Speech
Testimony before the United States Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Remarks of Governor Judy Martz
Washington, D.C.
7/22/2003
***Check Against Delivery***
Thank you, Chairman Domenici, Senator Bingaman, Senator Burns and the other distinguished members of this Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to join you today to share the Western Governors’ vision for the management of public lands in the West.
As you know, for the past year I have served as Chair of the Western Governors Association which represents twenty-one State and Territorial Governors. My primary focus in that capacity has been the issue of forest health.
I don’t have to tell you that this highly sensitive issue is also one of the most important ones facing the West.
As I speak here today, wildfires are raging in twelve Western States: Montana; Arizona; New Mexico; Wyoming; Idaho; Utah; Colorado; Oregon; Washington; California; Nevada; and Alaska. As of yesterday, the total acreage burned this wildfire season is approximately 1,356,000 acres.
This issue will not go away. Just last Friday, I signed an Executive Order stating that a state of emergency exists in my state because of the threat of destructive wildfire.
It is my hope that taking this action early in the 2003 fire season will ensure that we do not experience the disasters of our 2000 fire season.
As I joined interested participants from 22 states and 3 countries last month in Missoula for the WGA’s Forest Health Summit, I was reminded of the incredible opportunity we are afforded as Westerners to live, work and play in this incredible corner of the globe.
There is something so very special, so very unique about our way of life in West. Sometimes we don’t look often enough within ourselves to understand our uniqueness, and outsiders rarely appreciate it.
But our uniqueness comes from our people and our communities - communities whose core values are as deeply embedded as their determination and their pride.
Make no mistake. Most every Westerner has a vested interest and truly desires to protect our public lands and scenic vistas. Our lands are the fabric of our very way of life.
But, in that same regard, we as cautious, humble, public servants - not political opportunists - ought to be leading the effort to solve our land management challenges.
First and foremost, we have to end detached, impractical management practices that have little connection to local needs with only a superficial interest in local participation. It doesn’t work and never will.
If we can work together – using input and advice from local, county, state and federal governments, we could bring about much healthier forests and without a doubt create some jobs in the process.
Second, we must work tirelessly to encourage greater cooperation between federal agencies and states and counties. That is what government should be about.
Third, we must work together to craft land management policies that are more reflective of local consensus.
We must provide stability and predictability to our region and local communities.
As a part of our goal to bring stakeholders to the table, we hosted the Forest Health Summit to address critical forest management issues on state and federal lands, while ensuring the best return for our communities. The Summit brought together nearly four hundred participants from all different perspectives. Consensus recommendations were reached by the participants and we are considering incorporating those recommendations into WGA policy.
The participants recommended, among other things, a continued emphasis on the collaborative process, as well as the need to ensure that local communities have the infrastructure and capacity to be partners in the implementation of the 10-year strategy.
As the letter the Western Governors sent to Congress on June 18th makes clear, the Western Governors are convinced that the collaborative process, as it has been set forth in the 10-year strategy, has been working. We urge you, therefore, to avoid prescriptive approaches to project selection and prioritization. As Congress directed three years ago: “Key decisions should be made at local levels”. We have been working hard to implement that directive, and have a plan in place to do just that.
Now, I’d like to discuss the environmental review, appeals, and judicial processes.
There’s no getting around it, the Governors have not been able to come to a complete agreement on what needs to be done to make the administrative and judicial processes more efficient. This reflects to a great extent the different circumstances we find in each of our states. I am sure that Governor Napolitano will describe the situation in Arizona.
Now, I’d like to share a story that many of you know only too well – the story of salvage operations on the 2000 Bitterroot Fires.
I would have brought the federal environmental review on federal forestlands after the 2000 Bitterroot Fires, but it is just too much paper.
These documents represent 15,000 person days or the equivalent of 57 MAN-YEARS of work.
That’s right – had one individual created these documents, it would have taken 57 years of full-time work to complete the job.
Keep this in mind - 57 man-years of work were completed, and over one million dollars were spent for what ended up to be a mere 15,000 acres out of 300,000 acres of burned, dead timber.
And – after all that work – the federal government still ended up in court.
The federal review was completed well after the State of Montana had already implemented active management efforts to restore the health of our state lands in the same area by the timely removal of burned timber.
Currently, 190 million acres of federal forest and rangeland are at an unnaturally high risk to catastrophic wildfire --- larger than all of New England combined. Of the approximately 18 million acres of national forest in Montana, over 12 million acres as classified as “Condition Class 2 or 3,” which means these lands are in critical need of treatment.
To those of us in Montana, and much of the West, it’s clear that the federal process for addressing these problems is horribly broken. When roughly 90 percent of decisions of the Northern Region are appealed, many believe the system is ripe for reform. These constant appeals and litigation, and the threat of these actions, have led to gridlock in many parts of the West. The time is now for real solutions.
Despite some differences between the Governors on the scope of changes that are needed to our administrative and judicial processes, we do have substantial agreement in many areas.
First, we urge you to recognize that effective use of the collaborative process can help eliminate or substantially reduce appeals and litigation. Secondly, we encourage you to review existing law and recent changes to administrative processes to determine if changes in the law are necessary to expedite the protection of high-risk communities.
Regarding judicial action, we agree that meaningful participation should be required early in the planning process in order to establish standing to appeal. We also agree that, should Congress consider setting new deadlines for judicial action, you must not preclude the opportunity for meaningful public participation.
Lastly, we concur that we would all benefit if courts would utilize sound-science to consider the long-term effects of critical forest projects versus the effects of inaction while awaiting judicial rulings regarding injunctions.
Other areas in which the Western Governors are in agreement are detailed in the written testimony.
I would also like to briefly touch on the issue of federal funding. As you know, I testified before this Committee one year ago and discussed this issue. I understand that last year alone, the federal government spent approximately $1.6 billion in suppressing wildfires. Much of that funding was borrowed from other accounts and was not paid back until earlier this year. The Western Governors continue to believe that up front investments in fully implementing the 10-year strategy will reduce suppression costs.
We appreciate the fact that budgets are very tight right now. However, we view this as a top priority, and believe that both Congress and the Administration do as well.
We appreciate the President’s recent request of $289 million in supplemental wildfire suppression funding, and we urge you to pass it as quickly as possible.
Let me conclude by saying that our traditional values can help us build a better nation. Let’s work together. Let’s make our voices heard. I thank you and pray that God continues to bless the hands that made Montana and this nation a better place to live.
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