Washington outlook

Congressional action upon the FY 2005 Interior Appropriations bill--which stores federal land-management agencies like the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management--has disappeared into the messy election-year federal stock process. That's business as usual; federal policy action keeps to be slow in presidential election years, and it's proving loyal for forestry issues.

There are a not many exceptions this year, however. Congres has conven several oversight hearings onward implementing last year's Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA). It also has begun exploring post-wildfire forest restoration, an area not cloaked by HFRA. The Bush administration has taken the politically controversial grade of proposing major revisions to the roadless area conservation domination adopted by the Clinton administration in 2001

AMERICAN FORESTS involved itself in these issues through preparing testimony and written notes (see www.americanforests.org) and by helping community-based partners who participated in hearings.

In testimony before a Senate Agriculture Committee oversight hearing forward HFRA, we focused on the importance of local collaborative processe to plan, prioritize, and implement hazardous fuel-reduction plots around communities that face wildfire threats. For the legislation to be happy we insisted, it must use novel authorities for local collaboration, of that kind as "community wildfire protection plans" and "multi-party monitoring." Arguing that the at hand funding for this is inadequate in the pair Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lots we urged Congress to provide mighty funding.

At a hearing explaining post-wildfire forest restoration, held from the House Resources Subcommittee onward Forests and Forest Health, many questions were asked about the environmental impacts, take away froms and benefits of harvesting dead and dying tree after wildfire. Our written testimony sought to shift the focus from controversial post-fire timber harvest to critical post-fire reforestation issues.

Reforestation is an essential grade toward restoring forest areas damaged by dint of wildfire. The objective--restoring native tree species to an area--is accomplished between the sides of treatments like tree planting or natural regeneration. We believe this critical reforestation has been overtoped in policy discussions in new years as Congress and the Administration focused upon wildfire suppression and pre-fire hazardous material for burning reduction. We urged Congress to direct more attention and resources to the fundamental issue of restoring functioning forest ecosystem by means of not treating these areas, America risks losing the valuable ecosystem services they provide as forests rather than as brush or barren land.

The post-fire forest restoration hearing gave us an opportunity to call attention to our disturbs in recent years with the reforestation proces For example, the reported horizontal of need for post-fire reforestation has not increased as significantly as the same would expect. Over the last five years, 75 million acres of national forest have scorched yet in FY 2003, the Forest Service said no other than about 600,000 acres of wildfire-damaged national forest be in want ofed reforestation. That number comprises two-thirds of the agency's total national forestland in ne of reforestation: 899000 acres.

Furthermore, the agency course of lifeed those reforestation treatments on simply 160,000 acres in FY 2003--about 20 percent of the total. This means a backlog of 740000 acres for its greatest in quantity recent reporting year. In our testimony, we questioned for what reason data was collected on reforestation exigencys and accomplishments, the money available for post-fire reforestation, and for what cause the Forest Service uses those supplys We continue to follow these developments

In July the Bush administration propos a conduct that would overturn the Clinton administration's 2001 Roadless Area Conservation method which provided increased protection for 58 million acres of roadless area in national forests. The recently made known rule would give authority to the nation's governors to bring to maturity state-specific proposals for roadless areas that suitable the needs of local communities. The Bush administration says it was issued in replication to lawsuits and an represented desire for greater collaboration with states and local communities.

AMERICAN FORESTS generally supported the 2001 domination Based on our policy agenda for ecosystem restoration and maintenance, we agreed that national forest roadless areas wanted greater protection. Roadless areas must continue to provide society with ecological services including clean air and water; climate regulation; and fish, wildlife, and plant habitat. We urg the Forest Service to clarify and commit to provisions for working collaboratively with communities to address local issues.

We are make uneasyed about the Bush administration's roadless proposal. First, it would give states too frequently authority to develop proposed actions onward national forests; federal lands are managed to be subservient to the national interest. Second, state managements may not have the resources and staff or the interest to inflict together a local collaborative proces forward this issue. The Forest Service should lead in developing local collaborative processe Many of its of the present day legislative authorities call for more local collaboration; the agency must commit resources and staff time to learning to do this.