Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my name is Jim Geisinger and I am the President of the Northwest Forestry Association. I appreciate the opportunity to present my testimony today on behalf of the entire forestry community. My focus will be on Senate bill S.2417 and the forestry-related components of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) August 23rd proposed regulations to revise the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program under Section 303(d) and modifications to the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program under Section 402 of the Clean Water Act. Let me state up front to the Subcommittee. The forestry community strongly supports S.2417. It will provide the needed time and scientific investigation required to make sense of a total maximum daily load program that is projected to cost states over $1 billion to implement.
There has been much confusion regarding the forestry-related aspects of this rule. The EPA wants to make the American public believe that forestry is a significant contributor of pollution to waters of the United States. I am here today Mr. Chairman to tell you that forest management is the best land use of any to protect water quality and the practice of forestry provides an economic incentive to maintain lands in forest cover. The facts are undeniable and yet we are hearing statements from an Agency that cites inaccurate information and out-dated data. I'll share that with you in a moment but first I want to talk to you about the "Revised Approach" published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency in a joint statement on May 1, 2000.
While we have numerous concerns with the proposed regulations, our paramount concern remains EPA's attempt to re-classify forestry activities as a point source, subject to EPA permitting. In their May 1 revisions, the EPA has done nothing to change that only to attempt to confuse their true intent and saddle over nine million private landowners with unprecedented federal bureaucracy. Sometimes, the forestry community has separate voices on issues of federal policy. Today, I can tell you, the entire forestry community is one hundred percent united against this designation and the May 1 USDA/EPA forestry revisions. Whether its private landowners, those who access public lands, easterners or westerners believe this rulemaking is an assault on the practice of forestry in the United States. In fact Mr. Chairman, the governors of Oregon and New Hampshire submitted letters after the to the EPA Administrator after the May 1 "revised approach" opposed to the forestry re-designation.
The May 1 "revised approach" actually expands the proposed rule, rather than improves it. And the so-called revision continues to include one of the most overreaching parts of the proposal the effort by EPA, contrary to historic Congressional intent, to label all forestry activities as a point source discharge subject to permit requirements. In addition, EPA and USDA now claim authority to review every state's forest management program under the TMDL program, and even claim additional authority to approve the TMDL program based on undefined criteria that won't be developed until after the rule is finalized. This is more expansive than even the original proposed rulemaking, and it is not supported by those at the state level who must actually administer these programs.
For the first time in the history of the Clean Water Act, the Federal Government is claiming the authority to dictate how private forestry practices should be conducted in the United States.
The May 1st EPA/USDA revised approach did not take into account the concerns of industrial or non-industrial forest landowners and the agencies did not share it with affected stakeholders until after it was sent to Congress. Moreover, the revision contains an exemption from permitting requirements for the federally-owned U.S. Forest Service lands, yet imposes this requirement on private forest lands. The U.S. Department of Agriculture cut a deal to exempt their own land when the same exact federal water laws apply to private lands. Is this the way federal environmental policy should be developed? If the Federal Government needs to exempt federal forestlands from this rulemaking, then private landowners should be exempt as well. I ask to submit for the record a more detailed response to EPA's May 1st announcement.
This proposed rule could well require a private forest landowner to obtain for the first time a federal permit to work his or her forest. According to EPA, this includes nursery operations, site preparation, reforestation, cultural treatment, thinning, prescribed burning, pest and fire control, and general harvesting operations to name a few. These permits can take over six months to obtain and at significant expense to the landowner. To put it simply, we shouldn't have to get a federal permit to plant a tree.
We believe Congress must act to reassert the Congressional intent of the Clean Water Act. We support legislative action, including S.2417 introduced by Senator Mike Crapo and Bob Smith. The legislation would restore sound science and basic environmental research into a program that is growing out of control and lacks the high quality monitoring data that are needed to determine pollutant allocations in a watershed. Through the combination of a National Academy of Sciences study, pilot projects and increased funding, the nation's waterbodies will be restored more cost-effectively, efficiently and benefits truly realized.
We also support legislation authored by Senate Blanche Lincoln (S.2041) and Senator Tim Hutchinson (S.2139) to maintain the responsibility for administration of sustainable forestry on private lands where it belongs on the ground at the state level.
Before I close Mr. Chairman, I want to return to a subject I mentioned earlier - the quality of the data. The EPA Assistant Administrator for Water sent a letter to the House Agriculture Committee claiming that 25 states reported 727 silviculturally-impaired waterbodies. There are several organizations involved in evaluating this list including state agencies. Very briefly, I would like to share with you the "good science" presented by the EPA in that March 7, 2000 letter to Chairman Goodlatte in the House Agriculture Subcommittee. The Florida Agriculture Commissioner responded to EPA's allegations in an April 10th letter. It states, the Section 319 "Assessment was largely a qualitative survey, in which "water quality impairments" were typically reported without supporting data, or any other means of field verification. Further, the Assessment did not engage in nor provide any cause-and-effect analysis to determine or verify any source(s) of nonpoint pollution. It goes on to state: "No doubt, the qualitative and nonscientific nature of the Assessment, accounts for the "silvicultural impairment" of waterbodies such as the Everglades, Sarasota Bay and the Myakka River, where silviculture is virtually non-existent. A 25-state report will be forthcoming on these alleged impairments. Preliminary contacts with state forestry and water quality agencies indicate that this same "good science" was applied.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the forestry community. I'd like to close with one last comment. The EPA indicates that this rule "only generated" a little over 30,000 comments as compared to a wetlands proposal that generated over 100,000 comments. I can guarantee the U.S. Congress that if EPA extended the comment period on this rulemaking and was looking for real input, they would receive over 1 million comments. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.