Washington outlook.

The most significant--and much anticipated--forestry legislation of 2005 emerged late in the year as House and Senate members introduced bills on forest restoration or recovery following significant natural disturbances, such as wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and insect or disease outbreaks. The introduction of three bills in October and November kicked off a debate on specific legislative proposals for addressing a set of important issues, some of them controversial, related to "post-disturbance" forest restoration.

Congress began to explore post-wildfire, or post-disturbance, forest restoration during the summer of 2004 in hearings initiated by the House Resources Committee's Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health. It was generally felt that Congress had dealt with many pre-wildfire issues related to forest restoration when it passed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA) at the end of 2003. Title I of HFRA provided new authorities for hazardous fuels reduction projects to protect communities and forest ecosystems from the threat of destructive wildfires.

AMERICAN FORESTS submitted testimony for one of the initial hearings (see Washington Outlook, Autumn 2004) in which we expressed concerns about post-wildfire reforestation. We questioned the accuracy of current data on reforestation needs after wildfires, the increasing backlog of reforestation needs on federal lands, and the amount of funding available for post-fire reforestation and other restoration activities.

One of our major concerns was that Congress and federal agencies had directed so much attention to emergency wildfire suppression and hazardous fuel reduction activities in recent years that post-fire needs were being neglected, due both to immediate policy priorities and limited resources. We emphasized the importance of understanding ecological effects of increasingly large and intense wildfires and of providing appropriate restoration treatments where forests and their ecosystem services were at risk.

The most controversial post-disturbance restoration issues relate to salvage logging. Some see salvage logging as an essential activity in rehabilitating and regenerating forests and believe that salvage timber sales can provide a critical source of revenue to help cover the costs of restoration treatments. Others see it as an activity that often causes further environmental damage on disturbed forest sites, one done primarily for economic purposes. Due to limited scientific evidence on the environmental effects of salvage sales, there is much room for disagreement. And, due to the recent historical conflict over salvage sales, related to the so-called "salvage rider" of 1995, there remains a significant amount of political distrust.

Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM), ranking minority member on the House Resources forests subcommittee, introduced the first bill on October 6, the "National Forests Rehabilitation and Recovery Act of 2005" (HR 3973). This bill proposes "a series of pilot projects to encourage collaborative approaches to, and to provide research on, the rehabilitation of forest ecosystem health following uncharacteristic disturbances of forested federal lands."

Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), who chairs the forests subcommittee, introduced his bill, the "Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act" (HR 4200) on November 2. This bill, which as the Chairman's bill, is considered the lead bill in the House-seeks to improve and expedite the process for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to respond to "catastrophic forest events." At a November 10 hearing on the bill, Walden said it "is narrowly written to focus on the removal of dead and dying trees where appropriate, to encourage quicker replanting and habitat restoration using native plants, and provide comprehensive research protocols for future recovery efforts."

Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) introduced the "Forests for Future Generations Act" (S 2079) on November 18, setting the stage for debate in the Senate. Although similar to HR 4200, the bill differs in a number of ways. For example, it proposes to establish a special fund for communities affected by natural disturbances with 5 percent of excess receipts from certain salvage timber sales. It also proposes new requirements for federal lands to be reforested within five years of natural disturbances, if those lands are part of the commercial forestland base.

AMERICAN FORESTS submitted testimony for the Nov. 10 hearing on Walden's HR 4200 (www.americanforests.org/resources/fp/Afpolicyviews; look under Testimony). We provided comments on how the bill might be improved through stronger authorities for local collaboration, community-based planning, monitoring, participatory research, and capacity-building in rural communities.

We also raised questions about the bill's funding provisions, recognizing current federal budget constraints but urging Congress to view these activities as long-term investments in restoring functioning forest ecosystems. We suggested that Congress should provide direct appropriation or clearer direction on how the federal agencies should establish funding priorities between pre- and post-wildfire forest restoration activities.

The most important message in our testimony, however, urged the leaders of these legislative proposals to continue to explore post-disturbance restoration issues through an open and bipartisan process. Many of the issues, particularly salvage sales, are very contentious. It will take time and discussion to understand them and develop common-ground solutions. There are good ideas in each of the three bills introduced so far, and we hope these ideas will receive a lot more attention and debate next year.