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NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF STATE FORESTERS
444 North Capitol Street, NW, Suite
540, Washington, DC 20001
Testimony of Leah W. MacSwords
State Forester of Kentucky
On behalf of the National Association of State Foresters
Before
the House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture
June 22, 2005
UDSA Forest Service Centennial
Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of
the Committee. On behalf of the National Association of State
Foresters, I am pleased to have the opportunity to testify today on the
Centennial celebration of the USDA Forest Service.
The National Association of State Foresters is a
non-profit organization that represents the directors of the state
forestry agencies from the states, U.S. territories, and the District of
Columbia. State Foresters manage and protect state and private forests
across the U.S., which together encompass two-thirds of the nation’s
forests.
This year the Forest Service is celebrating its 100th
year of service to the citizens of this country. State Foresters have a
long history of working cooperatively with the Forest Service – first in
fire protection, and then expanding to forest management, wildlife
habitat conservation, and protection of clean water. Looking back on
this long relationship, it is clear that perhaps the greatest
accomplishment of the Forest Service during its first 100 years has been
to bring a forest ethic to the all the forests in the nation by
instituting a professional, scientific, and systematic approach to
forest protection of all the nations’ forests, regardless of ownership.
History of Cooperation
In 1911, Congress passed the Weeks Act, which
authorized the purchase of land east of the Mississippi River to protect
navigable waterways and their watersheds. This Act led to the purchase
of burned-over and denuded land and the establishment of the eastern
National Forests, which include the Daniel Boone National Forest in
Kentucky, the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in
Virginia, and the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. In
addition, the Weeks Act established funding and direction for watershed
programs and cooperative fire protection with the states on lands
impacting navigable streams. The 1924 Clark-McNary Act further expanded
these authorities by authorizing a federal grant program with the states
for cooperative fire protection on all forestland across the country.
The Act also established funding for states to implement reforestation
and cooperative assistance programs for private landowners.
From its beginnings in the first quarter of the 20th
Century to its culmination with the National Fire Plan, this country’s
wildland fire protection program – led cooperatively by the Forest
Service and the state forestry agencies – is second to none in the
world. Together, we have built up an institution of knowledge, skill,
and experience that protects the nation’s forests and grasslands from
wildfire. Most recently, the National Fire Plan has not only
strengthened funding for wildland fire programs, but has also affirmed
that the nation’s wildland fire protection program is a cooperative
effort across agencies and ownerships and serves all areas of the
country.
After much debate, it was decided in 1919 that
state forestry agencies, rather than the federal government, should have
the legal responsibility for cooperative assistance and regulatory
programs for private lands. Building from earlier authorities, the
Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of 1978 provided the Forest Service
with broad and comprehensive authority to support the efforts of state
forestry agencies to help the nation’s 10 million private landowners
manage and protect their forests. The Cooperative Forestry Assistance
Act has subsequently been updated and strengthened through the 1990,
1996, and 2002 Farm Bills. These cooperative programs support the
educational, technical, and financial assistance to landowners to ensure
that the public goals of sustainable forestry are realized. They
include, among others, the Forest Stewardship Program, cooperative fire
assistance grants, and the Urban and Community Forestry Program, and
have established an excellent track record of protecting water quality,
restoring fire-adapted forests, and managing wildlife habitat.
Changing Needs
Over time, the resource protection and management
needs of private lands have changed. In the post-war era, many states
focused their cooperative assistance programs on reforestation of lands
that had been cut over to fuel the war and the subsequent building
boom. The current programs in the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act
are focused on the sustainable production of timber, protection of water
quality, improvement of wildlife habitat, and conservation of working
forests. While these factors are still important, the current suite of
programs needs to be better integrated and targeted to achieve maximum
outcomes across the landscape. These changes do not necessarily have to
be made through changes to the legislation, but could instead be
implemented by adjusting existing program regulations to meet the needs
of the future.
As of today, there are 187 federal programs across
all agencies that affect private forestland. While many of these
programs are focused on issues other than forest management, there are
still a number of programs throughout a variety of federal agencies that
do have measurable effects on landowners. I urge the Committee to
examine options for program consolidation that would help to better
achieve overall program goals across the federal agencies.
The greatest hindrance to accomplishment of the
Forest Service mission through assistance to states is lack of adequate
funding. While we in the state and federal forestry arena are certainly
not alone in loss of funding over the past several years, I believe that
funding for the cooperative forestry programs has been cut especially
heavy. If fact, some cooperative forestry programs have never received
any funding. An example is the Watershed Forestry Assistance Program
that was authorized in Title III of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act
of 2003. This program would provide states with the resources to
undertake watershed forestry restoration projects in priority areas and
to improve state forestry best management practices programs.
Unfortunately, Congress has never appropriated any funding for this
program. A second example is the Community and Private Lands Fire
Assistance Program (CPLFA). This program was originally funded under
the National Fire Plan and focused on assisting communities with
planning and carrying out hazardous fuels reduction work. Since its
reauthorization in the 2002 Farm Bill, it has received no funding,
undermining the ability of communities to carry out fuel reduction
projects.
Greatest Challenges
Unlike private and state lands, management of the
National Forest System has been slowed by regulations that, while
well-meaning, often prohibited forest managers from carrying out
projects in a timely manner. I have seen this happen many times in my
state of Kentucky. In the late 1990s, many areas of Kentucky, including
the Daniel Boone National Forest, experienced large outbreaks of the
southern pine bark beetle, causing high levels of mortality in pine
stands across the state. To further compound the problem, severe ice
storms during the winters of 1999 and 2003 knocked down many more
trees. This influx of downed timber in the forests created an
abnormally high fire hazard that needed to be dealt with quickly.
The standard approach for forest managers to
mitigate this type of hazardous situation is to quickly harvest and
remove the downed and dead trees to both reduce the fire hazard and to
naturally stimulate forest regeneration. Due to the excessive levels of
analysis and bureaucracy that federal forest managers had to wade
through, much of the dead and downed timber on the Daniel Boone Nation
Forest decayed beyond the point of salvageable value by the time the
agency was ready to complete the timber sale. In contrast, the Kentucky
Division of Forestry completed several salvage timber sales on the state
forests in the time that it took the Forest Service just to get their
sales approved. Environmental impacts from the harvest, once completed,
would generally be the same, regardless of ownership. However, the
environmental risk on National Forest System lands has often been
increased by delaying the harvesting and restoration work, thus
increasing the fire danger. The state system of analysis has proven to
be much more efficient and could serve as a model for federal lands
management.
Congress passed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act
of 2003 (HFRA) as a mechanism to streamline the approval process for
forest restoration projects that focus on removing excess hazardous
fuels, and to facilitate other restoration projects. The Act helps to
put scientific forest management back in the hands of the professionals
who know the resource best. NASF supports all titles of HFRA and we
request the Committee’s assistance to ensure that the agency is given
the resources to successfully implement all six titles of the Act.
Forest Service Role in Leadership
The Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act provides
the Forest Service and – through cooperative agreement – the states with
direction on the focus of the landowner assistance programs. Most of
the landowner assistance programs in the Act are reauthorized every few
years through the Farm Bill. Based on the lack of Congressional support
for many of the current landowner assistance programs, it is clear that
a new approach to State and Private Forestry programs is needed.
At the NASF annual meeting last September, Chief
Bosworth challenged the State Foresters to help the public understand
the great benefit that can come from a few well-placed federal
investments in state and private forestry. Chief Bosworth suggested we
engage people who own or care about forests, water, and wildlife to help
build a broader understanding of the work that landowners do to deliver
the wide range of benefits that come from their lands and enhance the
public good. Together with the Forest Service, NASF sponsored three
meetings over the past few weeks to develop a shared understanding of
public benefits from non-federal forestlands, to define what landowners
and constituent groups want from non-federal forestlands, and to
identify appropriate roles in assuring the sustainability of public
benefits. The findings of these meetings, which we titled
Non-Federal Forestlands: Partnerships for the 21st Century,
will be available later this summer and will provide guidance to the
Forest Service, NASF, and other stakeholders. State Foresters believe
that a strong focus on providing clearly definable public benefits will
better shape the future of state and private forestry. We will remain
actively engaged to help lead the programs in this direction over time.
Research and development within the Forest Service
has a long history of providing research to the broad array of forestry
sectors, including the public, academic, and private sectors. As a
partner with the Forest Service research programs, NASF places great
value on the work being conducted at the six Forest Service research
stations, especially the long-term research for which the agency is so
well known.
One of the most valuable research programs the
Forest Service conducts is the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA)
program. This forest monitoring, inventory, and mapping program
provides the entire forestry sector with comprehensive data on the
status, condition, and trends of forests across the country. States use
the data extensively and often work cooperatively with the Forest
Service to gather the data. The FIA program is run out of the six
separate research stations, resulting in differences in program
implementation across the country. We applaud the Forest Service for
its recent efforts to manage the program more consistently and encourage
the agency to further these efforts.
The Forest Service also helps to support forestry
research at land-grant colleges and universities through the McIntire-Stennis
forestry research program, which provides dedicated funding for forestry
research programs. The McIntire-Stennis funding is very important to
maintaining research programs at many of these schools, and efforts to
move the program to exclusively competitive grants would seriously
undermine the long-term research now being conducted. Competitive
grants work fine for two- or three-year research projects – commonly
performed by graduate students – but fall far short of adequately
addressing the needs of long-term or localized forestry research
projects. I urge the Committee to maintain support for this program.
Conclusion
The state forestry agencies and the Forest Service
have a long history of working together cooperatively. Many of the
programs the states implement are funded and supported by the Forest
Service, mainly through the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of
1978. Therefore, State Foresters have a strong interest in the
direction of the Forest Service as we embark upon this new century of
our partnership.
I wish to close by reminding the Committee that the
most compelling forces shaping the agency’s role and direction with the
states will not come from within, but rather from new and global issues
that are already shaping our policy. Greenhouse gas markets, the
increasing value of clean water, and global markets will all shape the
agency’s direction in the future. The strong relationship between NASF
and the Forest Service will help state forestry agencies and the Forest
Service to better serve the public as these changes begin to take place.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I
would be happy to answer any questions you may have. |
