Washington Outlook.

At mid-summer, Congress has made significant progress in completing its new annual funding bill for the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The House has passed its version of the Fiscal Year 2007 Interior Appropriations bill and the Senate's version has cleared the Appropriations Committee and will soon go to the Senate.

It seems likely that Congress will complete action on a bill before it leaves town during this mid-term election year--a feat many thought would be very challenging.

While different in many ways, the House and Senate versions of the Interior Appropriations bill both address a number of concerns that AMERICAN FORESTS expressed earlier about President Bush's funding proposals (see Washington Outlook, Spring 2006). Both bills, for example, direct the Forest Service "not to follow the Administration's proposal," which would provide a large funding increase to the Pacific Northwest for forest products, or timber sales at the expense of other regions. The House report expresses concern and calls for "greater transparency and explanation of how the Service allocates funding to various regions and national forests."

Both the House and Senate reports call specific attention to "the need to maintain forest industry infrastructure," suggesting that "this will enhance the likelihood of lower cost mechanical treatments, while enhancing rural community stability." AMERICAN FORESTS appreciates this recognition of the need for transparency in the funding allocation process, as well as the emphasis on maintaining local industry infrastructure--both the capacity to do forest restoration treatments and to use woody materials for value-added processing.

Neither the House nor Senate supported the Administration's proposal to sell up to 300,000 acres of National Forest System lands to generate revenues for rural schools and communities in the vicinity of national forests. Such revenues would be used to fund an extension of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, which needs to be reauthorized this year. One funding mechanism has gained support of the House Resources Committee--an amendment that would direct $50 million per year of new royalties collected by the federal government from offshore oil exploration to the so-called county payments program. Sponsored by Reps. Greg Walden (R-OR) and Peter DeFazio (D-OR), the amendment to the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act passed the Committee unanimously. The two see it as the first step in a bipartisan effort to find revenue streams for the $450 million needed annually.

For more detail, watch for our comments in the next "Washington Outlook," when Congress will have passed a funding bill. It does appear, however, as if Congress will provide funding at higher levels than the Administration's proposals for a number of programs that encourage collaboration and assist communities, such as Cooperative Forest Health, Cooperative Fire Protection, and Urban and Community Forestry.

In addition, we are hoping new provisions in the Senate's report language dealing with biomass utilization grants and accomplishment reporting for hazardous fuels reduction will be adopted by the House-Senate conference committee. The first set of provisions would allow the Forest Service to use its existing $5 million biomass grants program for community capacity building, technical assistance, and marketing assistance, in addition to straight utilization activities. This would make the program more flexible for many communities attempting to develop biomass use projects. Senate report language also directs an additional $5 million to support a biomass utilization grants program recently authorized--but not yet funded--in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

The second set of provisions addresses concerns about the Forest Service's emphasis on treating the most acres at the least cost under the National Fire Plan. The Senate report encourages the agency to focus more on treating high-priority acres and using mechanical thinning rather than emphasizing lower-priority acres and lower-cost treatments, such as prescribed burning.

The report also recognizes mechanical thinning is often the only option for many of highest priority acres and can provide both ecological benefits of land treatments and economic benefits of using woody biomass that is removed. These suggestions by the Senate reflect concerns and comments that a number of AMERICAN FORESTS' community-based forestry partners have expressed at recent congressional hearings.

Finally, in follow-up to the 2005 White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation, the Administration released an interagency package of proposed legislation with four components. One, the "Healthy Forests Partnership Act," would: authorize the Forest Service and BLM to enter into new partnerships; designate new Healthy Forests Partnership Zones in priority areas to foster investment by nonfederal parties; and encourage the application of peer-reviewed science with heightened legal significance.

Comments are encouraged through a link on a new federal website: cooperativeconservation.gov. AMERICAN FORESTS will reflect further on the proposal as we learn more.