WASHINGTON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2002

Senate

STATEMENT OF U.S. SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN
The Need for Bipartisan Consensus on Protecting America's Forests

Mrs. FEINSTEIN Madam President, for some time now, Senator Wyden and I have been working together to try to put forward a compromise amendment on two amendments which are on the Interior appropriations bill. One amendment is by Senator Bingaman; the other by Senator Craig.

At present, both amendments need 60 votes. Neither amendment has 60 votes. Both amendments deal with a very real emergency in American forests today. It would be a tragedy if we could not use this appropriations bill as an opportunity to move a plan forward, to do the emergency work we need to do to protect our people, our property, our forests, and our endangered species from the risk of catastrophic fire.

Right now, 190 million acres of public lands are at high risk of catastrophic fire. That is 190 million acres, and 73 million of these are in the highest fire risk category, called class III. Of that class III, 23 million acres have been designated by both the Forest Service and the Department of Interior as in vital need of emergency treatment. Those are the strategic areas that need hazardous fuels taken out of the forests to avoid catastrophic fire.

Today in America, moderate to severe drought covers 45 percent of the Continental United States. It is predicted that El Nino is returning, which means we can expect volatile weather patterns, more pronounced rainfall, more pronounced drought. All of this will only exacerbate the risk of catastrophic fire.

It is estimated that this is the third hottest summer on record in the United States. To this fact, we are adding that 2002 looks as if it is going to turn out to be the worst fire season on record in the United States.

This year, 6 million acres of land has burned. That includes nearly a half a million acres in California, and because we have an Indian summer, we are not out of the forest fire season yet.

More property will be lost, more vital habitat for endangered species will be destroyed, and more people will be in greater danger if we do not do something. We have firefighters laying down their lives on these fire lines in some of the worst fires we have ever experienced.

Today, fires burn hotter, faster, and more intensely than ever, and there is a reason for this. The reason is because of forest policy which is what has been called fire suppression. That means you go in and suppress the fires as soon as they begin. Of course, that takes a lot of money, and we have used over $1 billion just fighting these fires. It does not prevent a future fire from happening, but I believe fire suppression has to become the policy of the past rather than the policy of the future because what is happening in our forests is that we have an unprecedented buildup of materials on the ground, so-called biomass, fuels in plants and bushes.

We have a lot of nonnative species now springing up where certain ancient trees are fire resistant, such as the giant sequoias, for example. If other trees grow up among them, they become fire ladders so that when a fire starts, it has the fuel on the ground. It has the new young trees to use as ladders, and the fire whooshes up, hits the canopies of the old trees which are, for the most part, the habitat of endangered species and the greatness of our ancient forests.

The question comes up: How do we work at this? Senator Wyden and I have chosen to see if we can put together a compromise between the Craig amendment and the Bingaman amendment which will allow us to move for the 1 year that is the life of the fiscal year 2003 Interior appropriations bill vigorously to treat some of those areas.

The areas that we would treat really is a very small area. Our recommendation would be up to 7 million acres out of the 24 million acres. We know the forest departments are going to try to do at least 2 million acres. What we are saying to them this next year is triple your activity, move rapidly. Then we try to set the parameters of that emergency movement.

For a moment, I wish to share some of those parameters.

We make a number of findings in our amendment that document and reflect the emerging conditions we find in our forests, and I will talk about that in a moment. But the amendment establishes a 1-year pilot project to enable the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service to move rapidly to treat up to 7 million of the 24 million acres in those strategic areas.

Our amendment would have directed all of the work to be only on those lands at the highest danger level of catastrophic fire. It would stipulate that 70 percent of hazardous fuels reduction projects be done either within one-half mile of a community - that is what is called urban wildland interface - or within municipal watersheds. Those are the watersheds where the fire risk to the ecosystem is the greatest. So 70 percent of the program would be concentrated in the areas where we know there is the greatest risk. The urban interface has been broadly agreed to. There is some question on the watershed areas.

Having said that, for many States, rural States in particular, the only way they are going to get any emergency treatment is if we include these watershed areas because this is where they generate the big fires. These are, obviously, the more rural States. California can certainly use all of its funds just within urban interface, but that is not true for more rural States.

Our amendment would also allow the administrative appeals process to be truncated for these areas. What we are trying to do is speed things along, and we estimate this would save at least 135 days. Any fuels reduction projects, such as thinning or brush removal, within a half mile of any community would be excluded from what is called NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, thus preventing these projects from being stalled indefinitely. I think there is broad agreement about that.

I think the environmental community understands the need to work quickly in areas very close to communities and very close to property.

Additionally, any temporary injunctive relief, whether it is a TRO, which is limited in days, we know, or a preliminary injunction, which can go on for a substantial period of time -- this is a big give on our part.

This is, I think, for Senator Wyden -- and he will speak for himself -- but certainly for me this is the last best offer to try to get an accommodation with the other side of the aisle.

What we did was say that any temporary injunctive relief, preliminary injunction, or TRO, would be limited to 60 days with the authority to renew each temporary injunction without limitation.

What we believe it would do is cause the judge to reflect on our findings in the legislation, on the emergency situation, and on the problems directly on the ground at the time.

This means in situations where the risk of fire is absolutely the greatest and projects are being held up in the courts, a judge must consider changing circumstances and whether to renew a preliminary injunction.

Anybody filing an administrative appeal to a hazardous reduction project would be required also to raise the issue before the close of notice and comment; in other words, to have some standing to bring an appeal, not just to be able to jump in after all the periods have closed and go to court.

These were two of our biggest gives in the interest of trying to gain 60 votes. I truly do not think there is anything else we can do. These are very big concessions, at least as far as I am concerned, and I think that is echoed by Senator Wyden as well.

I will quickly outline some of the additional safeguards in our amendment. There would be no road construction in any inventoried roadless area. An ecologically sufficient number of old and large trees would be maintained for each ecosystem; and for fuels reduction projects, agencies would be required to do all thinning from ground level up. This means that thinning would start with small trees and brush at ground level and act as a safeguard against the cutting of larger trees.

And in special, or what is called extraordinary circumstance, such as areas with endangered species or tribal issues or where archeological findings may lie, the exclusions from the normal process do not apply.

Additionally, I will speak for one moment about the four findings in our amendment because they underlie the problems we are facing.

Firstly, in 2002, we find that approximately 6.5 million acres of forest land have burned, 21 people have died, and 3,079 structures have been destroyed.

We find the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have spent a billion dollars fighting these fires.

We find 73 million acres of public lands are classified in the highest risk of catastrophic fire.

We find that forest management policy of fire suppression has resulted in an accumulation of fuel load, dead and dying trees, infested trees, nonnative species, creating fuel ladders that allow fires to reach the crowns of large old trees and cause catastrophic fires.

Fourthly, we find the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of the Interior should immediately undertake an emergency program to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire. Obviously, the emergency program is confined to those areas I spoke about.

In closing, I thank, first, Senator Wyden. I also thank Senator Bingaman, Senator Daschle, Senator Craig, Senator Domenici, Senator Kyl,and Senator Burns, all of whom have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to reach some agreement.

I restate my belief that the forest fires raging throughout the Western United States represent one of the most severe crises facing our Nation. The devastation has and will continue to be immense. It is the greatest human and ecological threat now facing virtually every Western State. This is a crisis that transcends the issue of party politics, and I deeply regret our inability to reach a meaningful compromise, at least at this time.

Because the Interior appropriations bill will be on the floor at least for the next few days, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to continue to seek a consensus and I, for one, remain open to one.

I am sorry we do not have an agreement to report, but I want to end by thanking Senator Wyden for his leadership. He has a State that has glorious forests, as do I. He has been wonderful, and I hope there is a change and we may be able to work something out together.