Transcripts For CSPAN Senate Hearing On Wildfire Forest Management 20240712

Washington journal. Join the discussion with your comments. Wildfires continue to burn along the west coast, a public works subcommittee considers legislative options for addressing the wildfires in force management. This hearing includes testimony from an interior Department Official and the deputy chief of the u. S. Forest service. Good afternoon, everyone. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on 15 bills before the public lands subcommittee. Because of the large number of bills, i cant go through all of them right now. The agenda will be included in the record. I want to note that we have a former member of our committee, a longtime member of the senate. Weve got members who will be joining us shortly, who will have another Committee Assignment at the moment. Others will be joining us telephonically. Lossoflifeognize that has occurred. Within what is shaped up to be a really horrific wildfire season, more than 36 people have perished in infernos raging through the western United States. Dozens more are missing. Oregon, thousands of lost their homes. Over half a Million People were evacuated last week alone. We haveand in the west, wind driven fires that continue to spread across our federal, state, tribal, public lands. Lands. With all these wildfires raging through the west we are thrilled to see we would be receiving testimony on legislation to address the management of our federal forests. I strongly believe that the fires we are watching on tv could have in many instances been prevented if only active Management Practices have been implemented. As many of you are probably aware, forests have been shaped and have been influenced by fire for certainly as long as our species has been around even longer. Cycles are burning and we regrowth are completely natural. They are not a new feature of current climate conditions as some would have us believe. The fires were not unpredictab unpredictable. They were predictable and in fact they were predicted. We could have prepared for them, but the management of the forests has regrettably become hamstrung partly by regulations promulgated by regulations with hundreds of thousands of miles away from the land they were in charge of administering. For example, regulations under the Clean Air Act seeks perversely and most likely unintentionally worked to discourage the practice of letting fires burn especially in those areas that have air pollution levels that exceed permissible standards. In these instances, they may favor reactive shortterm Fire Suppression of the expensiveand longterm risks. When congress imagined activities like prescribed burns or removal of some trees, congress didnt foresee a regulatory byzantine labyrinth that led to litigation at every turn, in many instances that would end up forestalling taking precautionary measures and ultimately could lead to fires that occurred lead to the loss of life and environmental catastrophe. Management of the forests has moved away from productive measures largely out of fear quite legitimate wellfounded fear of being sued. This in turn has led to bigger fires threatening greater numbers of lives, livelihoods and homes in many cases it has also resulted in additional and worse air pollution than would have otherwise been the case had prescribed burns and allowed to occuitto her or forest overgrowd eliminated. Research tells us between 44 millio44,000,011. 8 million as burned each year in prehistoric california between 1982 and 1998, californias agency land managers burned on average about 70,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, the number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres of. That is a tremendous gap between the natural cycle and what our Forest Management efforts have provided. Now i am grateful that we have skilled Emergency Personnel who helped prevent tragedy from forest fires. These brave women and men put their lives on the line during the course of their work and do so on a regular basis and quite heroically. They are in necessary part of the Forest Management strategy. We can do more to ease the burden that they face with targeted control burns and removal of excess fuel that builds up within the forests. With these burns, people can plan ahead to make it out of town, so a filter in their home, make a plan to meet their needs. Furthermore, if the Fire Suppression of military style of firefighting can be more environmentally destructive in some cases been controlled burns or some rare instances from the wildfire itself suppression tactics often include cutting down bulldozing a and gliding high severity fires to control the fire behavior. I believe a large portion of this could be prevented if local agencies and federal partners could sidestep illogical regulatory barriers to the hearing agenda today are a member of bills related to the proper management of the lands including the miracle mountain designation act which ive introduced in the senate. This bill memorializes the events surrounding the fire of 2018, fastmoving wildfire not unlike the explosive inferno as we have seen in oregon and california of late. This fire of 2018 is one that nearly incinerated the community of elkridge city in utah. Defying all logic, the advancing fire unexpectedly stopped along an unnamed mountain barely 2 miles from homes and from evacuation grounds. The mountain earned the nickname miracle mountain by utah. Elkridge city was blessed, but elsewhere around the country come a year after year, families are forced to evacuate their homes. Better Forest Management can reduce the severity of wildfires and reduce the risk to fire prone communities. We need a range of management tools to cut the tape into curved part frivolous litigation that assault the reduction projects and efforts to remove dead and dying trees from the poorly managed federal land. Its timely today that we will hear testimony, the emergency wildlife and Public Safety act the bill sponsored by senator feinstein and senator james the purpose is to accelerate the prevention projects across the cottonwood state. Senator feinstein has joined us to provide a few remarks about her bill. Senator udall and senator whitehouse wilwhitehouse will ag statements about their bills on todays agenda and chairman murkowski will also join us to speak about her alaska native claims sentiment amendments to expand services and resources for overly alaskan tribal members. I look forward to hearing more about each of these built into the other bills on todays agenda. Senator wyden thank you very much mr. Chairman and i appreciate you holding this hearing. I also note the presence of the chair, senator murkowski on one of the aspects of service ive most enjoyed was when i was chair and she was the Ranking Member and weve continued it was kind of efforts in the years ahead and i think her for her courtesy as well. What i can tell you is the scores of fires have hit my home state harder than a wrecking ball. Many of them are still going on. These are not your grandfathers fires. They are bigger, harder, more dangerous or powerful and i never conceived growing up of fires leaping over rivers. We had fires in our part of the country who reduced whole neighborhoods to. There was nothing left of cars, just picture what it means to the melting automobiles. There is a connection there was a bill that i introduced in the Community Empowerment and act. This is extraordinarily important. It attracts thousands of visitors each year and it is the poorest in my state and one of the counties hardest hit by the coronavirus. Its about two things. The. It is a way of life as an economic engine growing the local economic engine and also protecting the absolutely gorgeous places that are part of this region. Im going to go into the bill just briefly in a moment. I just want to come back to the relationship to the fire for just one moment. If the fires teach us anything, and at the chair and i went through this this morning because this is going to be a watershed moment with respect to this whole fire debate. If the fire is teach us anything, its the people that need jobs can and should be put to work restoring our public lands, preparing homes for fire resiliency and shoring up Rural Communities against encroachment of the pandemic and this includes jobs for the restoration of the million acres of wheat infested public lands in the county. Ive appreciated the comments of my friend from nevada over the years with respect to her public land. Her public lands are a bit different than our public land. But in both cases, we need to do a lot of restoration work. They can put people to work and we can spare ourselves catastrophes. The only other point is the senate and working on these issues is to step up its pace and we talked about that this morning. Contingent of the family ranchers came to dc to and asked for a meeting with me and i was a little shocked because i was stunned they were coming to meet with me and asked to work with me on a big project. I was under the impression i would be probably the last person they would come and talk to. I asked them why you favor there ithey were therein the office, t really say. Finally i said i think youve come because you believe im the only one crazy enough to get in the middle of trying to work out an agreement that has been sought for decades in this part of the world between the ranchers and environmental folks and the like. When i said that they all smiled and imagesetter yet thats why we are here. We are here because we kind of think yo youre the only one cry enough to be willing to try to get in the middle of this thing and try to sort it out and its a fabulous area. Senator heinrich, my great friend, knows a lot about it and what i said when we started working on this at th that point impossible undertaking, senator murkowski and i had been there for, like we are going to protect this way of life. We are not going to let anybody trample all over the farmers and ranchers. But also we are not going to throw the environmental laws in the trash can. They are not just going to eviscerate the environmental laws. Everybody knew those priority is putting forward. And there was widespread agreement about fire prone weeds putting the land at risk if they are ranchers dealing with visitors to follow their gps because it was risking their life to dangerous places they said they were going to have to have some roads to facilitate the safe visits to these wonderful sites without compromising them and we went round and round and listen to scientists and educators and people who love the land and farmers simply put pencil to paper and the bill we are hearing today represents the spirit of compromise. Nobody got everything they want, but everybody got Something Better than they have right now. And ive als i would also tell y colleagues from the historical standpoint, they a lot h [inaudible] isnt that far away from where we have the wildlife takeover. So theres been some challenges in this part of the world, and i cannot credit that community enough because they said we are going to find some compromise. Nobody thin seemed to get everyg they want. The bill ensures the management can adapt to changing circumstances like Climate Change and drought by establishing new citizen led communities to support transparent realtime management of the land. The certainty for land users by setting a set of agreedupon range. Karen cheng range processes that are eligible for streamlined Environmental Review. The bill sets aside just over a million acres of land which was previously managed without the flexibility of the rangeland improvement. We moved away while protecting the environmental law from the fullblown analysis. If you are talking about moving your irrigation troughs of it away from a river and i will just conclude by way of saying now there are a lo a lot of reinsurers that say this is something i can build my future around. This is an opportunity for my kid, my grandkids to have a future, and a lot of environmental folks have said that they can live with this bill and eithe neither side coue done it. The last point id make because when i started on this legislation, the chair was very gracious and i told her that this was really important to me in a personal way because our staff are who had been with before a quartercentury had been working on this for ages and ages. When i went to visit her in her hospice bed, whole wall was full of maps. The whole wall was filled with maps. Max. She was talking to people and trying. That is what she stood for and people with talke talk to her ae would say you know, im going to be hes going to stay at this thing until he gets both sides together, the ranchers and environmentalists. We get them together thats going to be because of mary. I want to get this bill passed and we are all going to dedicate it to mary. Sure murkowski from the day mary passed even in our corner on a lot of things that we just want to say thank you. Thank you, senator wyden. We have several members that have joined us to speak about their respective bills. We are going to start with the chairman, senator murkowski and the people that senator manchin beyond that. They have a fair number not only those of us on the bias but they also have friends of the energy committee. I have a small bill i want to speak to you briefly about before i do i want to share my thoughts and prayers and my sincere hope for rain and recovery for so many that are facing the horrendous wildfires out west in oregon and in washington of course they are looking at it very carefully and of course in california. To you, senator, you have my heartfelt condolences for the loss of life. Loss of property, environmental damage that your states are enduring currently. I know its not just my thoughts that are reflected that so many of us share in a real sense of loss for what you are experiencing right now. Right now there are thousands of men and women that are working on these fires, briefly working on putting out these devastating fires. They are putting their lives at risk morning, noon and night in the midst of pathetic on top of all of this and so our hearts and prayers are with them and their family members. Alaskans are certainly thinking about them and hoping that they are safe because we have a good group of alaskans, some 400 plus that are in your states, whether it is in california, oregon, colorado we escaped some significant fires this year so i think you have some folks that are fresh that have come to you and we have also sent concept but knowing we are in this fight with you is important to us to ask wha me keep you all in our prayers. I want to thank you for being here to provide testimony today including on senator feinsteins bill she has seeking to reduce the risk of wildfires and protecting our communities. Senator feinstein comic and i ei had an opportunity on the floor for me to thank you for your continued work on this. I want to acknowledge the work of my friend from rhode island. I have had much time to speak about that and i also want to recognize the chairman david of a former chair. Since you are here representing the department of the interior i want to take a moment to recognize and congratulate the department on its recently completed review from the office of government ethics. At the Ethics Program including additional training, new staff and a consolidated consistent approach across all of its bureaus and agencies. The agency offered no new findings or recommendations for improvements and anderson has never happened before a duty officer and to all in the department that have rebuilt the Ethics Program. I think the report is a testament to this significant multiyear effort and you are to be commended on this effort. Briefly, mr. Chairman, here are a few words about s. 2533 that ive introduced. Its very simple. It prevents alaskan native elders from becoming ineligible for federal needsbased programs because of benefits that they receive from the settlement trust. These are an important source of support for many of the legendary remote areas but not for any sorfor any to combat pod healthcare challenges so i have a stack of letters in support for the bill i would ask unanimous consent to be included as part of the record and i want to thank you for holding this hearing lots of good bills on the agenda today. We also have more than we would like to hear before the end of the year. We hope that we would be able to schedule one more subcommittee hearing likely early on provided that we are able to do that, but i thank you for this expeditious review of so many significant matters and i thank the committee for its time to get hispanic thank you madam chair. We will now turn to senator manchin. Thank you for connecting villageconnecting thelegislativh is a important and im glad my good friends, senator whitehouse, who weve had many conversations with and senator udall i think is here virtually senator feinstein for being here. We are so glad to have them. Also its good to see senator Mary Landrieu and good friends of ours is someone i enjoyed working with him has been a good friend of her i appreciate her being here. This represents the priority of many members of both sides including several members of the committee as you know many of these bills reflect years of work to get to this point and im pleased to see them included in todays hearing. Id like to take a moment to recognize qualifiers that many of the states are facing in our heart goes out to each and every one of you and all of your constituents in your state. Its unbelievable. And this year, the states throughout the west are experiencing an extraordinary number of very large wildfires called mega wildfires that are each over 100,000 acres in size. They require intensive staffing that due to the concerns at the beginning of the season, firefighters testing positive during the season, exhaustion and the sheer size of these fires ar, Staffing Levels to fit the fires are far lower than normal and lower than where they need to be. Im told we need 5,000 firefighters to adequately be able to do the job that needs to be done. Given six of the 20 largest wildfires in, forget history are burning right now, right now in senator feinsteins home state. I look forward to hearing from her directly about the needs of the people in her state and how we can help. Immediate action is needed to respond to the fires and in addition, we need to recognize this is a perennial issue that is worsening every year and so we need to be thinking about short and longterm solutions to these wildfires. That includes securing additional firefighters, ensuring the necessary Fire Prevention work by control burns to help prevent future wildfires that gets underway. We must commit to taking the necessary mitigation steps Going Forward and furthermore, we need to ensure that the administration is using every tool that is already in the toolbox. Right now. We are not talking about next week or next month but right now. I stand by my colleagues and im ready to work with each of you. I would also like to take a moment on senator white house is offshore act which would establish a revenuesharing model for offshore wind varies widely from the model set up by the oil and gas. His bill would create a revenue stream to the coastal communities each of us knows its something he feels very passionately about and rightfully so. I am glad that its on our agenda today and i look forward to hearing from senator white house. With that i thank you again for joining us and the witnesses for appearing before us today. Thank you. Thank you, senator manchin. Let me tell you where we are going next. Weve heard from the chair and Ranking Member. We are now going to hear alternating between democrats and republicans from members of the committee who want to speak briefly about legislation that we will be discussing today. After that we will hear from other members of the senate who are not members of the committee alternate between democrats and republicans. I think that weve got all democrats at this point. Wide i do want to speak about for a couple of minutes mr. Chair is asked 3366 is a very simple bill to provide the past two gold star families the sacrifice made on behalf of this country on gold star families is almost unimaginable and anything we can do to show our recognition of that sacrifice and appreciation, we should do it. Free park passes and then allow them to identify themselves and with activeduty military. And supported by various groups like the vfw it was introduced in the house senator daines and senator alexander the cbo says it does not score that the value to these families is immeasurable in a positive way i appreciate you giving me time to say a few words with think this is a bill that we can move expeditiously and we have found during this epidemic that people seriously value their Time Outdoors and they value the great benefits provided by the experiences of our National Parks and public lands i look forward to the consideration by the committee and i appreciate the committee taking up this bill today. I turn it back to you. Thank you germany and the Ranking Member and those the Scenic Rivers i could probably protect some of the most dynamic and spectacular rivers and streams in our country. With southwest new mexico the minimal spectacular places in the west. And to see those local rivers protected are was quite happy to see senator udall to drafting this legislation and in response to the Overwhelming Community support. We name the bill in honor of my friend a writer and angler and conservationist in the most ardent defender the passed away last year. On dams and un diverted in no small part because of decades and decades of work. In the second bill for new mexico is a bill to designate de la hoya as a wilderness area is the home of some of the best habitat in new mexico in a know that because i was there last fall this legislation is supported by a wide range of members as well as a dallas kitty community on commission with the spectacular views has long been a priority and im glad this bill is moving forward today. Thank you for the witnesses testifying today and thank you chairman lee and the Ranking Member for including these bills on the docket today. I am grateful i am here with senator feinstein as we have been working together on this important piece of legislation to address the issue of forced management to be better stewards as we say in montana either we better manage our for a store they will manage us as we will see the wildfires in california and oregon and washington, a lot of the smoke is coming into montana. We grieve with the people of california that have lost life and structures and habitat. I am grateful we are here today with this legislation. Its not too often a republican from montana a democrat in california are locking arms to try to keep our communities safer through better Forest Management. Thank you. Thank you for holding todays legislative hearing i appreciate you including my bill and the package today the Douglas County conservation act is important for nevada truly a bill not only for the state before that constituents and all the witness testimony for the opportunity to have a discussion around this bill introduce this to improve public Lands Management and expanded the Development Activities it is developed in collaboration with local officials and includes the support of my nevada colleagues. This bill represents the nevada style to legislate Data Management needs as it is the culmination of a multi yearlong effort of people coming together making compromise from the Business Community and conservationist and the tribe from nevada and california. To give you an idea talk about Douglas County, it is then western nevada with a portion of lake tahoe in Sierra Nevada this this diverse landscape pulls outdoor enthusiast and also contains the oldest permanent settlement in nevada Cultural Heritage sites paleontologist treasures and natural treasures to a growing annual visitor ship while retaining their rural character. The land base is 69 percent that is important in one of the many counties with the federal government comes into own most of the land 256,000 acres are managed by the federal government they provide of radio popular opportunities and these activities and industries they support are critical to the Economic Prosperity of the county going 30 percent of the local workforce. In 2009 and during that time they look at the washington tribe federal agencies and townsend and in more than 90 stakeholder groups to facilitate the bill before you today. I am so pleased to introduce this knowing all the work that has gone into the lands bill to convey 67 acres to the state of nevada to the lake tahoe state park and with Flood Control management and recreation. And the revenue will hold local conservation measures and to designate nearly 12400 acres of wilderness. And many have been resolved to working not only with federal partners but all of my colleagues here to make sure we can get this important piece of legislation. Thank you. Thank you chairman and murkowski for her words Ranking Member mentioned and thank you for moving so quickly on this bill thank you for being here and being a partner it took a while to put this together that may be blunt california is on fire. Smoke is blanketing the entire western part of the United States california traditional fire season has only just started the five of californias largest buyers in history have occurred. Twentyfive major fires as i speak are burning across two. Million acres statewide. Twentyfive californians have died 4200 homes and structures have been destroyed in more than 42000 people have been evacuated. We have 90 pieces of equipment in the state today from other states the largest fire in state history is no burning in the National Forest 875,000 acres three. 2 million have burned this year the most in state history and the same is happening across the west 350,000 fires and 150,000 in man montana and colorado. We have to change that approach and how we manage our forest we can just to hear do nothing lightning is the source of these huge fires and i have decided to see what i can learn about it what we might be able to do about it, if anything because every year it becomes more and more a source of major fire in the state thats why a senator deigns and i worked for months to draft a bipartisan emergency wildfire and Public Safety act to make some important changes to help us cope with catastrophic wildfire. Our bill has the endorsement of gavin newsom cities and counties in california and fire districts and utilities that would assess be placed in the hearing record. I would like briefly to explain three key provisions of the bill may have to address the dead and dying trees that are for is that provide fuel for these disasters. More than 150 million dead trees in californias forest as a result of drought that thrive in warmer temperatures it creates a 100 Million Grant Program to provide other incentives to help make harvesting dead trees more commercially viable and incentivize those businesses to step in and reduce the fuel live fuel load in the forest second to increase the use of fire breaks much like removing dead trees fire breaks help to slow the fires and limit the spread it would allow for expedited Environmental Reviews regarding the installation of fire breaks near the existing roads and trails and transmission lines. With new peerreviewed Research Shows a project as senator wyden has noticed and those prescribed burns from other one from overgrown and nothing susceptible for him those fires with the new fire center and Forest Managers and best practices. And with fireproofing materials to prevent the leveling of the entire neighborhoods as we saw in paradise california in 2018. When you see the expanse of fire and how the wind moves fire and then half of a commercial area. And in 2018 and then to promote the utility wires and with that distributed energy from micro grids from the shut off. Climate change makes these worse by the year and we have to address it. Our bill takes aim at the direct most immediate causes of the unprecedented series of wildfires and i hope this committee will help cfit to act swiftly to approve for consideration by the full senate. I appreciate the opportunity to make a statement. Was home in idaho this past weekend and it seems all anyone could talk about is a smoke in the air but why it is unusual this time that we are living with that. And we are praying for the brave firefighters in the cruise and those that are worried about using losing their homes and worldly possessions. They are not as extensive as in years past and with those other states that are having larger fires and it seems like it rotates from yeartoyear one year its washington one year at idaho or oregon or california but it does seem to cycle around the states. There more than a dozen fires burning throughout idaho the vast majority of which are on lands those management as turn the west into a tinderbox. In a indisputable strategy of this magnitude it was a start with that ecosystem to deteriorate to host native plants and critical species and when fire comes at burns and that is something we can unquestionably improve. Thank you to the leadership to introduce this bill with common sense solution to the common sense problems to improve the ability to reduce these fuels to improve the forest and communities in a collaborative way it was a common sense effort. Thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity with the scenic river act. This bill was named for a friend of mine a writer and conservation advocate who kept chanting from the headwaters to stafford arizona. And they love that you. And that we have all spent time on the river from all walks of life from the southwest. And with that legislation earlier this year. That we revised to reflect immunity concerns. Those that questioned the legislation please know we heard you to make every attempt and other main tributaries and to provide unique and memorable outdoor experiences for families and scenery and it has wild and scenic and the Cultural Resources in the importing of the important water source and traditional use and we must take action to protect of the gila river and the wild shed one of the nations most iconic River Systems as well support the industry and not part of the state this is a theme weve heard consistently working on legislation meeting with local officials soil and Water Conservation districts and those that like to spend time on the river and with maps bed spread out and also letter rights water rights and the water delivery operation and public land access i look forward to work with you with this critical watershed and those that they depend upon thank you so much thank you for the subcommittee hearing in for the chairman for their help with the bipartisan offshore. And with his important work in also thank you for joining as a cosponsor. The reason for this bill coastal communities are being walloped by frequent and severe storms and Sea Level Rise and fisheries and in all manner of conservation and challenges. We see that right now on the gulf coast they had per capita coastal states receive less land in land states the land and Conservation Fund and the Army Corps Flood and coastal storm damage reduction front lawn mind over the past decade for every dollar that the fund sent to inland states per capit capita, coastal states just got 40 cents. And much of that was for inland and upland projects. And over at the army corps with the coastal storm damage reduction between 19 times and 120 times and those that have their name have coastal and it. This imbalance overlooks massive is to Coastal Community infrastructure and below sea level by 2100. This will come the economic kits and with those social constructions and booties is revisiting Municipal Bonds and the imbalances real with Renewable Energy development with the resiliency and adaptation funding and with senator cassidy let me request those federal documents be admitted for the record. Without objection. Thank you to the members of this committee and with this bipartisan measure. And with the brave firefighters thank you and for their ongoing heroism just last week i visited the fire near bozeman destroying 20 homes thank you to the sheriff and others for doing their part to make sure no lives were lost. And before we begin with over 35 individuals in the grieving American Families who lost loved lost loved ones so please join me in a moment of silence. As we speak today hundreds of thousands of families have fled their homes as wildfires ravage over 6 million acres across the west. With us over 4000 homes with no end in sight the impact they have on the Rural Community will be felt for years to come and with that outdoor way of life and the severity could be contributed with a decline in while we debate the extent to those contributing to the wildfire activity we can agree for a need for a bipartisan solution. The bill introduced 53 pages and i want to thank senator feinstein and then in support of a broad array of stakeholders and we went to submit 23 letters of support. Some say he it undermines environmental are that uses that time tested approaches to streamline without circumventing public input with Environmental Review bipartisan policies in 2014 and 2018 and as a bipartisan compromise. People are dying and the smoke literally starting to cover the country and our way of life as we know it is in danger we cannot rent reporters or continue to fall to partisan politics at the time to come together of democrats and republicans in this bipartisan bill does just that thank you mr. Chairman. Senator mick sally. We appreciate you convening this hearing related to public lands to modernizing access and assess 475 with the job creation act so with the severity of the wildfires arizona has 227 personnel deployed across to help the neighbors out of flames and then to require bold action from congress to improve the health of the forest and then to improve the health of the forest thats what i have done since i have been in the senate. Last year i introduce the restoration act to streamline the overly burdensome for city regulation the southwest. I am glad to see the forest see those proposals to make them a success to reduce the wildfire risk and then to encounter delay after delay even though this is a most single important to reduce the risk of wildfire and needs to be pushed back even further. We cannot afford a delay any longer. One of the Biggest Challenges of Forest Restoration with lowlevel biomass by reducing the cost of the barriers and then with that Carbon Neutral biomass included in the emergency wildfire and Public Safety act and then considering in the hearing to the practical costeffective solutions and then supporting low carbon and energy and better management of the forest as quickly as possible. So would be calling in and out. We have two witnesses joining us in person today the deputy chief of the u. S. Forest service and second casting secretary secretary of land. Joining us virtually are three witnesses that representative of the hawaii he hawaii basin Stewardship Council and the empowerment of the Heritage Waters Coalition in the wild and scenic river act the for the backcountry Services New Mexico to testify way on testify for you the scenic and wild river act. And with the testimony members can ask questioned to be made part of the official hearing record. We agreed to take irony on a written opening statement. We look forward to hearing to your testimony we will start with you and then proceed from each of the five witnesses as you are introduced. Thank you chairman and members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to offer the Us Department of those bills that are before you am a complete testimony detailing that position is included in the record. And we would i like to offer support with more than 31000 firefighters actively engaged come in the entire interagency wildland fire effort is stretched to its limits and the loss of life, homes, lasting effects to communities, airquality , the nations Natural Resources are the increasing rate is unacceptable. We are committed to keeping communities and firefighters safe. As for firefighters come i have been in your shoes. I know their dedication, braver dedication, bravery, and professional integrity is second to none. As we are committed to shared stewardship to change the trend that is coming in the years to come working with states and tribes and communities and partners we know we can only change this by collaboratively working to address the current wildfire reality. We have a nearly yearround season with ever increasing catastrophic outcome. We thank you for your continued focus and help and with those prevention actions in more than 20 years and we are working really hard but we know its not nearly enough and must match the scale of our problems and in places like california were acres per year than the current efforts. This is our challenge and affects all aspect on the conservation mission. Dominates our work we know a new paradigm has emerged we must scale solutions, resource solutions, resources, capacity and resolve to create solutions that match. We look forward to ideas and help us get through that. In relation to the bills at hand the Big Bear Land Exchange act to be relocated for the biomass utilization facility in the working with a sponsor Going Forward it with a schedule of those on the National Forest to establish to recreation Management Areas and additional acres as wilderness. And with collaboration we have concerns about the implementation of you like to work with the subcommittee in the senator as the bill progresses the miracle mountain designate on designation act following the events that senator lee talked about earlier. Disseminating part of that river system is the National System forest land to the dwelling monument and during that committed during the Land Management process for Land Management for designation we look forward to multiple uses not being affected. The Douglas County economic act and with those special use permits in Douglas County. We look forward to working for the sponsor and the goldstar family would make National Parks and federal recreation and we support this bill to respect goldstar families by allowing them to connect to public lands and we share the interest to recognize their service and sacrifice the modernizing access direct the for service to develop the interagency standards and we support the goals of this bill to working with the Committee Emergency wildfire acting comprehensive bill designed to increase post and with dead and dying trees to establish a new landscape level to improve forest conditions we very much appreciate senator feinstein and senator daines attention and we support the goals of the bill the written testimony offers several comments meant to improve the language of the bill and we look forward to the subcommittee as it moves forward thank you for your time today this concludes my remarks thank you for your questions. Chairman and Ranking Member members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to be here today on the acting Deputy Assistant secretary from the department of interior thank you for the opportunity to discuss the legislation before us today. To streamline permit process at 50 percent mineral interest under ownership we support at thes efforts to streamline the administrative process with unnecessary review the federal land act directs to have a register across the federal government and then to modernize the Land Ownership systems and we support the provisions of the bill to align with those efforts with the programmatic area and then to designate one. 1 million acres of wilderness and 16 miles of the river as wild and scenic those wilderness areas outside may not be the most appropriate Land Management tool is some of those provisions with that duplicative planning effort. And then to authorize public land sale to provide for the transfer and then to ensure Public Access and with those Administration Position of the wholesale disposal of land. And then to establish the wilderness with the National Monument in new mexico this may be inconsistent with the collection of firewood to local communities. As 3336 this administration supports military veterans angles or families to believe free access to National Parks and other federal lands should be extended to all veterans and goldstar families. My father is a veteran thank you to all those that are sacrificed to the country. The modernizing access and then to collaborate on the collection and then the longstanding challenges of Data Management we look forward to working with the committee with the offshore act the National Ocean and National Security act and to expand revenue sharing. The administration will boost Domestic Energy production with the environment to ensure the taxpayer receives a fair return from the development of these public resources. 3431 emergency seeks to reduce wildfire risk by establishing wildfire mitigation and expedited review and promote the development and use the biomass and with those restrictions and then to support the bill to work with the sponsors on critical improvement including language with the same active management and wildfire risk authorities under the bill provided to the Forest Service. Finally has 4475 the job creation act to the convey 300 acres to La Paz County arizona for solar energy projec project. We are focused on collaboration and coordination and then to support the goals of the bill to align with these communities thank you for the opportunity to testify am happy to answer any questions. We will be back by the time you are finished that is less inhumane than pausing the hearing and making you come back. And i represent the stewardship coalition. Im here today to discuss as 2828 to be comprised of ranchers and hunters and recreational list and local Business Owners and then as senator wyden said the county and oregon that 72 percent of that area is federal public land. Agriculture is a sustaining enterprise in the region with cattle ranching as a contributor to this activity. Those are sustained through the use of cattle grazing on public land. For many years this area has been embroiled in controversy as groups with differing points of view and then to become focused on the canyonlands and this has resulted in costly lawsuits and delays and important management issues. Most recently those efforts revolved around the attempt to ask the president to create a monument encompassing most of the land in the county. It was formed to prevent a monument. One set threat was temporarily remove the Coalition Members decided a proactive approach was better suited for the longterm benefit of public federal land and community. We believe a collaborative approach based on Traditional Land uses could create an environment with the longterm resolution might be possible and december 2018 leadership from the hawaii Basin Coalition traveled to washington dc to meet with senator wyden and his staff. We asked if he would be willing to lead an effort to be various parties together to find a solution. The enhancing health is the focus and we are grateful to the senator for agreeing to take on this issue. And then to meet with representatives and with environmental groups with an interest in the area. Their tireless efforts are the reason this legislation is before you today there are areas in the bill for we believe agreement is reached but require more precise definition. In a Perfect World there are other language clarifications and enhancements we would have preferred am happy to provide those to the committees separately. Let me proceed to summarize some specifics as follows. To million acres are designated as either current wilderness study and those that are managed as de facto wilderness. It creates slightly more than 1 billion acres while releasing over 1 million acres back for use. We feel this language needs to be clarified in the bill. To continue, their incredible precedentsetting aspects which could be used in but the driving factor of the negotiations is the use of and with those in the county is invaluable. It will not only allow that require federal agencies to use best practices to maintain and improve land conditions and ensure seemly conditions with restoration and multiple use. This allows the local community for those to have a direct priority with a focus on what is best to maintain land health. Since Diverse Groups have a seat at the table we would appreciate clarification to provide additional oversight. We ask it also provided drivers for the county striving to enhance protections for the sensitive ecosystem to allow for better access for visitors and sightseers where appropriate we support those efforts. In conclusion it is our members who drive their livelihood who asked the senator to undertake the process. We hope he and his staff have done an outstanding job and we strongly support their efforts and are grateful to them. Take you for the opportunity to testify and your consideration of this bill which is critically important to all residents. Thank you. Our colleagues are rotating in and out thank you for your indulgence now we will hear from our witness. Subcommittee chairman lee thank you for extending this privilege with the San Francisco soil and Water Conservation district and just for clarification i need to make sure everyone understands that is San Francisco watershed in new mexico not being confused with a beautiful city in california. Im speaking on behalf of Heritage Waters Coalition of which i am a board member and both are in place since our conception this year, Heritage Coalition has been nothing but magnetic brick we have gained 3500 members with four local county commissions and those conservation districts that are opposing 3670 in the wild but were balancing the scales to telling the risks who are associated with the wild and receivers act. Unfortunately this legislation where private land and water developments why is and then to bring this up a number of times and then to have right of ways and livestock use and that makes it compatible with the wild and Scenic Rivers act. Imagine a checkerboard pattern that is established between the designated rivers and jumping over private property or early being for but the mineral nation where they divided have one segment here is one tenth of a mile. Discharge rivers segments are not in with the meaning the meaning with the wild riverbed in 2002 recommending nine rivers and those are designated as wilderness areas. The legislation you are looking at today has designated an additional 51 rivers segments that were deemed and eligible in 2002. The Diverse Group with a review of the designations are and those that are designated if its so all the people who live and work along the river. Speaking of those people, the population, lets recognize the partnership that has lasted for years usda. These are farmers and ranchers who has spent to do good conservation on the river to take control of state and local government to overlay the federal law of all the traditional Government Agencies to be out and federal law is taking place. I will move along quickly. The bill will no longer balance good conservation from water use and will move toward full protection of the river eliminating 134 years of Economic Growth and rights along the river we have to understand the secretary or custodian in charge will have the power be written to minimize lets talk about jobs for just a moment. Thank you for this opportunity to testify before you today. As introduced by senator tom udall and cosponsored by senator martin heinrich, this legislation seeks to permanently miles of the most Scenic Rivers in new mexico as wild and Scenic Rivers. I am jamie crockett, a Property Owner in the middle of the gila wilderness. Outusband and i run gila country wilderness. We run multiday meal packing naturalist guiding and boating trips throughout the gila National Forest for hunters, fishermen, biologist, trail rs and horseback ride birders. We go through the main canyon of the gila river in the gila wilderness. We have spent the last 15 years canyons. Incredible these places are important to my family because they are our homeland livelihood. New mexicans travel great distances to get to the waters edge where we connect with family and friends. Its where we escape the summer heat in the cool, clear water, and where we raise our children to respect nature, god, and each other. These intrinsic values are our way of life and why i live here, and why this area is a destination. Tourism is the second largest state. Y in our after recreation, it is one of the Fastest Growing sectors here. Tourism in silver city is on the rise, and i expect the nation draw to thee the area and sustain this growth in a healthy way that respects our local traditions. This bill is the result of a Grassroots Movement and nearly a decade of work from and by the people of my community to guarantee protections of these rivers, their values, their current uses, and our traditional ways of life. The vast majority of residents in the gila regions of support wild and Scenic Rivers. I know this personally from doing Community Outreach and getting signatures from over 150 local businesses, attending meetings with our fellow constituents, and talking with my neighbors. Ask senatorty we udall and senator heinrich to write this. Representing a variety of opinions on the subject. I was present at one meeting where senator heinrich generously listened to stakeholders on all sides of the political spectrum, including parties concerns about how this may impact their water rights and ranching traditions. I saw firsthand how our senators cared about those concerns and have done the work necessary to ensure that everyone involved has been acknowledged and accounted for in the bill. This bill has received broad support from a wide variety of community organizations, like and the playibe low council of governors. Also the local towns of hurley, baird, and silver city have passed resolutions of support, as has the grand county commission. There has been formal support from sportsmen and womens organizations, veterans groups, state leaders, and civics groups. The American West we measure our wealth in water. We carry the honor and burden of protecting the river and its traditional uses indefinitely through this important legislation. Community0 has been a driven effort involving years of Community Outreach and legislation and we are thankful the senators worked with us to introduce the legislation in the United States senate. On behalf of the many local area farmers, ranchers, hunters, anglers, private landowners, recreation us, Business Owners, tribes, and elected officials, i wish to convey our collective view that its vitally important to protect these critical watersheds and rivers i designating certain segments of the gila river for inclusion in the National Wild and scenic river system. I encourage the committee to proceed with expedited consideration and approval of the mh dutch salmon greater gila wild and scenic river act. Thank you for your time and consideration. This concludes my testimony, and i would be happy to answer questions. Your questions. You have enticed me to look into the legislation and so thank you for being part of the testimony today. Again we are waiting for members to return from votes and fortunately for me i was high on the list anyway so i will go and ask my questions. Im going to start if i could first as i talk about the status is a picture from Yucca Mountain but they are out over 600,000 acres burned with 3,000 burning in just one day. This isnt a new story to us. Weve obviously been through this very intense fire years for several years in a row and as senatoasksenator feinstein stard talking about whats going on today, when people started saying this is the biggest fire ever in the history of the state, thats where we were several years ago so thats whats happening, record fire seasons. The second chart i would like to put up in response to these we have passed new fire legislation and obviously trying to give the Forest Service and you deputy french, the tools you need to help fight the fires and one of the things we did is give the tools smoke forecasters. Why did we do this . We knew the fire season was going to bring these daunting situations, so as you can see on this colorcoded map, we might want to bring it a little bit closer, but these colors are showing up and this is the help ohealth of getting this forecast information that you can see these deep colors of red and purple and dark colors shoving you either have a big part of the sound and the state and on into oregon and a little bit into idaho either unhealthy, very unhealthy or hazardous. So, basically all of this area in the purpleish color is basically unacceptable health risk with smoke. I want to ask you how is this helping us in understanding the risk and giving us information with these forecasters to communicate to the public and to the firefighting community what we need to do to take care during this process. The department of agriculture and the department of interior had been using many of the aspects that came out of the law twall to really focus on how we use technology differently. So, you talked about one and in terms of air quality, what sort of changes to the need to make in terms of movements o movemen, where do they need to put resources, those sort of things. Weve also been working very much on groundbased Image Technology to understand where we are seeing shifts and changes and where to put resources associated with that. We have an rc 26 aircraft that has a distributed realtime infrared capability. Thats from the 141st weddin win the National Guard and thats been supplied a number of the services. We are on track right now for a contract for location services, the wild land firefighters and they are also using some of the Technology Advances for our smokejumpers to be able to drop things into areas more precisely than weve done before i and all of that has come out of the focus that came out of the passage of the bill. Thats great to hear because we feel like we needed more data. I dont think anybody when they look outside they dont think its healthy, but what this really has done is help us with the information about the level of severity of the smoke is what you are saying and then helping us move the resources in the right places based on that information. It helps us understand the effects as well. We saw the smoke in the air but we didnt know necessarily where the intensity was and that sort of thing so all around its helped us where we need to do preventative work and also how to manage things when the fires began. Where do we take this Going Forward, because i certainly believe on the prescribed burns like they were a fan of changing it. People said you cant change this from a seasonal perspective, people dont want to have smoke in march. I guarantee id rather have smoke in march an awful week or a full month of forecasts smoke so how can this help us to have a regional conversation about prescribed burns and things like applying pilots that are now more of a global discussion about how to use those tools . I think people are understanding that in these fire prone forests, one of the main things we need to do as it is the active management is bringing in more prescribed fire. Reintroduced into these places and if we can have the Predictive Services to understand what the smoke impacts will be, we can educate folks and make changes how we are doing things and pick the right year to do that and get that workethat work done more e. That is the part of it that has been the most exciting. Thank you. Basically you are saying Predictive Services like these that we put into the previous bills can help us target prescribed burns and then to the Ranking Members comment about 5,000 firefighters needed right now, did you agree with that number . I dont know what the exact number would be. I can tell you we have more than 31,000 deployed right now. We have had a pretty sustained effort in the interagency response to the entire year and even with covid, we were managing a very well. This last week has shown the stresses in the system, but i dont know the exact number. I think you for your testimony and i hope that we all will look forward to more support for the firefighting with the range protection organizations, with International Countries and they need to be aggressive about getting more resources. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator. Mr. French, in my opening statement, i talked about the Bald Mountain fire at the interNational Forest nearly reached the community of elkridge city utah. For the record, what do you think could have happened had the fire advanced just a few more miles had it not been for miracle mountain . I will be thoughtful and my response because there are some ongoing litigation associated with that response, but as we have seen in many places, often the difference between catastrophic impacts to communities and a fire not having that can be based on very quick changes in weather events and other events and the potential is huge. We see that play out time after time in many of these areas that we can see singular things like just what happened last week when we had these events where suddenly something that would appear to be normal and something that is manageable under normal circumstances can absolutely change overnight and a million acres were burned within days. Thank you. I appreciate that and it was an awful fire that could have been so much worse and we are grateful that it turned out the way it did. I want to talk to you a little bit of s. 2828, the Community Empowerment. We would love to get some clarification on the land intended for the multiple use management on purpose though. The bill as i understand what is it about a million acres of wilderness while releasing another million acres that currently are managed to this wilderness study area and planned with wilderness characteristics. Tell us what our lands with wilderness characteristics is . Wilderness characteristics are inventoried by the bureau of Land Management during the process also Resource Management process and they will inventory of those and work through the process to identify and determine how best to manage this characteristics. If congress were to release these under the bill, would they continue to be managed under the Resource Management plans and potentially with wilderness character or some similar restriction . To the best of my knowledge, yes, so it would be contingent on the process and of the employees. Now the bill proposes that we convert to the grazing allotments into the land held in trust by the secretary for the burns by the tribe. Is that right . Yes, to my knowledge. So we understand it currently holds the grazing permits to those allotments indefensibly says two other reinsurers in the area. Are there any land uses for access issues that arise in the conversion of these lands . Not that im aware of but one thing we would further like to explore requires the bureau to assess recreational values and i think that would be a key thing to set up across the board with these actions in the legislation. Weve been told by the representative from oregon that some local ranchers and sportsmen may have some concerns about the profession s that prod like to find out more about th that. Mr. French, lets go back to you for a minute. The stewardship act, s. 1735, like the bil that though we are discussing just a moment ago, the likes of blackfoot is another bill for wilderness for multiple use land. Land. Land. It would designatwould designatt 80,000 acres of wilderness in montanas National Forest while setting aside about 2300 acres for two recreation Management Area is intended to be a benefit to the areas. The Montana Snowmobile Association contacted the subcommittee to warn us that some of the lands in these recreation Management Areas have elevated the avalanche potentially an area. Is this somethin that somethingn confirm or dispute the . I cant confirm or dispute. Weve had the same information. Ive asked our folks in the area about whether or not theres an increased potential and that they basically said as any backcountry areas like that there is increased potential depending on difference downloads. But they didnt identify anything beyond the specifics of these circumstances . Does this bill really is an wilderness studsemiwilderness . Not that i am aware of. We will ask some additional questions and any subsequent round. Next up to bat wil with the senr stabenow who joins us online. Go ahead, senator stabenow. Thank you very much mr. Chairman. And thank you to all of the witnesses and of course our Ranking Member and thank you for all of the legislation thats in front of the subcommittee. My first comment, my heart goes out like all of us does to those of us impacted [inaudible] lost your audio feed. If you can there we go. You are back. You were saying something profound and we lost you for a second, so we are glad to have you back. A [technical difficulties] we appear to have Internet Connection issues. Okay i can see her again. Hello . There we go. Im sorry mr. Chairman. Can you hear me . Yes we can hear you intermittently. We can see you and hear a few words out of every sound. [technical difficulties] the entire hearing so im not sure what the problem is. Senator cortez masco raised a good suggestion try turning your video feed off and we will try with an audio connection only because right now we are getting only broken pieces of your video and audio. Lets try that and see if it works. Hello . I can hear you. We dont see you, but the suggestion appears to have worked. Go ahead. Thank you so much. Sorry theres not a good connection, but as i was indicating, thank you to you and the Ranking Member and first my heart goes out to everyone affected by these horrific fires and a huge thank you to all the firefighters and others who are heroes in this battle against the fires. I really want to speak in part to the committee of jurisdiction on any of these issues and thank you to everyone whos working so hard but i think its important to step back a moment and realize in the congressional testimony time and time again efforts have been pointing to two things to address these fires. One but heres what is happening on the Climate Crisis and the other is a lack of resources to manage and restore the forest. These are key drivers of todays wildfire issues come u issues, t about Environmental Protection laws. Its about resources and fire management. Thats why so many of us worked together and berger the bipartisan Forest Service budget fix in 2018 to free up the necessary dollars to undertake sciencebased restoration. So we see this with about half a billion dollars that we thought was going to go back into the funding prescribed as you talk about which are possible now if the resource is our hair and so on. But the Trump Administration cut the Forest Service budget and every single submission which is deeply concerning to me, and its also important to really focus on the fact that if we have the resources the fact is its important to emphasize the Forest Service already has 30 categorical exclusions from the national Environmental Protection act at their disposal including three new major exclusions that they authorize since the farm bill, 2018 on the best package and the 2018 fun though. So im truly concerned and i dont understand why the administration hasnt fully implemented the new restoration tools. One example in the 2018 farm bill, we reauthorize and doubled the funding for the popular collaborative Landscape Restoration Program and the Forest Service website says this program has proven to be an effective tool for improving the forest conditions. And yet, the administration has proposed a zero out of the program in every single one of its projects. So, mr. French, and i think you for your service and everyone who you represent and we all agree we need to do more on that Forest Management. After working on these issues. Why not fund and prioritized the programs congress is already giving you to do what needs to be done and what i know they want to do. It was a game changer for the agency and it went into effect this year. The biggest benefit right now that we are seeing is that we are not having to do those midyear transfers to help pay for the activities. Thats given a lot of more consistency to the ability to do work. We have emphasized the use of the tool congress has given us including those that you talked about. We had a concerted National Effort across the agency to use those in a broadway. The reality is these average environmental assessments we do in the agency takes somewhere around 685 days whereas when we went to one of the new Authorities Congress gave us, it is around 243 days. I think that the Biggest Issue we are running into right now its a matter of scale. The types of fires we are seeing in the hundreds of thousands of acres, the types of active management we knew we needed to do on the ground, the tools we have needs to match the scale of the fires they are seeing so weve really dedicated a tremendous amount of the agency just to this work that is the challenge we are facing right now. We are grateful to the efficiencies congress has given us. Its why yourthats why youree outputs we have been able to achieve. One followup mr. Chairman. When you talk about scaling it up, is this an issue of providing more resources to be able to do that . In order to do more acres, we need to have the resources that meet those acres. It takes wildlife surveys, vegetation surveys, the compliance, the contracts to do the work or the timber removal work. Its all of the above. So, it we use every resource we have right now towards the priority. Thank you mr. Chairman. Im so sorry for the technical difficulties. No worries at all. It was worth the wait. Senator cortez masco is to thank for that. We will have to refer to her as the technical expert on the committee now. Senator, you are next. Thank you. But they bounce back here to s. 2890. This is the Douglas County bill. And thank you both. I know youve been working with us and i appreciate there are still some things we have to work through. If i could start with you, you made a comment about there is many provisions in the bill but there is a concern about the transfer of public land that doesnt come and correct me if im wrong but you said it doesnt comport with the administrations wholesale disposal land. Is that right . What does that mean, and who are you referring to when you talk about the administration . Im referring to the president and the secretary. With that said, we would be interested in working with you on the legislation and we appreciate the fact Douglas County has unique opportunities and one of the first orders signed, 3373 contemplates land tenure actions and recreational opportunities. So we would like to end sure as the legislation moves forward with those key recreational opportunities and access are not impacted moving forward. Absolutely want to talk with you because i think in the Western Areas just about 7,000 acres of managed land which Douglas County is looking for 5,000 of that to be under control so they can manage the Flood Control piece of that and then the other 2,000 would be used for recreational purposes. Are you hearing Something Different than that . Typically it is not that high so we can work with you on additional options for how best to facilitate how to deal with that language moving forward. I appreciate that. Let me ask you this. In your testimony you have concern with a particular parcel that has been identified for potential disposal adjacent to the inter agency workcenter and that is an administrative site that holds the Management Office and other facilities. I understand they completed a review for additional administrative facilities at that site and apostles interest back in 2010 so my question to you is are you looking then to move forward with development on that site or can you give me an update so i can really put the intent is that site they are trying to get transferred . This is a Pretty Simple when itoneits not that we are oppoo that its just that particular one with a lot of investment for the expansion of the facility. I think as you know we have a huge deferred maintenance backlog in the agency and we have strategies in place of how they reduce and so the supervisor out there has worked hard to find how to consolidate some of that. That was part of the plan to use the site to consolidate other units. We certainly would work with the county and Community Finding alternatives to that, but if that is the way that it goes we want to make it clear that we thought considerable investment correct me if im wrong youve got to make priority decisions based on Funding Resources and this hasnt been at the top. Now that weve passed legislation to address the backlog, hopefully this goes back to the priority list to address the parcel and what you are going to do with it is that possible . You are referring to the Great American outdoors act and one of the things it does for us is allows us to use our other appropriations that would be used for things like this and in addressing some of those issues. Thank you for being here today. Really appreciate it. Im sure you are aware there are some really ugly fliers were aging and the west due in part to poor federal Land Management. I noticed that 1765 contains provisions that can be read to prohibit Timber Harvesting in certain areas. You would think without such harvesting and maintenance of these recreation areas might actually have a tendency to become more prone to catastrophic wildfire. I know that isnt the intent. I dont think anyone would want to do something that would leave these lands more subject to catastrophic wildfire but could it have that affect . I think in general any time the tables were taken out of the two books for addressing our ability for reducing wildfire risk it just makes it harder to deal with. I always appreciate when we create areas were designated areas that have outcome based type of standards and then we can use the different tools to meet those outcomes. But i think that is one of the Lessons Learned over the years is that as we are trying to figure out how to actually reduce that risk, whether its through active management of prescribed fire, reducing fuels, that we need every tool in the toolbox especially because when you are dealing with fuel reduction there isnt a market for most of the time, you pay for it in other ways maybe the commercial timber. Okay. But typically that should be something we should look out for the, great . Is anytime we take the parcel of the federal land and tell that they cannot harvest or retak goo for the certain activities that involve either tiger breaks or otherwise that does almost inevitably increase the wildfire risk. Our position for years while designated areas is to allow the full set of tools for accomplishing the goals of what the area was meant to be. Thank you that is helpful. Talking about s. 3670 visits to designate more than 30 segments of the forest land in new mexico totaling more than 440 miles. While it just doesnt affect rivers and streams they also extend wilderness restrictions up to one half mile from the streams high water mark. How would this affect water access and not just water rights for irrigation and livestock growers as . Thank you for the question. The primary concern is that those sins of the versions that are currently on the San Francisco river do require maintenance from time to time. With the overlay of federal law in a custodian that is in charge of permitting, he will have every right based on River Management plan to deny permits to maintain desertions and he might have many Different Reasons to deny permits. Who knows. Grass going down the water or it may change the visual of an outstanding remarkable feature. So, it could effectively shut down irrigation and in fact forced abandonment of the water rights if they cannot continue to maintain their diversions. If this legislation is enacted, do you think its still a threat of monument being designated . That would depend on the president and whoever that might be at the time. I think that its unlikely having gone through the process and negotiated an agreement with all sides that the monument would be declared. I think that it would give us an opportunity to make sure this works. And that is certainly what they are hoping for. In your testimony, you mentioned s. 2828 includes land that may not be appropriate for the wilderness designation. Could you expand on that a little bit . Happy to. So, senator, i think that you got that really well on your inr questions for mr. French. When you look at parcels of land and then decide how to manage them and kind of remove multiple use overlay, that does have an impact on the agency, so we like to ensure that that is the best use of the land command given the ongoing activity out west,to the bureau of Land Management and the department of interior would like all of its multiple use Resources Available to combat fire. Thank you. Okay, senator hoeven has now joined us. You are next. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Appreciate it. Also, thanks to the Ranking Member and witnesses for being here. The bureau of Land Management spacing act legislation ive been working on now for a number of years and i appreciate the chairman joining me as an original cosponsor of the legislation. The legislation would streamline and approve the process for Energy Development by lifting the requirement for a federal permit when less than 50 of the Subsurface Minerals are owned or held in trust with the federal government and there is no federal surface landownership. So, i appreciate chairman lee having this on the docket today and im hopeful we can advance the bill which i think is important for our continued Energy Development for the country. So, let me start with you, ms. Castor. My question especially when they are in a minority interest in the mineral acres and they have no surface acreage over the burdensome process thank you, senator. We believe streamlining the process where the federal government has a less than 50 interest and other nonfederal ul surface ownership reduces unnecessary procedural reviews which allows to address the backlog at a faster rate. Under my legislation Energy Developers would still be subject to all state laws regulations and guidance into governing Energy Activity in each row of the restriction. Do you believe the legislation would ensure adequate environmental and safer upgraders for state approved drilling permits as you suggest in your testimony . Generally, yes senator. Typical spacing unit is 1280 acres in north dakota, or about almost 3,000 with a small percentage of the federal minerals, that means over 3 million acres are not being developed because they contain the federal minerals. Would you agree my position would be a benefit to the taxpayer by making more areas available to lease and new Energy Development opportunities . Yes we agree, senator. Deputy chief french, would you agree redundancies and permitting that do not agree to it could lead to the stewardship are hindering the multiple use mission of the Forest Service or its forest lands and grasslands . We have a number of cases where we can see their redundancy is affecting our efficiency. Will you continue to engage with stakeholders in north dakota as well as my office when you move forward with your final Management Plan . We certainly will, senator. Okay. Again, i want to thank both of you and the chairman and the Ranking Member for holding this hearing today. Thank you so much. Thank you, senator. Okay. I have a few more questions if thats all right. On agenda item 3366, the gold star families parks at, ive got a question for ms. Castor and mr. French. Approximately how many families do you think would be eligible for passes under this legislation committees have an estimate on that . Senator, i do not. We would work with the Government Agencies to determine the number. Okay. Under s. 3485, the offshore act, ms. Castor, i see under the authorized use section common mitigation of damage to fish, wildlife and Natural Resources is addressed. Are you concerned offshore wind leasing poses harm to the state resources . Senator, i would need to take that question back to the bureau. Thank you. Appreciate any insight you might have on it. Mr. French commands to agenda item or senate bill 4431 emergency wildfire act of 2020, this legislation includes an exemption for the state of california from the prohibition on the export of unprocessed timber of dead and dying trees. Can you tell me why this exists in the legislation and why we would consider exempting california from the . I think it is a question from the authors that i can talk about the situation generally. The only way that we can export dead dying trees or logs from the forest is to make a determination that they are in excess of domestic capacity. And that is generally a very hard thing to do. Its been a discussion for years in areas with large dead and dying trees like california, like we see in other areas that right now dont get utilized because they dont have value and yet there are markets that have developed and especially in asia where this could be utilized, and i think that is what is driving the intent because right now, we dont have the markets for those dead standing trees ou up there. They are not being purchased. Im not sure if im understanding how to. To make the determination for export you usually lost the value at the time we do that will making it requires a rulemaking and so this change that. Statistics change that. I do think it could certainly be looked at wha with areas that similar situations if that answers if that is the question you are trying to get at. Should we care about the destination of that material . In other words when we are talking about the prohibition against the export of unprocessed timber, should that matter to us as a congress . I think it depends on the lens you are looking at and this is where the discussion. If it is creating a fuel and fire issue and i think that its worth the debate. Its not as if we are concerned about it contaminating someone elses becoming an Invasive Species or Something Like that. There are strong safeguards in place for helpin how they manage export. There are certain species where the export right now. And there are strong safeguards in place that manage that. If we were to make a determination which was that a numbewe looked ata number of tiy the time you do it, the timeframe for the value that might even be there for the next market are usually lost. Thank you. I want to talk about timber jobs for a moment today in montana that is bundled down to seven. What was once a Major Economic driver in montana is now struggling to survive. Its devastating communities and the management of the forests. Commercial timber often provide the economic means to accomplish fuels treatment, restoration and salvage work and stewardship projects like those. Where we lose that infrastructure, we lose great ability for dealing with this situation. We are still able to make progress and its critical for the ability to prepare for it in for the reintroduction of fire its critical and its critical in supporting the economies. I want to commend the proponents of the stewardship act for the great collaborative efforts over the past ten years. To the Great Outdoors including ours, this highlights the need to carefully weigh in and deliberate legislation that affects public Land Management in perpetuity. Land management policy positions can be challenging and divisive over many years in montana. Id like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the reco record. My question is proponents of this legislation stated it will enhance timber production in the area. What a change has resulted or will result in this proposal . From my understanding, senator, the agreedupon collaborative approaches to restoration will increase. They are already on a pathway to increase that one of the outcomes that should increase. Do you believe that this would in any way increase the risk of wildfires in the communitys . We use different techniques, lowimpact techniques. If the fire is starting to put in a community, we can change and we will go to a much direct hire Fire Suppression activity, so that is the way that i would answer it inspires and wilderness or managed differently if they are threatening communities than we wilthen wewill change the tactio prevent the threat. In the written testimony, you speak to potential challenges do you anticipate challenges to recreation as a result of the build. We work to resolve those issues weve heard about with that access to. This has been a fantastic hearing. Even when we are not it establishes a record we can review later. It would be impossible for us to get the information that we need without hearings like this one. Even though its frustrating at times when weve got to vote in between. For anyone that wants to historian on his book the president versus the press. He talks about fdr to donald trump. When President Trump tweets early in the morning, as he does almost daily, the news cycle immediately bends to his latest issue, idea, rant, complain, attack. Days news cycle is devoted to rehashing his tweet and analyzing it in the case of talking heads pushing back networks. On some i think this is nothing short of genius on the part of trump. Obama may have been the first istter president , but trump a president of such mastery of twitter that he ranks, i think, with fdr and radio and jfk and television. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. Morning, his new book on the road in trumps america on a journey in the heart of a divided nation. Michael smercon