Dear Washingtonian Tweeters,

Aren't dead, dying, diseased, bug-infested, and burnt trees good for
a healthy forest (and their birds)?

And, is Norm doing anything to find alternative futures for
Washingtonians, so that in that future we don't have any more stories
from any more Norms, saying "Many of the people who I grew up with,
went to school with, have lost their jobs, have gone into bankruptcy
because they used to depend on logs off our Federal lands and they
cannot get them any longer."

Peter

(The following was obtained from the www server http://thomas.loc.gov/
which contains among other things Federal bills and the Congressional
Record, including this item from your Representative Dicks. It was found
by searching for "environment endangered species" as search words.)
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HARVEST OF TREES ON FEDERAL LANDS (House - March 03, 1995)
[Page: H2645]

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks] is recognized for 5 minutes.

(Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the House Committee on
Appropriations took very dramatic action to deal with a very serious
environmental problem in our country. Yesterday the House Committee on
Appropriations directed the Forest Service to double their salvage
program from approximately 1.5 billion board feet up to 3 billion
board feet over the next 2 years. What that will do in essence will be
to expand this program that is used to go out and take down dead,
dying, diseased, bug-infested, and burnt trees that are going to rot
and will be of no use to us over the next 2 1/2 years.

What we said is, this is an emergency. We need to go out and do a good
job for the American people, allow our foresters to go out and gather
in those burnt, bug-infested trees. And that we could, if we did this,
probably bring in about a billion dollars over the next 2 years in
additional revenues to the treasury.

Also we would be protecting the forest health. It is clear in my mind
and all the experts say this, if we do not get rid of these dead and
dying trees, then we are going to be faced with the problem of
increased forest fires.

Last year we spent in fighting forest fires in the west $1 billion. So
we passed this emergency program yesterday and in it we created
expedited procedures. We said that for the next 2 years, every sale
will have to have an environmental assessment. There will have to be a
biological opinion done, in which you look at the effect on endangered
species , and if an agency, the Forest Service or the BLM are
arbitrary and capricious, you can go into Federal court and stop that
sale, that there will also be a period of time for administrative
review. So we have created expedited judicial procedures and expedited
environmental review, because if we do not act, if we do not get those
trees while we can, we are going to lose this potential revenue to the
Federal taxpayers.

Now, how much salvage is out there in the entire country? The Forest
Service estimates that there is somewhere between 18- and
21-billion-board feet of this salvage that is out there. And today our
lumber mills need saw logs. Our pulp and paper mills need chips. We
have seen a dramatic reduction in harvesting of our Federal forest
lands. And because of that, our mills are going out of business,
particularly in the Pacific Northwest.

So I hope that the American taxpayers and the American people will
support the Committee on Appropriations, will support the Taylor-Dicks
amendment, which will allow this to happen.

I am glad that we had a bipartisan approach to this. The gentleman
from North Carolina, Congressman Taylor, is a forester. He knows a lot
about these matters. I have been working on these issues and trying to
urge additional salvage for many, many years.

I think this is a win-win. We can protect the forest health by getting
rid of these dead and dying trees, because if we do not do it, if we
leave it out there, then we will have increased forest fires next year
and we will have to spend billions more fighting the fires out in the
west.

We also, by the way, the home builders of our country support this,
because the cost of lumber in an ordinary $135,000 has gone up by
$5,000 a house, because of the shortage of lumber.

This will give additional lumber supply and hopefully will reduce
those prices. So it has a positive effect on housing as well.

I regret that we have to take this emergency step. I regret that we
had to do this in the Committee on Appropriations. But I want you to
know that the chairman of the Committee on Resources and the chairman
of the Committee on Agriculture, the two committees with authorizing
jurisdiction, approved this measure, because they recognize the
emergency.

In my own State of Washington, we have seen a dramatic reduction in
timber harvesting of our Federal lands over the last several years.
Many of the people who I grew up with, went to school with, have lost
their jobs, have gone into bankruptcy because they used to depend on
logs off our Federal lands and they cannot get them any longer.

And they come to me and say, `Norm, can't we please have those dead
and dying trees, the ones that are burnt, that are going to rot and we
can't use them after two or three years? Can't we go out there and get
them?'

So this amendment will allow that to happen, and I hope when it comes
to the floor that we will have unanimous support, as we did in the
Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives.

[TIME: 1530]