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U.S. Congress passes final wildfire legislation,bill now goes to the President for signature
Wyden-brokered bill will protect communities from catastrophic forest fires, restore unhealthy forests, preserve old growth forests and public involvement

November 21, 2003

Washington, DC – Both houses of the U.S. Congress today passed the Senate-based wildfire bill compromise brokered by U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Larry Craig (R-Idaho), and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and by U.S. Representatives Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), Walden, McInnis, and Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). The final bill made only minor changes to the version that Wyden and others helped broker and lead to Senate passage on Oct. 30.

“This bill will streamline restorative forestry in at-risk and unhealthy forests while preserving public input and protecting old growth—it’s a truly balanced approach to forest health,” Wyden said. “I want at-risk communities across the West to know that help is on the way.”

After helping to broker and lead Senate passage of the wildfire bill, Wyden worked to break the impasse in Congress between the Senate and House versions of wildfire bills. As a solution to the partisan gridlock threatening the final passage of wildfire legislation, Wyden and Feinstein proposed informal meetings to reconcile the differences in the two bills. The agreement they reached through these informal meetings allowed for a formal conference on all titles to the bill except for Title I, the title containing changes intended to streamline forest health activities.

Yesterday, two prominent voices from the environmental community endorsed the Senate-based wildfire bill compromise. In letters (attached) to Wyden, Andy Stahl, Executive Director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics and Jerry Franklin, a professor at the University of Washington College of Forest Resources (and the nation’s leading old-growth expert), urged conferees to resist efforts to alter the compromise version of the wildfire bill (H.R. 1904).

“On balance, it is the opinion of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics that the compromise version of H.R. 1904 will better promote the restoration of healthy forests while protecting the public’s right to participate in forest management and the judiciary’s role in ensuring accountability than would the House bill,” Stahl wrote. “We urge the conferees to adopt the compromise without further change.”

“I am writing to state my strong support for the compromise on Title I of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 that was developed yesterday,” Franklin wrote. “[T]he Senate amendments Title I to H.R. 1904, as past [sic] by the House of Representatives were essential to creating a bill that would be the basis of doing good, rather than harm, to our forest lands. The provision of language directing the restoration of characteristic old-growth forest structure and retention of large, old trees was one of those essential additions that the Senate amendments provide.”

The final legislation, which passed both the Senate and House today, will do the following:

  • Preserve all current opportunities for public input and appeal, while streamlining the appeals process and eliminating some of its worst abuses
  • The compromise will require the Forest Service to rewrite their appeals process using the pre-decisional appeals and comment process that has been used by the Bureau of Land Management since 1984. It works by encouraging the public to engage in a collaborative process with the agency to improve projects before final decisions have been rendered upon them by the agency. This model places a premium on constructive public input and collaboration, and less emphasis on the litigation and confrontation of the post-decisional appeals process currently used by the Forest Service.
  • Not one current opportunity for public comment would be lost under the compromise.

· The compromise is designed to move from the current model of confrontation, litigation and delay to one which places a premium on constructive, good faith public input. Whereas in the past, parties could “sandbag” the appeals process by not raising salient points in hopes of later derailing the entire proposed action in the courts, parties would not be allowed to litigate on issues they had failed to raise in the comment or appeal period unless those issues arose after the close of the appeals process (as a result of the revised agency decision).

Provide the first-ever statutory recognition and meaningful protection of old growth forests

  • Never before has Congress recognized by statute the importance of maintaining old growth stands. Under the compromise, the Forest Service must protect these trees by preventing the agency from logging the most fire-resilient trees under the guise of fuels reduction under these new authorities.
  • Where old growth stands are healthy, as they are throughout much of the forest on the west side of the Cascade Ridge in Oregon, the compromise requires that they be “fully maintained.”
  • The compromise makes it less likely that old growth will be harvested under current law by mandating the retention of large trees and focusing the hazardous fuels reduction projects authorized by this bill on thinning small diameter trees.
  • The compromise makes it less likely that old growth will be harvested in the future by mandating that older forest plans be revised to protect old growth before the agencies can use the new authorities created by this bill to reduce hazardous fuels in the forests.
  • The compromise provides no new authority to log old growth, and avoids exempting any environmental law.

Restores balance to healthy forests legislation

  • The compromise authorizes $760 million annually for these projects. This is a $340 million authorized increase over the currently appropriated level of $420 million for hazardous fuel reduction projects.
  • The compromise adds a requirement that at least 50 percent of funds spent on restorative projects to be spent to safeguard communities which face the greatest risks from fire.

During a formal conference session Thursday, negotiators stripped out all member projects and blocked any additional ones, regardless of their merits. Despite a coordinated effort, Wyden and U.S. Representative Greg Walden were unable to preserve a forest health research center at the headquarters of the Ochoco National Forest in Prineville or attach the Bend Pine Nursery legislation to the bill.

Wyden immediately introduced stand-alone legislation to create a forest health research center at the headquarters of the Ochoco National Forest in Prineville. The Bend Pine Nursery bill was originally introduced as a stand-alone measure and will now continue through the normal process; a Senate hearing was held on the bill Tuesday, Nov. 18.

“I deeply appreciate Congressman Walden's help on the Prineville forest health center and the Bend Pine legislation, and I look forward to working with him on these issues in the future,” Wyden said.

This legislation will now go to the President’s desk for his signature.

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