montana's communities to establish new businesses and raise families as
well as contribute to the current and future economic.
The Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act
Often referred to as a ``made in Montana'' solution, the Heritage
Act is the result of a five-year effort aimed at protecting the wild
backcountry of the Rocky Mountain Front while ensuring livestock
grazing opportunities and maintaining access for hunting, fishing,
horseback riding, hiking, and camping. This effort required eight
public meetings, countless kitchen table discussions, and small group
meetings with local permittees, elected officials, and landowners. This
locally driven collaborative effort resulted in many substantive
changes being made to the Heritage Act. These changes to the Heritage
Act ensure there is a place for a variety of uses and activities on the
Rocky Mountain Front while still protecting the wild backcountry that
makes the Front such a special place for both people and wildlife.
The Heritage Act protects a substantial portion for the Rocky
Mountain Front by designating approximately 67,112 acres of Lewis and
Clark National Forest as additions to the Bob Marshall and Scapegoat
Wilderness areas. In addition, the Heritage Act designates 208,160
acres of Lewis and Clark National Forest and Bureau of Land Management
lands as a Conservation Management Area. In this Conservation
Management Area, The Heritage Act limits the construction of new roads
while ensuring the public use of current motorized routes, which
provide public access for hunting, fishing, biking, and grazing. These
routes are also used to achieve vegetation management objectives such
as thinning, post and pole, and firewood gathering.
The Heritage Act also prioritizes the eradication and prevention of
noxious weeds on approximately 405,272 acres of U.S. Forest Service and
Bureau of Land Management lands along the Rocky Mountain Front.
Prioritizing noxious weed eradication and prevention on public lands
along the Rocky Mountain Front will help to protect adjacent private
ranchlands and ensure important wildlife habitats remain intact.
Through the designation of wilderness additions to the Bob Marshall
and Scapegoat Wilderness Areas, the designation of a Conservation
Management Area on U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management
lands, and the prioritizing of the eradication and prevention of
noxious weeds, the Heritage Act will maintain the wild backcountry and
wildlife habitats that make the Rocky Mountain Front such a wild and
special place to Montanans.
Conclusion
The Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act is a shining example of how
Montanans can put their differences aside and work together to preserve
our state's wild backcountry while meeting the needs of local
communities. The Montana Wilderness Association strongly and
enthusiastically supports S. 364, the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage
Act, and the permanent protections it provides. We urge the Committee
to approve the bill and send it to the floor for consideration by the
Senate.
Sincerely,
______
Statement of Martin Nie, Professor, College of Forestry and
Conservation, University of Montana, on S. 1470
I was asked by Senator Tester to provide written testimony on S.
1470. I want to thank the Senator, and the Subcommittee on Public Lands
and Forests, for the opportunity to do so. I am a professor of natural
resource policy in the College of Forestry and Conservation at the
University of Montana. The following testimony draws from my research
on the problems and opportunities presented by ``place-based'' National
Forest law. I write to neither support or oppose the Forest Jobs and
Recreation Act (FJRA) as currently written. Instead, I ask a number of
questions that deserve serious consideration by the Committee.
There is increasing interest in ``place-based,'' or national
forest-specific legislation. In several places divergent interests are
negotiating how they would like particular forests to be managed. These
proposals often include provisions related to wilderness designation,
economic development, forest restoration, and funding mechanisms, among
others. But unlike more typical collaborative efforts, some groups are
interested in possibly codifying the resulting agreements.
While S. 1470 has garnered national interest, there are place-based
initiatives happening on other National Forests, including the Lewis
and Clark, Colville, Clearwater and Nez Perce, Fremont-Winema, Tongass,
and federal forests in Arizona, among others. Each initiative is
different in significant ways. But all are searching for more durable,
bottom-up, and pro-active solutions to National Forest management. Some
negotiations, like that on Idaho's Clearwater and Nez Perce, may result
in proposed legislation. But others, including arrangements on the
Colville and Fremont-Winema, are not based on forest specific laws but
instead operate through formalized agreements and protocols with the
U.S. Forest Service. This bigger picture is important and I hope the
Committee considers the possible impact of S.1470 on these other
initiatives.
S. 1470 is a bold and constructive response to a dysfunctional
status quo. It advances the debate over National Forest management in
significant ways, by forcing us to address several intractable system-
wide problems. Nonetheless, the legislated approach to National Forest
management is a significant departure from the status quo and it raises
several significant questions. Laid out below are some of the most
important. They go beyond S. 1470, with the assumption that if enacted,
similar place-based forest laws are forthcoming.
1. Would a proliferation of place-based forest laws disunify
the relatively consistent mission and mandate of the USFS?
If replicated more broadly, the place-based approach to forest
management could further disaggregate the National Forest system. Law-
by-law, the National Forests could be governed by forest-specific
mandates, not unlike the unit-specific enabling laws governing the
National Parks and National Wildlife Refuges. A relatively consistent
mission and mandate applicable to the National Forests would be
replaced by more site-specific prescriptive laws detailing how
particular forests must be managed. This might be good for some
forests, but what effect would it have on the National Forest System?
2. Will the FJRA conflict with preexisting Forest Service
mandates, environmental laws, and planning requirements?
Forest-specific laws already codified, like the Tongass Timber
Reform Act and the Herger-Feinstein (Quincy Library) Act, have
engendered more conflict than consensus partly because of how these
laws sometimes fail to fit into the preexisting legal and planning
framework. In these and other cases the USFS is forced to walk a
statutory minefield with legal grenades thrown from all directions. One
way or another, the agency gets sued for either complying with existing
environmental laws or for ostensibly subordinating the new place-based
one. These cases show that the answer to forest management might not be
another law placed on top of myriad others but rather an untangling or
clarification of the existing legal framework.
NEPA is one big unanswered question in S. 1470. The bill requires
the USFS to satisfy its NEPA duties within one year. But without
additional support it is hard to fathom the agency meeting this
deadline, given that it takes the USFS about three years to complete an
EIS. When it comes to meeting NEPA obligations, the USFS needs more
funding, leadership, and institutional support, not more law.
3. Can the FJRA be successfully implemented and how will it
be paid for?
One purpose of S. 1470 is to generate a more predictable flow of
wood products for local mills, thus the bill's timber harvest mandate.
The probability of achieving community stability through forest
management has been debated ad nauseum. Alas, most agree that there are
simply too many uncontrollable impediments to achieving this objective,
like fluctuating housing starts, cheap Canadian imports, vacillating
court decisions, swings in agency budgets, and so on. Nonetheless, S.
1470 is to be admired for its focus on sustainable forests and
communities, and for understanding the benefits of having a functional
timber industry in Montana.
Before proceeding with a controversial legislated harvest mandate,
lawmakers should consider some alternative ways to achieve greater
predictability. This includes an innovative effort on the Colville
National Forest to provide a steadier, sustainable, and less contested
stream of timber for local mills, with accompanying restoration
objectives. In this case, a collaborative group works with the agency
to achieve its objectives via formalized agreement and a mutually
agreed upon decision making protocol.
S. 1470 would be primarily implemented and paid for by using
stewardship contracting. This tool's popularity stems partially from
the highly uncertain congressional appropriations process, a process
that chronically underfunds the USFS and its non-fire related
responsibilities and needed restoration work. But on the Beaverhead-
Deerlodge National Forest, there are serious questions as to whether
there is enough economic value in this lodgepole pine-dominant forest
to pay for the restoration work. As a safety valve, S. 1470 authorizes
spending additional money to meet its purposes, but there is no
guarantee that such funds will be appropriated, or if so, they would
not come from another part of the agency's budget.
The question, then, is what happens if such envisioned funds don't
materialize? Will money be siphoned from other National Forests in
order to satisfy the mandates of S. 1470? Consider, for example, the
White Mountain stewardship project in Arizona. The Government
Accountability Office (GAO) found that this project incurred greater
costs than expected and such costs have ``taken a substantial toll on
the forest's other programs.'' Furthermore, some other fuel reduction
projects were not completed because their funding sources were being
``monopolized'' by the White Mountain project. Other National Forests
in the region also paid a price to service the terms of this contract,
and ``[a]s the region has redirected funds toward the White Mountain
project, these other forests have become resentful of the
disproportionate amount of funding the project has received.''
Several other budget related questions are raised by the possible
replication of place-based forest laws. For example, might the approach
move the National Forests closer to a National Park Service model,
where congressional delegations exercise increased control over a unit
via Committee and purse strings? Will senior congressional delegations
be more successful in securing funding for place-based laws in their
states? Will it create a system of ``haves'' and ``have nots'' in the
National Forest system? And perhaps most important, would these
budgetary situations benefit the National Forest system as-a-whole?
4. What precedent will be set if the RJVA is enacted?
There is a remarkable amount of interest in S. 1470. This is partly
because of the precedent the bill would set by legislating management
of particular National Forests, including a legislated timber supply
requirement. The place-based initiatives referenced above could be
impacted by S. 1470. If the bill passes in its current form, more
groups will seek place-based forest laws in the future, and some of
those proposals would undoubtedly contain some type of a legislated
timber supply mandate. Thus, the FJRA has national implications, and
for this reason it should be scrutinized carefully.
Congress has a history of deferring to state congressional
delegations in wilderness politics. So, for example, if one delegation
defers to Montana's in passing S.1470, Montana's delegation will be
asked to play by the same rules when a different wilderness bill is
being considered. And recent history shows that those proposals may not
be carefully crafted or in the national interest. Potential for abuse
is even more acute if individual forest bills contain special
privileges and exemptions that are not available elsewhere. In this
regard, subsequent efforts in codifying place-based agreements could
have a dangerous snowball effect.
Also legitimate is the fear that if passed, S. 1470 creates a
precedent and possible expectation that future wilderness bills must be
packaged with economic development provisions (among other
nonconforming uses within wilderness areas) if they are to be
politically feasible. And special provisions are often replicated in
wilderness law. Once used, provisions related to such matters as water
rights and buffer areas are regularly stamped onto future wilderness
bills as a matter of course.
To be sure, compromise is inherent in the Wilderness Act, and all
sorts of special exemptions and political deals are written into
wilderness laws with some regularity. But trading wilderness for a
timber harvest mandate is a different beast altogether. The real
question here is not whether it is reasonable to require two National
Forests to mechanically treat 100,000 acres over the next ten years;
but rather what those numbers will look like in other states if all of
a sudden harvest mandates are politically palatable.
5. Why not experiment in more serious fashion?
S. 1470 includes a vague reference to ``adaptive management,'' and
thus an implicit acknowledgement that there are uncertainties inherent
in the bill. In this vein, the bill sets up a monitoring program
whereby the USFS will report to Congress on the progress made in (1)
meeting the bill's timber supply mandate, (2) the cost-effectiveness of
the restoration projects, and (3) whether or not the legislation has
reduced conflict as measured by administrative appeals and litigation.
Not included on the list are specific ecological (non-timber related)
monitoring requirements.
This is a good start. But given the importance of S. 1470, and the
impact it could have on other place-based proposals, why not approach
matters in a more deliberately experimental fashion? This could be
accomplished in different ways but the principles would be the same:
proceed cautiously, try different approaches in different places,
carefully monitor the results, and go from there. These experiments
could be housed within a more structured experimental framework, with
appropriate legal sideboards and oversight, such as that provided by
the recently enacted Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration
Program. Such a legislatively-created framework is one way of ensuring
that future place-based proposals do not become used as a backdoor way
of undermining environmental law and devolving federal lands to self-
selected stakeholders.
If such a framework is not used, I recommend making the purpose of
experimentation more central to S. 1470. This could be done by
strengthening the bill's monitoring and evaluation requirements, to
include other ecological and policy/process considerations. Ecological
monitoring requirements should be mandated.
Changes should also be made to S.1470 to ensure that its ecological
restoration goals are achieved in tandem with its harvest mandate. I
propose a reciprocal or staged stewardship contracting approach whereby
future timber projects cannot proceed until certain restoration
objectives are met; and once met, future timber is released in a sort
of tit-for-tat sequence. This approach will alleviate widespread
concerns that restoration will take a back seat to the bill's more
clearly articulated timber supply mandate.
Another possibility is to carve out some space in the bill to
experiment with different ways of improving the forest planning and
NEPA process. Why not try different approaches to its implementation
and learn lessons from that experience? In doing so, S.1470 could teach
valuable lessons that might be tried elsewhere, and the USFS could be
brought into the process as partners, rather than subjects.
With a more deliberately experimental design, S. 1470 could inform
a larger system-wide look at National Forest law and management. All
sorts of ways in which to reform National Forest management have been
proposed in the past, and most of those proposals focus on systemic
measures imposed on all forests from the top-down. Rarer are proposals
seeking to learn lessons from the bottom-up, and S. 1470 offers such an
opportunity. So do the other place-based initiatives referenced above.
All of these efforts are admirable in their goals to secure broader-
based solutions and conservation strategies. It is my hope that
lawmakers and others carefully study these place-based initiatives as
part of a more structured and comprehensive review of National Forest
law and management.
______
Statement of Thomas J. Cassidy Jr., Vice President for Government
Relations and Policy, National Trust for Historic Preservation
On behalf of our 700,000 members and supporters we respectfully
urge the Committee to support S.404, the Green Mountain Lookout
Heritage Protection Act. The legislation is necessary to keep a
historically significant fire lookout in the Glacier Peak Wilderness
Area of Washington state in light of a court ordering that it be
removed at taxpayer expense.
The Green Mountain Lookout was built by the Civilian Conservation
Corps in 1933 at the top of Green Mountain in the North Cascade
mountains of Washington state. It served as an integral part of the
region's fire detection system until the mid-1980s and as a U.S. Army
aircraft warning site during World War II. Today, it is managed by the
U.S. Forest Service as an asset of the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National
Forest. In 1984 the Green Mountain Lookout was incorporated within the
boundaries of the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area. The structure was
listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 and has been
rehabilitated in recent years by the Forest Service with the diligent
help of local volunteers and a $50,000 federal grant from the Save
America's Treasures Program.
Subsequently, the Forest Service utilized federal funds as well as
thousands of hours of volunteer labor in efforts to stabilize the
Lookout. After the work was completed, however, the agency was sued for
the purported impositions to wilderness values that occurred in the
course of its work to preserve the historic structure. Last year, a
federal court ordered the Forest Service to devise a plan to address
what it found to be illegal repairs to the structure. On May 2, 2013
the agency published a Notice of Intent to prepare an Environmental
Impact Statement that only analyzes options that will remove the
lookout from its historic location. Thus, if the lookout is to be
saved, Congress must act.
Prompt action on this bill will ensure the continued operation and
maintenance of the Green Mountain Lookout in the Glacier Peak
Wilderness Area; without action, the lookout will be removed or
destroyed, and a local wilderness treasure will be lost. S. 404, the
Green Mountain Lookout Heritage Protection Act, is necessary not only
to save an important piece of national history, but to save taxpayers
the estimated $100,000 expense of moving the lookout to a location
outside of the wilderness.
We look forward to assisting you in any way on this issue.
______
The Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act,
August 2, 2013.
Hon. Joe Manchin,
Chairman, Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests and Mining, U.S.
Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Manchin:
On behalf of Montana's hunters, anglers, outfitters, and the
businesses that rely on the hunting and fishing industry, we thank you
for your keen interest in the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act
(S.364). Montana's Rocky Mountain Front (the ``Front'') is a world-
class destination for hunting and fishing in a natural setting of
unparalleled splendor. Flanking the public wildlands are large working
ranches and family farms along with guest ranches; many of these
properties have been passed down from generation to generation.
The Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act is broadly supported by
hunters and anglers in the state. In fact, the total number of `hook
and bullet' clubs, hunting guides, outdoor businesses and wildlife
managers who support the Heritage Act makes up the largest category of
endorsers. Together they represent thousands of Montanans who live,
work, hunt/fish and recreate along the Rocky Mountain Front. These
stakeholders emphatically support the RMFHA for the following reasons:
The Heritage Act was Developed with Hunter and Angler Input
The Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act is a homegrown,
collaborative solution to keep the area like it is for future
generations by ensuring adequate access for both motorized and
non-motorized users and conserving backcountry lands. Hunters
and anglers have been directly involved in developing the bill.
In fact, a recent letter from the Great Falls Chapter of
Safari Club International sums it up:
``We commend the collaborative efforts of the Coalition to
Protect the Rocky Mountain Front, bringing diverse interests to
the table, to discuss future management of our local area. This
is a true local `grassroots' project. The Great Falls Chapter
of Safari Club International offers our continued support to
projects and strategies that maintain and enhance fisheries and
wildlife populations and their habitats, while continuing our
hunting, fishing and recreating heritage in Montana.'' (Letter
on file, April 2013)
Wilderness Lands Provide Valuable Hunting and Fishing
Opportunities. Hunting and fishing is permitted in wilderness
areas and the Heritage Act does not affect state jurisdiction
over fish and wildlife. As savvy hunters and anglers know,
wilderness areas protect important wildlife habitat, and
provide some of the country's best opportunities for hunting
and fishing.
Further, because wilderness areas contain high-quality
habitat, there is much less need for habitat restoration in
wilderness. Although habitat restoration activities are
permissible within wilderness, consistent with the Wilderness
Act, these areas are much lower priority for restoration than
other, more degraded, public land habitats.
Big Game Needs Secure Habitat
First and foremost, the Front is a sportsmen's' paradise; the
landscape provides hunters and anglers the best that Montana
has to offer in terms of wildlife habitat and hunting and
angling opportunities. The RMFHA's designations of Wilderness
and Conservation Management Area along with the emphasis on
habitat protection through noxious weed control and eradication
are complimentary components of the bill. Together, these
provisions provide hunters and anglers a comprehensive
``insurance policy'' that will help maintain healthy, huntable
wildlife and fish populations. There is a reason Montana has
one of the longest and most liberal big game hunting seasons in
the nation and habitat protection provided by the Heritage Act
is key to protecting Montana's hunting and fishing heritage and
keeping local economies in the region strong.
Economic Contribution of Hunting on the Front:
There are very few places left in the world where a hunter
can go after 10 big game species--the Rocky Mountain Front is
one of them. All this hunting opportunity adds up to a lot more
than full freezers and life-long memories, it also adds
significantly to local economies; to the tune of $10 million
that sportsmen and women spent on hunting trips to the Front in
2010.
Along the Rocky Mountain Front, expenditures by hunters and
anglers have held steady through the most recent recession,
making these popular outdoor pursuits a rare bright spot when
compared to the struggles of the broader economy.
According to Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (MTFWP) data,
hunter expenditures along the Front, over a five year period
from 2006 to 2010, have held steady despite the broader
economic challenges facing other industries during the recent
recession.
In real terms, during 2006, at the peak of the last business
cycle, sportsmen hunting along the Front spent $9.8 million;
growing to $10.4 million in 2008 in the middle of the
recession; and falling only slightly in 2010 to $10.1 million.
These impressive numbers show that the high quality of the
hunting resources on the Rocky Mountain Front is known not only
to local residents but also to hunters from across the region
and the country. In 2010 alone, MTFWP measured more than 90,000
hunter days on its districts along the Front.
According to MTFWP most hunters visit the Front for upland
game birds, deer, and elk while a smaller number of sportsmen
hunted antelope, big horn sheep, moose, and mountain goats. In
2010, sportsmen hunting upland game birds spent more than $4
million and those hunting deer and elk spent more than $5
million.
Senator Manchin, support for the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act
is strong in Montana because the bill will ensure that the Front that
Montanan's cherish will stay like it is today for future sportsmen and
women of Montana and the nation.
Again, we thank you for your willingness to hear from hunters and
anglers throughout Montana about the Rocky Mountain Front Act and we
look forward to working with you to ensure the passage of this worthy
bill. Please contact me should you have any questions.
Sincerely,
______
Statement of Steve Moyer, Vice President for Government Affairs, Trout
Unlimited, Arlington, VA, on S. 37
On behalf of Trout Unlimited (TU) and its 145,000 members, I write
in support of S. 37, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act and S. 364, the
Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act, and thank you for scheduling a
hearing to consider these bills. S. 37 will permanently protect nearly
one million acres of Montana's spectacular backcountry and establish
670,000 acres of Wilderness, the first new Wilderness designations in
Montana in over twenty-five years. The management projects spurred by
this bill will focus on restoration of degraded forest lands and
reduction of overall road density and the legislation strives to
protect the integrity of roadless areas while complying with all
existing laws, policies, regulations, and forest plans. Further,
projects enabled by S. 37 will create jobs in forest restoration,
provide fiber for our timber partners in local mills, and benefit
Montana communities by reducing hazardous fuels in the wildland-urban
interface.
More than 2,000 TU members live and work in communities around the
national forest and BLM areas affected by S. 37, including Butte,
Anaconda, Deer Lodge, Sheridan, Twin Bridges, Silver Star, Philipsburg,
West Yellowstone, Cameron, Dillon, Ennis, Bozeman, Missoula, Drummond,
Ovando, Bonner, Whitehall, Libby and Troy. Most members in these areas
are long-time or native Montanans and they fish, hunt, hike, camp,
drive, snowmobile, ski, ride horses, and collect firewood, berries and
Christmas trees from these lands. A number have livelihoods directly
tied to these lands, working as guides and outfitters, loggers, ranch
hands, staffers in natural resource agencies or operators of small
businesses.
More than seven years ago, spurred by the recognition that National
Forests in western Montana were not living up to their potential to
support healthy fish and wildlife and provide jobs and recreational
opportunities for local communities, TU and other local stakeholders
came together to develop a shared vision for forest management. The
resulting compromises provided the basis for an important part of S.
37, which would protect fish and wildlife habitat through the
designation of 670,000 acres of new Wilderness and more than 300,000
acres of special management and national recreation areas, restore
degraded habitat through the removal of old roads and blocked culverts,
reduce the risk of wildfire through targeted fuel reduction projects,
and create jobs for local communities through stewardship contracting.
If implemented, the bill could yield significant benefits to fish and
wildlife, water resources, and nearby communities.
TU has a long record of working with farmers, ranchers, industries,
and government agencies to protect and restore trout and salmon
watersheds nationwide. Drawing on these cooperative experiences, we
have worked to develop the solutions contained in S. 37 with a diverse
group of stakeholders in Montana. Bruce Farling, Montana TU's Executive
Director, has led TU's efforts on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge, and TU
volunteer Tim Linehan has been a leader in the Kootenai initiative. The
partners in the region have done courageous, outstanding work. TU
strongly supports S. 37, we deeply appreciate the work of Senator
Tester and his staff for introducing it, and we urge the Senate to
support it.
Background on the Development of S. 37
In an August 14, 2009 speech in Seattle, Agriculture Secretary Tom
Vilsack stated that Americans must move away from polarization and
``.work towards a shared vision-a vision that conserves our forests and
the vital resources important to our survival while wisely respecting
the need for a forest economy that creates jobs and vibrant rural
communities.'' Through a collaborative grassroots effort dating back
several years, a broad range of partners has done just that, and the
resulting vision has provided the basis for the legislation introduced
by Senator Tester.
Prior to this collaborative process the forests were mired in
stalemate that failed to protect and restore fish and wildlife.
Wilderness has not been designated in the state of Montana in over 25
years, despite the broad recognition of the need to protect quality
fish and wildlife habitat and public support to do so. There are
hundreds of impassible culverts on the forests that fragment trout
habitat. Dense networks of obsolete roads restrict elk security and
movement, and contribute heavy loads of sediment to streams.
Due in part to these impacts, native salmonids, some of which are
listed or candidates for listing under the Endangered Species Act,
occupy but a small fraction of their historic range. Decades of fire
suppression has produced homogenous even-aged stands of forests, which
along with climate change and the pine bark beetle infestation increase
the risk of unnaturally intense fire. The Forest Jobs and Recreation
Act will enable the Forest Service to address these long-neglected
needs.
The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act results from three grassroots
efforts in which TU in Montana was a principal in two efforts
(Beaverhead-Deerlodge and Three Rivers) and a supporter in the third
(Blackfoot-Clearwater). The bill is Montana-made, and it has generated
unprecedented consensus among many Montanans of different stripes that
validates the notion that collaboration is vital to developing long-
term popular support of public lands management.
The Fish and Wildlife Benefits of the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act
Now more than ever, as changes in climate increase the challenges
faced by forest managers and ecosystems, it is imperative that national
forests are managed in ways that promote resiliency. By federally
protecting the highest quality landscapes and then reconnecting them to
adjacent areas through watershed restoration, S. 37 will help to
maintain abundant fish and wildlife populations while providing
multiple benefits to human communities through good paying jobs. This
can be done through the following actions:
1. Protect the highest quality lands and waters.
The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act would protect as federal
Wilderness 670,000 acres of undeveloped country in 25 areas, as well as
create over 300,000 acres of special management and national recreation
areas. By doing so, it will protect crucial sources of clean, cold
water as well as essential habitats for wild and native trout in the
headwaters of some of the nation's most storied trout waters, including
Rock Creek and the Madison, Beaverhead, Ruby, Jefferson, Big Blackfoot,
Clark Fork and Kootenai rivers. Protection of Wilderness and special
management areas in the bill will also help secure habitats for Canada
lynx, a listed species, as well as wolverines and mountain goats--all
species that need undisturbed habitats. Finally, it will provide secure
habitat in Montana's greatest elk hunting region.
The protection of high quality habitat, along with the reconnection
and restoration projects described below, will help secure populations
of one ESA listed fish species, bull trout, and three additional fish
species that are candidates for listing: westslope cutthroat trout,
arctic grayling, and interior redband trout. All of these species now
inhabit only a small portion of their historical ranges on the lands in
the bill. The Wilderness and special area designations serve as
critical sources for fish that are necessary for re-populating restored
habitats downstream.
2. Reconnect landscapes so that fish and wildlife can survive
habitat disturbances.
Restoration projects will be focused on areas of high road density.
Obsolete road networks in Montana forests cause habitat fragmentation
that prevents fish from dispersing to intact habitats when faced with
disturbances such as fire, drought or intense storms. The Forest Jobs
and Recreation Act would address the problems caused by these road
networks by (1) prohibiting the construction of new, permanent roads;
and (2) requiring that road densities be reduced. (For example, in the
Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, the road standard is to leave
post-project landscapes with a road density that averages no more than
1.5 linear road mile per square-mile.) The scientifically based
standard recommended by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and
Parks for elk security is no more than 1.5 linear miles of road per
square-mile, which is the minimum needed to provide enough security for
elk so that Montana can maintain its best-in-the-nation 5-week general
big game hunting season. The Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and
the Seeley Lake Ranger District include some of the most productive
lands anywhere in Montana for large, trophy elk. The road standards in
S. 37 will also protect high quality habitat and improve wildlife
security for a host of popular game and non-game species, including
mule deer, black and grizzly bears and mountain goats.
The road standards will also greatly benefit fish by reducing
erosion-prone road surfaces and road crossing structures such as
culverts that are currently harming habitat and impeding movement of
fish into and out of important habitats. Recent agency surveys
indicate, for example, that at least 240 road culverts on the
Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest are currently complete or partial
barriers to fish movement, and the frequency of road crossing barriers
on the Seeley Lake and Three Rivers Districts are even more severe. The
result is reduced habitat availability for species such as bull trout
and cutthroat trout. The restoration projects enabled by this
legislation will improve habitat connectivity by removing roads and
replacing or removing blocked culverts.
3. Engage communities in restoration.
The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act directs the Forest Service to
use stewardship contracting to meet vegetation management goals, which
ensures that the value of trees removed is invested back onto the same
landscape in habitat restoration, elimination of pollution sources,
protection of key habitats from livestock, or suppression of weeds on
winter ranges, as well as improvement of recreational features such as
trails used by hunters, anglers and other recreationists.
By focusing stewardship projects on previously developed landscapes
with high densities of roads, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act will
help address impairments on landscapes that are prone to unnatural
rates of erosion, and related effects such as exotic weed invasion,
after fires. When large fires sweep through developed landscapes such
as those on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest or the Three
Rivers Ranger District, they significantly increase the risk of erosion
from road systems after snowmelt or severe rainstorms, and subsequent
colonization by exotic weeds. Similarly, post-fire storms can block
road culverts with debris and mud, causing these structures to fail and
resulting in channel scouring and large amounts of sediment entering
into trout streams. Fire is a natural part of these forest systems. In
fact, on undeveloped landscapes it can play a beneficial role, one that
fish and wildlife have adapted to for eons. On densely roaded forests,
the effects of fire can cause intense erosion, water quality
degradation, and extirpation of local populations of fish and wildlife-
not to mention the risk to drinking water sources of nearby human
communities.
TU Supports S. 364, the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act
The Rocky Mountain Front is one of the most diverse and wildlife-
rich landscapes in the lower forty-eight, drawing hunters, anglers and
recreationists from throughout the West, including many TU members.
Outdoor recreation supported by public lands on the Rocky Mountain
Front is a significant economic engine, with hunting trips alone
contributing over $10 million to local communities in 2010.
As with the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, the Rocky Mountain
Front Heritage Act is a homegrown, collaborative solution for conflicts
in public land management. S. 364 will ensure adequate access for both
motorized and non-motorized users, conserve backcountry lands through
the designation of 67,000 acres of Wilderness, establish 208,000 acres
as Conservation Management Areas, and address the ever-growing issue of
noxious weeds that put both wildlife and ranches at risk. TU supports
provisions in S.364 that will help to keep the Rocky Mountain Front
like it is for future generations and we urge the Senate to pass the
bill.
Conclusion
The collaborative effort undertaken by local Montana groups is on
the verge of overcoming years of controversy and delay to protect and
restore Montana forests in ways that benefit fish and wildlife
resources and local communities. There are challenges ahead, but S. 37
represents a new way of doing business for the Forest Service, and we
urge the committee to pass it.
TU supports S. 37 and S. 364, and urges the Committee to approve
the bills and to send them on to the floor for consideration by the
Senate.
Sincerely,