Statement by Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman Regarding the Proposal to Promulgate Regulations Concerning Roadless Areas Within the National Forest System -- November 2, 1999 Release No. 0437.99 Statement By Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman Before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Lands Management Committee on Energy and Natural Resources United States Senate Regarding the Proposal to Promulgate Regulations Concerning Roadless Areas Within the National Forest System -- November 2, 1999 "Mister Chairman And Members of The Committee: "I want to thank you for the opportunity to address the Subcommittee today and offer my thoughts on President Clinton's October 13th memo directing me to initiate a public process to consider long-term protections for roadless areas on our National Forests. "As most of you know, I come from Kansas, a state without much land in the National Forest System. Still, I have spent more time on forestry issues than any secretary in recent memory, and I've learned a great deal about these issues since I first took this job. "The one overwhelming fact I have experienced first hand is that our nation cares deeply about its public lands. There is no question in my mind that our collective objective is to ensure that these lands remain resilient and bestow on us tremendous benefits into the next millennium. The controversy stems from the "how," not the "why." The key question is how do we sustain the forests and the benefits they provides us? "Answering these questions and deciding the fate of these remaining unroaded, unprotected lands gets to the heart of how we want our national forests to be managed in the future. In this century alone, we've developed more than half of the 192 million acres in the National Forest System. As we enter the 21st Century, the President is asking the American people to help decide the future and fate of more than 40 million acres of unroaded land. "The roadless area issue has become a national debate needing leadership and resolution. As both a member of the House of Representatives and as Secretary of Agriculture, I have watched and been a part of the yearly debates over roads funding and protecting roadless areas. I saw the agency eaten alive over entering roadless areas for timber sales under the 1995 Salvage Rider. The intense controversy and litigation died down only after I issued national direction to the Forest Service prohibiting it from entering roadless areas using the rider's authorities. "More recently, we received an incredible 80,000 comments in response to the proposed road building moratorium. A huge portion of these comments called on us to adopt a longer term measure to protect roadless areas. We also received support from members of Congress in both parties who asked us to provide more permanent protection for roadless areas. "Rather than ignoring these comments and letting this issue continue to go unresolved, the President asked me on October 13th in Virginia to initiate a public process to bring some finality to the issue. Let me be clear when I say that the President's announcement was only the beginning of this process. We now stand ready to engage the American people in a discussion about what we should do with these unique and precious forest lands. "In response to the President's request, the department issued a Federal Register notice proposing some ideas for protecting roadless areas as well as a creative strategy for making these decisions at both the national and local levels. We think this integrated approach, now out for a 60 day public review period, is a fair place to begin the national dialogue on the roadless issue. "Public opinion and extensive scientific work have pointed to the ecological and social importance of roadless areas. These areas have unique values that provide Americans with significant benefits such as clean water, wildlife habitat, food for hunters, and recreational opportunities. As part of the national dialogue we are beginning, we need to discuss how to best protect these unique values for our children and our children's children. "We also need to discuss the issue of where the agency should invest its limited resources. For example, entering roadless areas is expensive. Timber sales in unroaded areas require environmental impact statements and tend to be very contentious. In fact, many of the lawsuits the Forest Service has faced and lost in recent years involved plaintiffs trying to prevent the Forest Service from building new logging roads into roadless areas. "Timber sale activities are far less expensive and controversial in the areas accessed by the Forest Service's existing 380,000 mile road system. The Forest Service provides about 3 billion board feet annually from these lands. In fact, because most logging already occurs in roaded areas, the department's proposal would affect less than 5 percent of the timber sale program that existed prior to the current road building moratorium. Indeed, the department's proposal does not shut down the timber program, and it is far from being a "back door" way to advocate zero harvesting on our national forests. "The Forest Service also has a tremendous amount of forest health work to do in roaded areas. For example, the regional science report for the 75 million acre Columbia Basin said that more than 80 percent of existing forest health problems occur in roaded areas. Other roaded areas across the country face similar problems. Indeed, forest managers almost always get a bigger bang for their buck by investing in forest health projects in roaded areas rather than roadless areas. "Some have argued that this proposal aims to limit Americans' access to their public lands. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, the public is likely to lose more access to the national forests from deterioration of the existing road system than it ever would from a temporary or permanent reduction in new road building in roadless areas. Given budget realities, the Forest Service is having difficulty maintaining its current road system. In fact, since 1990, the American people have lost nearly 10,000 miles of road access due to failed maintenance and deterioration, while the Forest Service has built less than 5300 miles of new road into both roaded and roadless areas. "Future road access into national forests will depend less on this roadless initiative, than on the amount of funding the agency receives to maintain its existing roads and how communities, working with the agency at the local and regional levels, decide how to match agency resources with their communities' needs. Getting the existing system to work correctly will take years of hard work and collaboration, but we are ready to get busy. "That concludes my remarks. I thank you, Mr. Chairmen, for the opportunity to speak to you and the Members of this Committee. I apologize that I won't be able to stay for the remainder of the hearing, but I have to return to the Department because of other commitments. However, I have asked Under Secretary Jim Lyons to accompany me this morning and I'm certain that both he and Chief Mike Dombeck will be able to answer any questions you might have. "Thank you again." #