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▶ 0:14:19Are committee. -- thank you for appearing before our committee. The fix our forests act is the first major standalone forestry bill congress has debated in more than two decades. This is why we look forward to your testimony.
▶ 0:14:39We also appreciate the bipartisan work of senator hickenlooper, padilla, senator curtis, and senator sheehy to introduce a senate version of the bill. In the country earlier this year wildfires raged across los angeles killing dozens of people and devastating homes and businesses. This spring wildfires threatened homes and communities in the carolinas and georgia.
▶ 0:15:05Rising temperatures, drier summers, longer wildfire season send earlier snow melts are driving the fires as for depart from their historical conditions. There are growing threats across the nation, threats to forests in other ways. And in the last farm bill I supported improvement to the good neighbor authority, a bipartisan effort, and in the execution of vegetation management project to reduce wildfire risks.
▶ 0:15:34Now, the size and scope of the fires and the level of need for forest restoration makes it clear we must do more to improve current tools like the good neighbor authority and invest more in wildfire prevention. In recent years I supported additional permitting flexibilities and investment in wildfire risk prevention. 4.2 8 million acres were treated for wildfire last year alone.
▶ 0:16:02Unfortunately, we are seeing from this administration cuts to the forest service. The recently released bread -- budget proposes deep reductions in national for system funding, popular programs that strengthen state and private capacity for managing forest, and for true research.
▶ 0:16:21Eliminating this successful bipartisan forest landscape respiration program is something the fix our forests act seeks to improve. These concerning proposals impact the lives and livelihoods. Equally concerning, the forest service reportedly lost more than 4000 employees since january.
▶ 0:16:46While many wild line -- wildland firefighters were exempted from workforce reduction initiatives I am concerned some forest employees with a so-called red cards have departed the agency. These employees are crucial. Funding is another important consideration as the committee discuss this bill. In its latest update on the wildfire crisis strategies implementation the forest service reported in some areas there is more work to do than workforce capacity.
▶ 0:17:16Regardless of what the usta calls its wildfire strategy what remains the same is the need for tree thinning and prescribed fire to occur on some acres. The new wildfire intelligence center fires shed assessment increasing the pace and scale of reforestation work. All of these demand resources. We all agree more active forest management is needed. We must make sure we have the resources to do it and that we keep the employees to do it.
▶ 0:17:51Thank you, Mr. french, for being here. We are pleased to there has been such good work done on a bipartisan basis. I am sure some of our colleagues will be here soon. Now I will introduce you, Mr. french, or should we wait? Mr. french serves as the acting associate chief for the U.S. forest service at usda.
▶ 0:18:13Prior to that he served as the deputy chief of the national forest system where he was responsible for policy oversight and direction for natural resource management and public service delivery programs across 193 million acres of forest and grassland in the national forest system. He has had a 34 year career at usda in a number of positions in the forest service and his testimony today will be invaluable.
▶ 0:18:42Thank you for being here this afternoon, Mr. french. You are recognized for your statement and then we look forward to hearing from chairman boozman.
▶ 0:18:57Mr. French: Thank you ranking member klobuchar and members of the community. I am the associate chief of the forest service and I appreciate the opportunity to provide the perspective of the usda on the fix our forests act. Our forests are facing uncharacteristically severe wildfires, insect and disease outbreaks, invasive species, and many other stressors.
▶ 0:19:25Mr. French: Though the forest service has been working diligently with the resources and authorities it has been given, there is still much being done to improve the health and productivity of our nations forests.
▶ 0:19:43Mr. French: Helped the agency take immediate action to mitigate risk, protect public health and safety, and critical infrastructure, support local and rural economies, and mitigate threats to natural resources on natural 4 -- national forest system land.
▶ 0:19:59Mr. French: This in works to address these issues -- in the senate draft works to address these issues as well as other programs and amendments for existing authorities compiling several separate bills related to wildfire, forest health, forest management, and other provisions. Usda supports the bill and wants to continue to work with the subcommittee on several changes.
▶ 0:20:23Mr. French: Usda strongly supports supporting deeper procedures under the environmental policy act and expanding categorical inclusions to reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health. To expedite the implementation for a high priority hazards proposed in section 213 we encourage the committee to establish the categorical exclusion statutorily rather than directing the secretary to do so within a year.
▶ 0:20:51Mr. French: Usda reports the proposed fix to the problematic cottonwood decision and would like to work with the committee on federal partners on technical changes to address this issue once and for all. Usda supports provisions of the collaborative tools in title I, subtitle b. We support the changes to the good neighbor authority and would support adding a provision that would allow retained at proceeds to be used for the construction of roads as we saw in the house draft.
▶ 0:21:19Mr. French: In addition we support extending the maximum links of stewardship and result contracting projects from 10 euros to 20 years as we see in section 112. Further, we support raising the threshold at which timber sales must be advertised and encourage the committee to add a provision to make annual increases to the threshold to account for inflation. Usda sees prescribed fire as a critically important tool to support wildfire risk reduction and forest management.
▶ 0:21:49Mr. French: We support the subtitle on prescribed fire as it would support our work to reduce the risk wildfires pose to our communities and resources. Specifically, the subtitle would strengthen our fire workforce by streamlining certification requirements and increasing interoperability with nonfederal partners, as well as offering a prescribed manager's liability protection. We would be able to strengthen our partnerships with a variety of entities through the new cooperative agreement and contracts authorized by this section.
▶ 0:22:19Mr. French: We want to work with the committee to clarify a few sections including on the use of pile burning and the nexus prescribed fire has with regulatory compliance print lastly, though usda is largely supportive of the fix our forests act we don't support containerized system in our response under section 306 given firefighter safety and other operational concerns.
▶ 0:22:45Mr. French: Chairman boozman, ranking member klobuchar, other ranking members of this committee, thank you for the opportunity to share usda's views on the legislation. I look forward to your questions.
▶ 0:23:02Chair Boozman: Thank you Mr. french and senator klobuchar for getting us off to a good start. We are here to review s 1462, the fix our forests act commonly referred to as fofa and I welcome chris french of the U.S. forest service for being here today. We welcome you selling your insight.
▶ 0:23:33Chair Boozman: Members of staff have invested time and effort to bring the legislation in front of the committee today and I want to thank my college senator curtis, senator curtis, senator who couldn't -- senator hickenlooper and senator sheehy for developing this bipartisan senate bill and I want to thank senator marshall and senator bennet for your work as chair and ranking member of the subcommittee regarding the hearing you convened on march on hr 471.
▶ 0:24:04Chair Boozman: The house fix our forests bill. Finally on -- I want to thank my final an -- my subtle arkansan bruce westerman who along with scott peterson of california led an effort to construct an effort on the house floor in january of this year. We know that wildfires are indifferent to federal, state, tribal, and private property line or political subdivisions.
▶ 0:24:37Chair Boozman: The fix our forests act provides us with a unique bipartisan opportunity to modernize and right side some of the tools and processes our federal land management agencies, states, counties, tribes, rural and urban communities, and private partners across the country need to mitigate the frequency and intensity of catastrophic wildfire, while helping keep our forests healthy and working for generations to come.
▶ 0:25:08Chair Boozman: Similarly, the house passed legislation s 1462 identifies and prioritizes the most far landscape and prioritizes federal land grant management agencies with improved authorities and technologies to mitigate those risks as exponentially as is possible. It enhances the federal governments public-private partnership authorities to group -- to increase the pace and scale of the work needed on the ground.
▶ 0:25:36Chair Boozman: S 1462 rectifies a certain decisions to mitigate frivolous litigation and remove duplicate this review process -- duplicitous review processes for projects on the national forest system lands.
▶ 0:26:00Chair Boozman: The legislation elevates the critical need of to incentivize innovation and resilience in our nations forests by prioritizing initiatives like bio share, nursery capacity, and white oak restoration, reflecting the bipartisan efforts and ideas to mitigate the frequency and intensity of catastrophic wildfire.
▶ 0:26:23Chair Boozman: I am pleased to members of the committee will have this opportunity for -- to further explore fofa and hear from the forest service on how the legislation will reduce catastrophic wildfires and improve forest health. I am grateful for the work our products have done on both sides of the capital that brings us to this point.
▶ 0:26:45Chair Boozman: I look forward to working with my colleagues through the committee process before the end of this work period to deliver these essential improvements and modernized tools to our federal land management agencies. With that, we will start our questions. If I can find them. Ok.
▶ 0:27:18Chair Boozman: I need all of the help I can get here. Mr. french, can you please help the committee again. -- or, can you please help the committee gain a full understanding of the agency's use of categorical exclusions and what actions must still be taken to use some regardless of size?
▶ 0:27:42Chair Boozman: How will the categorical exclusions in s 1462 help advance the pace and scale of forest management? Should congress consider additional, or even increasing categorical exclusions?
▶ 0:28:01Mr. French: Thank you, senator. The categorical exclusion is one of the ways you comply with the national environmental policy act. It does not exempt you from the act. It is an approach for documenting and being transparent to the public about what the effects are of the project you will do. It is for projects which we have found to be -- or congress has found to be, routinely nonsignificant.
▶ 0:28:32Mr. French: For a project that might be nsidered significant, we might look at an environmental impact statement. So eight ce -- a ce is a project that has been found to be nonsignificant and we are disclosing that through the categorical exclusion process. You have to comply with the national historic preservation act, the clean water act, the clean air act, and at the endangered species act.
▶ 0:29:01Mr. French: You have to be regulated and go through the processes with those agencies on any of those projects.
▶ 0:29:12Chair Boozman: Mr. french can you explain how frivolous litigation has slowed down the ability of the forest service to conduct proper forest management? And how this legislation would alleviate these delays?
▶ 0:29:25Mr. French: Litigation, especially in certain parts of the country, and a lot of additional process and analysis to the project that we do. I will give you a few examples. The most litigated areas we have in the national forest system are up in montana, idaho, region one, california, oregon, and washington.
▶ 0:29:51Mr. French: These areas, we generally find the level of analysis and disclosure we do through is considerably longer and more intense than we do in other locations because we are defending ourselves from litigation we get on vegetation management and fuels reduction. This will add to the cost of every project.
▶ 0:30:20Mr. French: It generally doubles the cost it takes us to deliver let's say a board foot from an area that is not litigated than to an area that is litigated. It adds considerable burden in terms of timeframe.
▶ 0:30:35Mr. French: For a community looking for us to perform a hazardous fuels reduction prague -- project in and around their community we may propose it and be willing to implement it within a year and a half but if it goes under litigation we may not be able to implement it for 3-4 years or longer.
▶ 0:30:59Chair Boozman: Can you help the committee understand why, despite limited emergency authority provided in prior legislation, enactment of fofa and greater certainty at the agency is necessary?
▶ 0:31:12Mr. French: Fofa does a few things for us. One, it recognizes the size of the problem we have across the national forest system in terms of the and forest health and appropriately size and the project and authorities we have to the problem at hand. We are having fire sometimes implementing one million acres. We have fires that are 100,000 acres that are no longer considered exceptional.
▶ 0:31:39Mr. French: The work we have to do to both prevent those and respond after is no longer something that is 200 50 acres, or even 3000 acres. It is much grander and larger than that if we need to be effective.
▶ 0:31:57Mr. French: Fofa recognizes that and puts together a set of tools for us for how we plan our work and how to do it quickly and it puts it in statute so it isn't as susceptible to litigation.
▶ 0:32:09Chair Boozman: Senator klobuchar.
▶ 0:32:11Sen. Klobuchar: The fix our forests act improves the good neighbor and a stewardship contract priorities that leverage state, tribal, and industry partners to achieve more forest restoration and I have long championed improvement in these tools, which are priority for my and senator's same state were active forest management is -- they often
▶ 0:32:47Sen. Klobuchar: Confuse senator baldwin and senator smith, another story -- to enhance the health of minnesota forests. How will changes to good neighbor authority and storage of contracting provide more long-term certainty to forest service partners and assist forest restoration efforts, understanding that you might want some changes to the bill or there might be other changes proposed. But talk about that issue.
▶ 0:33:10Mr. French: Forest management across this country is a collaborative effort between local, state, and federal agencies, especially for us. We have found the good neighbor tool to be exceptionally helpful working with state agencies to implement forest management work on national forest system land. It allows us to essentially do a lot more, and more efficiently and effectively given the staffing we have.
▶ 0:33:35Mr. French: The changes being proposed here recognize the cough to go to the states. They can use the receipts to fund the programs they are doing on federal land. Otherwise, they are just getting limited resources.
▶ 0:33:54Sen. Klobuchar: As I noted in the president's budget -- and I don't expect you to comment on that, proposed cuts to national forest system management staffing and facilitate state and private and tribal forestry assistance and research including eliminating a program that has reduced wildfire risk across 5 million acres. Then, part of the budget notes there will be a shift to the state.
▶ 0:34:16Sen. Klobuchar: Has the usda evaluated if states have the capacity and resources to assume a greater role in forest management?
▶ 0:34:25Mr. French: We are in constant discussions and collaborations with the state across the country. We just sat down last week and talked with them about better ways for us to work together to share capacity. It is mixed from state to state. They have different capacity. Some of the changes associated with fofa I think actually gives them the tools they need to bring that up.
▶ 0:34:51Mr. French: For us, we have found the work we do with counties, tribes, and states through good neighbor to be exceptionally helpful, especially when we have limited capacity of our own.
▶ 0:35:04Sen. Klobuchar: Last month senator heinrich and I sent a letter to the usda expressing concerns and raising questions about potential workforce reductions at the forest service and recently we received a response. But I am looking forward to more information on workforce reduction efforts and the funding and hiring freezes at the forest service. We all know that these workers are critical. Mr. french, how are you planning for potential staffing cuts to ensure all these major responses continue to be met?
▶ 0:35:33Sen. Klobuchar: Are you concerned about losing employees that hold so card -- so-called red cards that allow them to respond to fires?
▶ 0:35:41Mr. French: Our highest priority now -- and we just sat down with our leadership team and assessed changes that have happened in our workforce and the changes we have seen our losses we have had for people that were red carded to help with fire. Fire is incredibly integrated across the 5 -- forest service with not just primary firefighters, but thousands of employees that contribute and help especially during that season.
▶ 0:36:10Mr. French: We have assessed what that looks like. We have prioritized response to wildfire across the agency to be the number one priority for all employees. So, as we go into the season, we are able to activate, whether it is in support of the logistics associated with a fire or deliberating for preparedness on the line. We are working closely with interagency partners. We are providing for how we would fill in spaces we need.
▶ 0:36:45Mr. French: It will take an all hands approach until we rebuild some of the skill sets.
▶ 0:36:50Sen. Klobuchar: How would additional resources for programs like watershed condition framework or water source protection programs help the forest service meet the goals it has, especially with changes under the fix our forests act?
▶ 0:37:10Mr. French: Everybody knows the forest service wasn't founded primarily around the ability to deliver clean water to america and a sustainable flow of timber. So, the focus we have on it delivering healthy watersheds, the funding that goes there helps us expand and maintain that.
▶ 0:37:27Mr. French: We know right now, when we have a wildfire that is, like I said, hundreds of thousands of acres or a million acres, the consequences of sediment flow, the consequences of water delivery to systems downstream are so consequential.
▶ 0:37:46Sen. Klobuchar: Ok.
▶ 0:37:47Mr. French: Anything we can do to fix that is helpful.
▶ 0:37:50Sen. Klobuchar: Last question. Will the forest service be able to continue treating more acres when the additional funding provided in recent years is no longer available?
▶ 0:37:58Mr. French: You are specifically referring to the supplemental funds we got through I I ja?
▶ 0:38:08Sen. Klobuchar: Yes. Talking about treating acres against wildfire.
▶ 0:38:12Mr. French: We have invested a lot of those funds, so they will be able to provide work overtime with a lot of partners now. We should see that continue for a little while. But essentially, we are going to have to change our business model for how we are doing some of that work if we are going to maintain the acres we are doing now. We will have to depend more heavily on private partnerships and on states to do some of that work because the funding levels want to be the same.
▶ 0:38:41Sen. Klobuchar: Thank you.
▶ 0:38:43Chair Boozman: Senator marshall.
▶ 0:38:44Sen. Marshall: Welcome, Mr. french to the agriculture committee. I think you will find it is not only brighter, but much friendlier than the enr committee. I want to talk about our rngr support act. This is legislation senator hickenlooper and I introduced before.
▶ 0:39:10Sen. Marshall: Our bill included a dedicated funding mechanism through the reforestation trust fund so we would not diverge resources from other essential programs. Do you agree using the reforestation trust offers a sustainable path to the bill without impacting other critical programs?
▶ 0:39:32Mr. French: As far as I have read so far, yes.
▶ 0:39:37Sen. Marshall: Has the U.S. forest service provided technical assistance on how to implement rngr without pulling from existing private and state forestry funding?
▶ 0:39:50Mr. French: I believe so. I will have to get back to you.
▶ 0:39:52Sen. Marshall: Is the agency open to state representation on the wildfire intelligence center board, as is the case with other interagency entities in the national multi agency coordinating group and the national wildfire coordinating group?
▶ 0:40:09Mr. French: Absolutely. Wildfire is interagency. It is a local, county, state, and federal response. The only way to do this effectively is with that representation, that intelligence center. >> -- Sen.
▶ 0:40:28Mr. French: Marshall: has it been your experience -- or do they have the potential, a mill, whether a paper mill or a lumber mill, do they have the potential to contribute to the proper management of forests?
▶ 0:40:43Mr. French: Absolutely. Having a thriving forest products sector is essential for us to be able to reduce wildland fire risk across the country and provide jobs for local economies. So, essentially, what is happening, especially throughout most of the west is when we have been putting out our fires and removing fires we just have lots more trees than we ever had and those trees are competing for water resources. They are dying. They are affected by insects and disease.
▶ 0:41:14Mr. French: So is sending those -- thinning those is important for their health and for reducing wildfires. The level of wildfires we can manage, high, catastrophic, 100 acre wildfires are devastating. The forest products industry is a diversified, integrated industry that allows us to treat those lands so they are more healthy and they reduce risk.
▶ 0:41:42Mr. French: And at a level that is more reasonable to the american taxpayer. Because you are able to produce a product to do the work where you don't have to pay as much per acre.
▶ 0:41:52Sen. Marshall: We don't have any paper mills or timber mills in kansas. I'm not familiar with that industry. They rent part of the forest and then you are able to take the money's and do good things with them?
▶ 0:42:05Mr. French: We essentially offer timber or biomass to forest products industry, whether they are making dimensional lumber or burning it for energy production. We will operate three sales, timber sales. The revenues from that go back to things like reforestation. It goes back to doing other work on the landscape, like habitat improvement at the treasury. And, the county for their school funds.
▶ 0:42:36Mr. French: We also offer it through what is called stewardship agreements where we trade the value of the timber through other work that can be done and we do it through good neighbor agreements where we allow states to implement the work on our behalf or tribes, or local or county. There is a variety of mechanisms we use to essentially remove that material.
▶ 0:42:58Sen. Marshall: Have the number of mills in the country decreased? Are they staying the same? What has led to the stability or instability?
▶ 0:43:08Mr. French: The forest products industry has significantly constricted since my time of working with the agency. It is based on a number of things. Market conditions, housing markets. It can be based on softwood lumber coming in from other places like canada. It can be based on not having local supply. That is usually the issue that can be associated with us.
▶ 0:43:36Mr. French: We generally supply around 6% of the softwood in the U.S.. For some males, they have -- mills, they have a very diversified area drawn from private land, state land, and then other areas are very dependent on federal land. When there is a decrease on what we offer it affects their ability to stay open.
▶ 0:43:57Sen. Marshall: Thank you. I yield back.
▶ 0:44:01Chair Boozman: Senator smith.
▶ 0:44:02Sen. Smith: Thank you, Mr. french for being with the committee today and thank you chad boseman and ranking member for holding the hearing today. Before my questions, I would like to highlight two small forestry street and man's issues which are very important to minnesota that I am working on.
▶ 0:44:18Sen. Smith: First, my bipartisan time bladder neck act -- my bipartisan act that injures counties in far northern minnesota receive a source of revenue for hosting federal forests. They have done this for decades. This is a small bill with a technical fix that would make a huge difference for these counties. It passed the senate last year.
▶ 0:44:48Sen. Smith: We need to move it again this year. The second is the house bill, also bipartisan, that passed earlier this year and would basically facilitate a land exchange between the chippewa national forest and land held by this family lodge, bowen lodge. The exchange is supported by the local community and the local tribal nation, leech lake, the band of ojibway. Since it has passed the house it needs a path in the senate.
▶ 0:45:17Sen. Smith: I think it would be smart for us to figure out if we can work together with the forest service on a lands package in this committee before too long. I think that would just make sense. That if we are working on this forest management legislation, that we find a way to move some noncontroversial and not expensive bills at the same time. I wanted to raise that.
▶ 0:45:40Chair Boozman: I appreciate that and we understand totally. I think every member of congress understands these things are much more difficult than they should be. We will help in any way we can.
▶ 0:45:52Sen. Smith: Thank you. I appreciate your attention, Mr. chair. Mr. french, I want to ask you about an issue, a minnesota issue. I have heard from our folks in minnesota that the department of government efficiency is blocking contracts to distribute seedlings for quote reforestation in the chippewa and its national forest in minnesota and ours -- as I am sure you know the seedlings are harvested in the next generation
▶ 0:46:24Sen. Smith: Of trees that support our timber industry. The work is time sensitive, especially in places like minnesota, where the planning window depends on extraneous factors like weather. Mr. french, can you tell me now or respond to me when you can, what does the forest service plan to do to address these delays and make sure seedling plantings can occur on a schedule that will preserve forest health?
▶ 0:46:54Mr. French: For all of the contracts and other mechanisms being reviewed through the office of government inefficiency, we are batching those into priority things like disaster response, things that are time sensitive like reforestation and seedlings, working very closely with them to get them moving on through the review process.
▶ 0:47:15Sen. Smith: Can we follow up on the specific issue and what we can do to make sure this happens?
▶ 0:47:21Mr. French: Of course.
▶ 0:47:22Sen. Smith: Thank you. The second issue is related to the sponging off. -- spongy moth. Last month the minnesota department of agriculture canceled plans to treat our forest against this invasive species because federal funding did not come through. They cause millions of dollars in damage to forests across the eastern U.S. and now they are moving westward.
▶ 0:47:48Sen. Smith: As you may know, they eat all the leaves off the trees and it kills the trees and increases the likelihood of wildfire. We are about to miss the small window of time where we can treat our forests where the caterpillars are still small. This is a problem that puts livelihoods and our entire forests at risk.
▶ 0:48:11Sen. Smith: How does the forest service plan to address forest health and wildfire risk for invasive species like this when we are seeing funds and personnel being cut?
▶ 0:48:26Mr. French: In terms of the funds you are talking about, essentially states dealing with forest health issues, we are advocating across the country for the importance of addressing forest health issues and the role the funds play.
▶ 0:48:41Sen. Smith: So, that advocacy is useful, of course. But advocacy without the funds to accomplish the work won't accomplish the work. I won't put you on the spot because I understand the position you are in. But do you agree we need to figure out how to pay for this?
▶ 0:48:59Mr. French: In the 26 budget, the president has released, they made in the policy oversight about how they want to see those funds very clear. In the current set of funds, they are going through reviews through the office of government efficiency. We continue to live -- to deliver on those we have already made commitments on and advocate for why they are important for broader forest health.
▶ 0:49:27Sen. Smith: This is a conversation that will continue. To me, this is an example of something that is very economically sensible. To make this investment to protect forests so we get an economic benefit from the forests down the road. Thank you, Mr. chair.
▶ 0:49:42Chair Boozman: Senator holden.
▶ 0:49:45Sen. Hoeven: I don't want to spend it too much time on it but I want to tell the senator from west virginia that roger marshall did just to take off on his scooter. In case his staff wanted to get out there and commandeer it. I tried to stop him, but he pushed me down. First off, Mr. french, thank you here you for the work y.
▶ 0:50:15Sen. Hoeven: You have been to our state a number of times and you have been responsive and taken action and we appreciate that very much. Though in regards to this issue, wildfires, we always think of them as to forest fires. We had over 100,000 acres burned in north dakota on the grasslands and it not only killed cattle, but two people. The grassland fires are a real thing. They move lightning quick. We have dry conditions.
▶ 0:50:46Sen. Hoeven: I know you know about it. This leads to my first question. In the fix our forests act is primarily focuses on forest fires. Talk about what this can do to prevent and reduce fires in grasslands.
▶ 0:51:08Mr. French: There aren't really the statutory authorities in fixing our forest that would be helpful for streamlining the nepa side but it does provide mechanisms working with the state and gna to help. It has very specific pieces around a prescribed fire which would be very helpful. And the intelligence center would help us be more responsive to fires across the country, so we are able to move resources into those areas and pre-stage in them more quickly.
▶ 0:51:40Sen. Hoeven: Categorical exclusion, does that help us at all? Is there any ce authority which would help us in terms of flexibilities and things we are looking for in the grasslands?
▶ 0:51:54Mr. French: In the grasslands if we are going to do pretreatment of that area, it can.
▶ 0:51:58Sen. Hoeven: That would be good. Back on the forest side, if you are going to get in and cut trees out of there to try to mitigate forests, is there a place for the wood to go? Is that part of the plan? When you cut the trees, the would have to have a home.
▶ 0:52:22Mr. French: Yes. In some places we have a pretty robust forest products industry we can move trees to and in other places we are pretty challenged because we have lost that industry. There are programs we administer right now that help subsidize transportation, especially low volume products. It's very helpful. We offer loans which can help retool mills so they can handle a greater variety of wood products.
▶ 0:52:50Mr. French: But I would say, investments in the wood products industry in -- and creating predictable supply for them is probably what is most critical to keep them sustainable and thriving.
▶ 0:53:04Sen. Hoeven: Wildfire threats have increased about 80% over the last decade. Obviously, we are getting more fires all the time. Have you done any anticipated cost savings with the fix our forests act?
▶ 0:53:18Mr. French: I am not familiar with what those would be. We can certainly get back with you.
▶ 0:53:26Sen. Hoeven: Both president trump and governor newsom of california have taken emergency action on some of the wildfire permitting's and some of wildfire irrigation work to go forward. Are the orders something that is also covered on a permanent basis by the legislation? So we would see some of those things on a permanent basis?
▶ 0:53:50Mr. French: That is a strength of the bill. It takes some of the things we do for emergency twitch allow us to move more quickly and it codifies them. That's very helpful for us.
▶ 0:54:02Sen. Hoeven: Is there anything not in the bill you want to bring up or would recommend that you should be included or considered for this legislation?
▶ 0:54:13Mr. French: I could talk your ear off. One thing here is I think that the hazard tree removal ce the senate has laid out for us would be more effective if it was statutorily given to us by congress rather than having it promulgated to us through legislation.
▶ 0:54:34Sen. Hoeven: Thank you for being here and for the good work you do.
▶ 0:54:37Chair Boozman: The ranking member on forestry. Senator bennet.
▶ 0:54:40Sen. Bennet: Thank you Mr. chairman. I am glad I was here for senator hoeven's questions. And Mr. french, thank you for joining us here today. I know how experienced you are. I'm grateful you are in the role you are in. Protecting our forests and watersheds, our communities from increasingly severe wildfires in the west is getting more critical every single day.
▶ 0:55:04Sen. Bennet: And I really commend the hard work of the sponsors of this bill including my friend and fellow senator from colorado, john hickenlooper. The bill is a meaningful attempt to put forward solutions and find a path forward on addressing wildfires and putting communities like colorado at risk. I want to say to the chairman, and I would say this in front of my friend, john hickenlooper, I think it is very important to the committee to exercise the jurisdiction we are over this bill.
▶ 0:55:34Sen. Bennet: I think this is a place where we can bring the voice of senator hoeven and others to make sure that in the end, this is a product we can all be proud of. I look forward to working with you on that and I am grateful you are having the hearing. I know for most people here, we are familiar with the role of the forest service when it comes to reducing the risk of wildfires in the west and also fighting fires themselves.
▶ 0:56:03Sen. Bennet: Can you talk a little bit about the importance of that, Mr. french? My next question will be about the reductions we have seen in the western slope of colorado and throughout the rocky mountain west. The deep concern communities have in my state and throughout the rocky mountains that we may not have the personnel we need as this fire season starts.
▶ 0:56:36Mr. French: Thank you, senator. Wildfires, as I said earlier, is completely integrated across our entire agency. I started my career in southern arizona and I spent 10 years in my first permanent position in wildfire.
▶ 0:56:53Mr. French: You learned when you are in a position like that that when you are running a local engine and part of a shot group, those communities depend on you to know the land, respond quickly, and be able to essentially, and take care of things in a way that are thoughtful about the community and they risk you are a part of.
▶ 0:57:18Mr. French: As we have seen wildfires grow across the agency, inter-agency of perp -- approaches and the role we play in coordinating those are increasingly important. Forest service manages 47% of wildfire resources in the country. Almost all the aerial contracts we have that states and other federal agencies depend on.
▶ 0:57:38Mr. French: More importantly, when you look at that system, we are the people that in most of your fourth communities, where we have large fires, they are the ones staffing along with folks like cal fire and others, the local station providing a response that people have come to defend on. -- depend on. And I will get to your second question may be preemptively.
▶ 0:58:00Mr. French: During the workforce reshaping we have been asked to do, we made it a priority to exempt our primary firefighters and we made it a priority to essentially look at other -- skill sets in the agency that are being left as some people are taking the programs now, prioritizing our workforce is the most important piece we need. To provide adequate fire suppression response.
▶ 0:58:35Sen. Bennet: I appreciate that. It has been disappointing to us to see the numbers of forest service personnel with red cards who have been separated from the agency at this moment. I heard you use the word primary when you described firefighters being protected.
▶ 0:58:56Sen. Bennet: Five you is those red cardholders -- my view is those red cardholders are the backbone of our fire suppression efforts and they will be hard to replace. We are already counting on local communities and partnerships in places like the white river and other forests in colorado. Now, the burden was actually more followed us, I think. -- fall on us, I think.
▶ 0:59:27Sen. Bennet: That will be a real challenge for local communities. It brings me to my second question. If the chairman will let me ask. If you were saying -- as you were saying, it is important to have local and regional knowledge. Colorado communities really know the risk of wildfire well. We have been devastated in recent years by the cameron, peak, and pine gold fires.
▶ 0:59:56Sen. Bennet: We have a long track record of working successfully to establish the kinds of partnerships I was just talking about between state, local, and federal partners to reduce wildfire risk. I have heard it is in that connection that I have heard from 30 local officials just last week in my state that provisions of the fix our forests act might undermine their ability to meaningfully engage with their federal partners in the development of forest projects.
▶ 1:00:26Sen. Bennet: I am a worried decisions will be made by the bureaucracy in washington, D.C. without the input of people on the ground in colorado and I need is communities that have been engaged with these incredible -- in these communities that have been engaged with these incredible partnerships with the U.S. forest service all these years. Mr.
▶ 1:00:47Sen. Bennet: French, do you believe, that the forest service can guarantee this bill won't limit opportunities for local communities to engage in the contribution of local communities in these decisions that are, of course, most important to them?
▶ 1:01:09Mr. French: I can. That's not who we are. We are a part of these communities and when we are designing projects and advocating for projects, we have to do that in concert with the community we are a part of. I don't see anything in fix our forests that would change that commitment of working collaboratively with our local governments and the people there. I get that it changes some of the fixed processes.
▶ 1:01:39Mr. French: But it does not change a setting down at a town meeting and talking about what needs to be done at the canyon and taking care of it. That's who we are as an agency. We are a very local decision made it type approach with our district send forests.
▶ 1:01:56Mr. French: We -- these glands will persist when they are relevant -- these glands -- lands will persist when they are relevant to the communities they are part of and if we don't make sure we are doing that everything we do is out of step.
▶ 1:02:15Mr. French: On the firefighter piece, we are very, very, very cognizant of the experience and skill sets that have walked out the door and we are focused on how to adapt and manage through that especially with our state and other federal partners. I will not say it's easy, but we are prepared.
▶ 1:02:39Sen. Bennet: Thank you for your testimony and long service. I look forward to our work together.
▶ 1:02:57Justice: I usually start off with a good statement and then ask a question. But I'm just going to lead with this question. Because this will lead me to where I think we should go. That is just this.
▶ 1:03:15Justice: In regards to all the aspects of our forests today, especially our fires, because we are looking at a fix our forests act, but, if we are deeply considering the fire component, then, considering our forest component, are we winning the battle?
▶ 1:03:41Mr. French: I think we are making a good try, but not yet. >> I would think, and I know you are brutally honest, but I would think that if we were all brutally honest we would say, no way. We aren't winning this war. If I could just tell you, I'm the most impatient guy in the room. Really and truly. I rode in a peer white hair.
▶ 1:04:11Mr. French: -- I rolled up in here with white hair and I'm not here for anything that would be to do with me. We have a big problem. That's all there is to it. When I was the governor of west virginia I was the governor for eight years. A lot of times people would say, what is the biggest responsibility you have? I would say that the same is true now for this. Get the economics right. The economics drives a lot of this vote.
▶ 1:04:42Mr. French: We are missing it in a lot of these ways. We have all kinds of forest problems. I'm an outdoor guy. I'm a wildlife guy. I can absolutely sit and talk about that with anybody. Because I have done it. Over and over and over.
▶ 1:04:59Mr. French: But, with all that said, if you are the most impatient guy and you don't want anything, and you are a real believer in the economics being upside down, in this country today, we have lost our flooring, cabinetry, furniture business. All of this stuff going on in every country of the world, but it is not going on here.
▶ 1:05:24Mr. French: Right here, right in my days -- in this here, all the carbon is frozen. If everybody is worried about carbon, think about what will happen with the forest fire. All of this is frozen. We have all kinds of the dodge of issues with the health of our forest today -- we have all kinds of issues with the health of our forests today affecting our wildlife, or water, and on and on and yet in west virginia we are cutting one third of our annual growth.
▶ 1:05:56Mr. French: The trees are growing three times faster than we are cutting them. They are falling on the ground and causing all kinds of issues. Then as soon as a small fire goes through, all the carbon is released into the sky when it could be frozen, right here. We could have industry right here. We could have jobs right here. We could have healthy forests right here. We have to get the economics right.
▶ 1:06:24Mr. French: I promise you, at the end of the day, the economics are upside down. I promise you we are losing the battle. How do we get the economics right? There's all kinds of ways. Our forests in west virginia alone cleanup and equivalency of 21 coal-fired power plants per year. That's unbelievable what they do. That's our hardwood.
▶ 1:06:49Mr. French: They are -- there are issues across the country with all kinds of different things. Our forests should be applauded every day for what they do. Our forests are doing so much for all of us. It's off the charts. I am a real believer in this. Play to your strengths. For god sakes. You have a winning team. You have the most winning team on the planet.
▶ 1:07:19Mr. French: The last thing I would tell you is this. I think about it. Think about west virginia for one second. Think about jim justice and west virginia. I am a basketball coach. West virginia has great, great, great people. Unbelievable natural resources, four of the greatest seasons on the planet and it is located within a rock's throw of two thirds of the population of the country. Yet, we continually struggle with being dead last. How could that be?
▶ 1:07:51Mr. French: You have the same kind of team. We have to do something about that. We have to come up with an idea. An idea to drive the economics right, to make the forest healthy again. We have to come up with an idea, just to say, well, we need to do this about the fire or this. We aren't going anywhere. We have to come up with a real, live idea.
▶ 1:08:15Mr. French: An idea that would be something along the lines of, if we could find a way to create some level of -- and god for bid this is a taboo, bad name, but a subsidy to credit our forests, to credit what our forests are giving us which would bridge us to absolutely doing something that would bring health to the forests. We have to come up with something. At the end of the day it will all be one thing.
▶ 1:08:47Mr. French: Absolutely, period, wait and see. It will be driven by the economics. Get the economics right. Thank you so much.
▶ 1:08:58Chair Boozman: Senator schiff.
▶ 1:08:59Sen. Schiff: Thank you, Mr. chairman. I appreciate you being here. I represent california, in particular, two areas that have been very recently devastated by fire. This issue is near and dear to my constituents. I am trying to figure out a way to phrase this question in a way you can answer it. Let's meet positive both my interest and concern.
▶ 1:09:27Sen. Schiff: My interest is in making sure we can better manage our forests to reduce incidence of fire and how devastating the fires are. I appreciate all the important work that has been done to improve the fix our forests act since it left the house. My concern is, we are laying off federal firefighters. We are clawing off grants used for brush clearance.
▶ 1:09:56Sen. Schiff: A lot of the laudable things established in the fix our forests act aren't funded with any additional money. There are laudable collaborative agencies established with nothing to provide the resources. My concern is this bill will be used to c1 my concern is that the bill is to accelerate the timber industry.
▶ 1:10:25Sen. Schiff: Some of the timber will be useful to be harvested in terms of making our forest more resilient. But of course there will be interest in the timber industry to go beyond that and harvest timber that has nothing to do with fire mitigation. That is not my priority. It is the priority set out in executive orders, but not my priority. Are there any safeguards in this legislation?
▶ 1:10:53Sen. Schiff: What would a safeguard look like to make sure that this is about fire mitigation and not just about timber harvesting? So that is my question and I know there are some pitfalls and how you can answer that, but whatever degree you can answer, I would love to hear your answer.
▶ 1:11:11Mr. French: I appreciate the question. As I stated before I have worked for the agent the 34 years. I have worked multiple plaisance and the agency, I was trained as a biologist, I worked in forestry and fire, recreation, the whole gamut. I know our system.
▶ 1:11:34Mr. French: And I'm also acutely aware of the issues in california and the situation, the health of our forests and the way our communities right now are at risk. There are so many safeguards in our system right now whether it is the forest plan that limits what you can do or not do on the ground. Any project we put out there has to follow the safeguards and parameters established in the plan.
▶ 1:12:05Mr. French: There's -- there are certain areas you can't treat. There are species you have to thin in different ways to meet the outcomes. It is a broad safeguard.
▶ 1:12:26Mr. French: We have to consult with the fish and wildlife service, we have to consult with the clean air and water act and local and regulatory agencies. Like I said, there are multiple, multiple requirements that we have to meet to do any one of these projects.
▶ 1:12:51Mr. French: In the last years, if you look at the number of acres we have treated, it has greatly increased. That is addressing fire and that is under multiple administrations but the number of saul august 7 gone down. Because the focus of most of our work is on restoration, you are trying to restore forests, you are removing a vast amount of material that isn't commercial.
▶ 1:13:26Mr. French: We do need investment in the industry. If you look at the amount of material that will be used through timber sales, we harvest less than one -- less than 1/10 of 1% of our national forests in any given year. That is such a low number when you look at what our forest plans would actually allow.
▶ 1:13:50Mr. French: I tell you this as a lifelong career person and advocate for our forests and the habitat within our forests. We do things well and right. Most of the arguments I see around our work is where is it occurring? Is it happening fast enough?
▶ 1:14:16Mr. French: And whether we philosophically agree that removing timber harvest on a national forest.
▶ 1:14:26Sen. Schiff: Thank you. If there is time later, I would love to ask another question.
▶ 1:14:32Chair Boozman: Senator mcconnell.
▶ 1:14:37Senator Mcconnell: Thank you, Mr. chairman. If people around the world have heard of kentucky it is for two reasons, the kentucky derby which was last saturday and bourbon. Bourbon has a lot of challenges right now because of the tariff wars. For example up in canada they have taken bourbon off the shelves.
▶ 1:15:06Senator Mcconnell: I think it is safe to say people in that iconic kentucky industry are not happy about the tariff wars and hopefully they will be over soon. What I want to write is something I'm sure no one has heard of. Our bourbon industry is critical to us.
▶ 1:15:34Senator Mcconnell: 95% of the bourbon in the world is made in kentucky. I 9 billion dollar industry supports arbor cultural, forestry, manufacturing, distilling, bottling, construction, and transportation dollars just to name a few.
▶ 1:16:03Senator Mcconnell: Bourbon is synonymous with the white oak tree, which is used to age our state's iconic spirit. 75% of the nation's white oak population is rated as mature, meaning there will be a shortage of white oaks within 30 years.
▶ 1:16:32Senator Mcconnell: Congress must act to ensure the preservation of this invaluable resource, so in february I introduced a white oak resiliency act with senator warner.
▶ 1:16:46Senator Mcconnell: The bill requires the department of the interior, usda and the forest service to coordinate research and conservation efforts, ensuring the white oak is stable and will survive into the future. My bill is included in the underlying act. Mr.
▶ 1:17:16Senator Mcconnell: French, you stated usda was supportive of the subtitle and would like to work with the committee on minor technical adjustments. What changes would you like to see?
▶ 1:17:37Mr. French: Thank you you, senator. We are supportive especially with the loss we are seeing across the country. The national forest management act and some other pieces, it is pretty minor but it doesn't change any of the broader intent of what we are asking.
▶ 1:18:02Sen. Mcconnell: Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:18:05Chair Boozman: Thank you. Senator welch.
▶ 1:18:09Senator Welch: Thank you Mr. chairman. Thank you very much for the good work you do. I'm hoping we get this bill to a place where I can vote on it. One of the changes that has made us the 10,000 acre designation and in vermont where we don't have the vast expanses typical in the western states, that
▶ 1:18:39Senator Welch: Would mean all but one of our projects would be an exemption. A lower number I think would be appropriate for vermont. But I wouldn't want vermont to interfere with what would be good for colorado or california.
▶ 1:19:15Mr. French: I know that forest well. I spent time as the district ranger in manchester. I think that if you look at how these are set up, the context of how they would be used, if I'm a forester in vermont, I may not be able to fit within these categories because of the way they ours settled -- set up.
▶ 1:19:47Mr. French: It doesn't mean you have to do 10,000 acres. What it essentially means is not that it is excluded. It means it fits within a category that is not considered significant.
▶ 1:20:02Senator Welch: It is not significant, less than 10,000 acres is excluded about the inquiry of significance. That would mean basically any project in vermont would be in that category.
▶ 1:20:20Mr. French: If it qualifies for the parameters of that category. My knowledge of projects up there, many of them would not. Most of them would not. The other thing about this.
▶ 1:20:32Sen. Welch: Could you elaborate on this?
▶ 1:20:35Mr. French: These are set up for things like hazard tree removal or specifically if you are reducing wildland farm risk while maintaining certain size classes and things like that.
▶ 1:20:53Mr. French: The other thing to recognize, most of the projects that are done, all of the projects that are done use environmental assessments. Everyone one of those environmental assessments come to a singular conclusion, a finding of no significant impact. That is essentially what the categorical exclusion is saying.
▶ 1:21:28Mr. French: If you meet esa, clean water act, and you go through a set of tests called extraordinary circumstances that look to see the effects on floodplains, wilderness areas. It goes through the entire series.
▶ 1:21:42Chair Boozman: Let me get to two other things. Along the lines of senator schiff, I'm having a hard time dealing with the conflict a 5200 forest service folks having left their jobs or have been fired or whatever term it is we want to use, but we have 5200 fewer people, so the work that needs to be done, we don't have the people to do it.
▶ 1:22:11Chair Boozman: I would also respect that you can't necessarily answer that question but it seems pretty obvious that if you don't have the personnel, the work is not going to get done.
▶ 1:22:19Mr. French: Right now, we have seen a decline of about 25% across our agency from folks who have voluntarily taken the preferred resignation and other programs. It is not the same in all places. We have some places where we have lost considerable staff.
▶ 1:22:37Sen. Welch: As we proceed at some point we want to get an assessment of how this is affecting the work that you do and that is not your decision. The third thing is going to 150 days.
▶ 1:22:52Mr. French: Say that again?
▶ 1:22:54Sen. Welch: On the judicial review and this bill as I understand it, it used to be six years and it is down to 150 days. I'm flexible on that, there is no magic in the number. But that is a big drop. That is the period of time in which affected groups can bring their case forward.
▶ 1:23:16Sen. Welch: Do you have any experience or examples of how that reduction will be helpful or harmful?
▶ 1:23:29Mr. French: I can't give you anything specifically but I can generally tell you that for projects that are forest management, veg management, and recreation as well, we win about 80% of our cases. We win about 80% of the litigation brought against us on our projects.
▶ 1:23:54Mr. French: But the consequences that we see it is that often those projects will take four or five or six years to be implement it once they have gone through their analysis and I think that is a question for congress and communities of whether that timeframe especially if you are trying to do risk reduction is acceptable.
▶ 1:24:19Sen. Welch: Thank you Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:24:22Chair Boozman: Senator schiff.
▶ 1:24:25Senator Schiff: Thank you, chairman. I appreciate the opportunity. Following up on senator welch's questions which is largely what I wanted to explore further. Did I understand you to say there was a 25% reduction in the workforce?
▶ 1:24:40Mr. French: Non-fire workforce. The agency has about 36,000 employees. We have exempted -- 35,000, we have exempted all wildland primary firefighters from the workforce reshaping. That workforce is in place.
▶ 1:25:04Mr. French: That workforce can help support the fire workforce where there has been a little bit who have taken the voluntary outs.
▶ 1:25:15Sen. Schiff: That is really striking. A quarter of the non-fire workforce have taken advantage of the fork in the road to leave the forest service?
▶ 1:25:26Mr. French: That is currently what we are seeing.
▶ 1:25:29Sen. Schiff: Then you have the additional people that got the probationary letter.
▶ 1:25:37Mr. French: All of the probationary employees have been rehired if they chose to come back.
▶ 1:25:42Sen. Schiff: I think the budget includes another cut to the forest service, does it not?
▶ 1:25:55Mr. French: In the current budget.
▶ 1:26:01Sen. Schiff: How would it be possible to do anything ever than timber harvesting contemplated in this bill?
▶ 1:26:10Mr. French: We will need a lot of help from our state partners and community partners if we do.
▶ 1:26:16Sen. Schiff: I mean, do your state partners do the kind of mitigation work we are talking about in the national forests?
▶ 1:26:25Mr. French: Through good neighbor they do.
▶ 1:26:29Sen. Schiff: Wow, that is just staggering. One last question to follow up on senator welch's question. I have the same concern going six years to 150 days. Generally how soon is litigation initiated?
▶ 1:26:53Sen. Schiff: It may take a long time to get through but how soon is litigation brought? How soon is the length of a period after which you can file a suit?
▶ 1:27:12Mr. French: I don't have the data, but we can follow up with specifics. I can tell you there are three general effects we see, the first is it increases our costs considerably in areas that are highly litigious in terms of the price per unit of what we are trying to deliver. Fuels reduction or a timber problem.
▶ 1:27:39Mr. French: It increases the time considerably in those areas for the amount of work you have to do to get yourself prepared for a project to hit litigation. You are doing a higher level analysis so that you do better within the court system. The cost per project is generally going to be 100,000 or more than a place we don't have the litigation.
▶ 1:28:03Mr. French: And then generally what we are going to see is that for those areas where we have high litigation generally within junctions those might last 3-6 years. It is that period of time. Also to the communities looking for that work.
▶ 1:28:31Sen. Schiff: Let me ask you one other thing. I was in the far north of the state and visited one of the dead forests where there is an area of receding. The forest, I think it was mostly spruce that grew up, it was so dense that light couldn't get to the forest floor and it is essentially a dead forest. There are a lot of trees still standing that have no limbs and are crowding out the rebirth of redwoods.
▶ 1:29:02Sen. Schiff: What has impeded the ability to log those trees? Why are they still standing? Is it just not lucrative enough for the timber industry?
▶ 1:29:11Mr. French: Well I mean, no. This is a huge issue for us. I talked earlier about areas with fires and you have seen this in northern california, southern california. Look at the fire's up the feather. We cannot salvage that timber effectively.
▶ 1:29:37Mr. French: Driving economic value, it is about re-for resting. I can't get a crew into plant trees because of the risk of the trees. We can't go in and effectively salvage those. Those trees lose their value.
▶ 1:30:09Mr. French: It will take us some where between a year or a year and a half. Then we get sued. All the value was lost and we put that effort in to get that thing cleared and nobody will buy it because all of the road is deteriorated.
▶ 1:30:32Mr. French: If you look at sierra pacific, they will be in there within six months to a year to remove that timber. We try to move it out but honestly the issue is the amount of time it takes to get through the clearance process to get through all the regulatory pieces we have and litigation, it keeps us from being at scale.
▶ 1:31:01Mr. French: It is one of the biggest criticisms industry has on us is
▶ 1:31:06All The Sen. Schiff: Standing, dead timber.
▶ 1:31:08Sen. Schiff: Thank you. I appreciate the added time.
▶ 1:31:10Chair Boozman: Thank you. Senator klobuchar.
▶ 1:31:14Senator Klobuchar: I don't have anything. Senator schiff, I wanted to thank you for your questions and I wanted to thank our committee members for working well on this issue with your committee members as well, senator bozeman.
▶ 1:31:30Chair Boozman: Thank you again, Mr. french, for your time and insights and to our community members for your participation in this important hearing. I request unanimous consent to submit letters of support for fofa to the committee of record. Without objection, so moved. Questions for the record are due thursday by close of business and the hearing record will remain open five business days.
▶ 1:32:03Chair Boozman: Again, thanks to you and thanks to the committee for I think a really thoughtful, really good hearing today. With that, we are returned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap.org]