Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003

HEALTHY FORESTS RESTORATION ACT OF 2003

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, we have had a great deal of discussion about the fires raging throughout California this week. We talked about fire seasons in the past several years. The years 2000, 2002, and 2003 fire seasons have been some of the worst on record nationally. In 2002, in my State of Alaska alone, we experienced fires that burned over a million acres. Over a million acres in Alaska were burned in 2002. In this year, in 2003-this is from a report that is current as of yesterday, taking into account what is happening in California as we speak-to date, approximately 3.6 million acres have burned nationwide-3.6 million acres, and burning.
Forest fires are a huge problem, predominantly in the West, for those of us in the Western States. It is interesting to look around the Chamber this afternoon and see how many of the Western State Senators are paying very close attention to the debate on this legislation.
We know, we can see the damage to our forested lands from these catastrophic wildfires, many of which have resulted from forests that have been devastated by insects and by disease.
Deteriorating forest and rangeland health now affects more than 190 million acres of public lands throughout the country.
Again, as we have seen from the pictures which the Senators from California displayed and from the newspapers, the areas where the fires are ravaging the hillsides and destroying communities are areas that were affected by insects and disease.
I want to take us to a picture of Alaska, as the good Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Domenici, mentioned not too long ago. In my State, our forests have been infected and literally torn apart by a beetle known as the spruce bark beetle. The spruce bark beetle, other insects, and other diseases have devastated hundreds of thousands of acres along the Kenai Peninsula and in the Chugach Mountains, and outside of my hometown in Anchorage along the hillsides. You are talking about the wildland/urban interface communities and how it all plays out. I see that very carefully and very closely every time I am home.
The picture that I have behind me is a picture from the Kenai Peninsula in the southern part of the State. This is a picture of forests that have been totally wiped out by the spruce bark beetle. There is not a tree that you look at in the forefront or in the background that is alive. Every one of these trees are dead. They were killed by the spruce bark beetle.
As the Senator from New Mexico mentioned, it is like a Christmas tree that you have put out on the back porch and it no longer has any water. The leaves are crumbly to the touch and fall when you touch them.
These trees that you are looking at are probably 30 to 40 feet high. It is tough to estimate the girth of the trunk. But these are very mature old-growth trees that are standing waiting for an accident to happen-waiting for a fire. This is not tinder sitting on the forest floor. This is standing tinder that is just waiting to be devastated and to devastate potentially property and human life.
As we look at this picture and understand the stands we are talking about here, I mentioned that there were hundreds of thousands of acres which have been devastated by insect and disease in Alaska. The spruce bark beetle has literally changed the forests in Alaska. Over 5 million acres of trees in south-central and the interior of Alaska have been lost to the spruce bark beetle over just the past 10 years.
This picture shows, I have been told, the result of trees that have been infested for about a 10-year period. These were perfectly healthy, strong, and living trees. The entire forest has been wiped out by the spruce bark beetle.
We are told in Alaska that this is one of the worst recorded incidents of beetle kill and infestation in our history.
You do not see any homes. You do not see any development. This is out in the wilds of Alaska, if you will. But adjoining the Chugach National Forest, off of the Kenai Peninsula, we have many smaller communities-certainly not a Los Angeles-type of community but we have homes. We have towns that adjoin these national parklands.
We have a little community called Moose Pass which sits right in the middle of dead and dying trees.
My home city of Anchorage, the largest population center in the State-about half of the residents of the State of Alaska live in Anchorage-is rimmed by the Chugach National Forest. We are dealing with the infestation of the spruce bark beetle as it is traveling north. The danger is made even worse when you couple it with the fact that we have had low snowfalls in recent years. Again, it is an accident almost waiting to happen. We don't want to happen in Alaska what we are currently seeing in California.
Our public land laws and regulations should not make it difficult to cut down the dead or the dying trees that are nothing but potential fuel for these catastrophic wildfires. Our Nation's policy has to allow for responsible forest management that includes the ability to remove, when appropriate, wildfire fuel from our forests.
That is why I am supporting the bipartisan amendment to title I of H.R. 1904. In particular, there is a subsection which will authorize treatment under title I on Federal land. This technical change allows for hazardous fuels reduction on Federal lands on which wind throw or blown down ice storm damage or the existence of disease or insect infestation has occurred and poses a significant threat to an ecosystem component on Federal land or adjacent non-Federal land.
I suggest to you, looking at this picture and understanding the extent of the insect infestation that we have, that it certainly poses a significant threat to an ecosystem component.
The Kenai Peninsula National Forest System land contains approximately 223,000 forested acres of which 119,000 contain spruce trees with a percentage of old growth. These old-growth stands are susceptible to the spruce bark beetle or are already dead.
The amendment we are speaking to-the bipartisan amendment under title I-will allow Federal land managers to manage the dead and dying tree stands.
The prespruce bark beetle epidemic condition on the Kenai Peninsula had a significant acreage in unmanaged old-growth spruce which was very susceptible to massive mortality and the buildup of the spruce bark beetle population. The key to long-term forest management on the Kenai Peninsula that will prevent a reoccurrence of the type of spruce bark beetle mortality is to manage the forested landscape for a variety of species' compositions, structures, and age classes-not simply unmanaged old-growth stands.
To maintain the watershed health-which we certainly need-the Chugach National Forest needs to manage the landscape on the Kenai Peninsula for a variety of species, structures, and age classes.
With the technical change that we are seeing in this amendment, it allows for old-growth stands such as those existing on the Kenai Peninsula to be treated without restriction related to the old-growth provisions that are being offered in other sections of the amendment.
I believe that with the legislation before us-the Healthy Forest Restoration Act-we have a comprehensive plan focused on giving the Federal land managers and their partners the tools they need to respond to national forest health crises. That is what we have in Alaska. That is what we are seeing in many parts of the West.
This legislation directs the timely implementation of scientifically supported management activities to protect the health and vibrancy of Federal forest ecosystems as well as protecting the communities and the private lands that surround them.
I support what we are doing with H.R. 1904 and certainly encourage Members' support.