Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 - Continued

HEALTHY FORESTS RESTORATION ACT OF 2003—CONTINUED

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the Senator from Washington has made a number of extremely important points, points with which I certainly agree. Having served as chair of the forestry subcommittee and now ranking minority member, I can tell my colleagues the Senator from Washington is absolutely right with respect to her concern about adequate funding. For example, the bill from the other body provided no funding for the thinning projects. This legislation increases funding 80 percent. So her point with respect to making sure there is funding is dead on correct, and I think not only that point but other points she has made are correct.

In spite of that, I do have to oppose the amendment tonight, and I want to take a couple of moments to say why.

First, let me stress how important public participation was to me and to the other Senators who are involved in putting together this bipartisan compromise. If there is one thing, just one, that I want to stand for in my career in public service, it is the right of citizens to participate. That is why I have open community meetings in all my counties. It is why I have sidewalk office hours. It is why, as so many Senators, I try to make myself available as widely and extensively as I can.

So I come tonight to say with respect to this key issue, this key question of public participation, not one current opportunity for public involvement would be lost under this compromise. I say that again. Not one current opportunity for public comment would be lost under this proposal.

There are three alternatives that people would be part of examining and, in fact, the public would have a right to come forward and offer their own. It seems to me that that gives us a chance to keep the greatness of the National Environmental Policy Act, a statute more than 30 years old, while at the same time allowing us to deal with some of the concerns such as the unnecessary redtape and paperwork.

This proposal in the legislation we are considering cuts the alternatives from five, to nine, essentially to three. I am of the view that, while it is appropriate to have a host of these alternatives under the National Environmental Policy Act, when, say, the Federal Government is building a road, which is a broad purpose concern, I think when you are talking about this area and projects that are narrowly drawn, limited in where they can occur and how, it is appropriate to try to boil down the NEPA alternatives to the three that we have offered in this legislation.

Mr. President, the Senator from Washington makes the argument that, in effect, the Senate will be starting down a slippery slope. I would just say to the Senator from Washington, I am convinced that because there are good people in the Senate, such as the Senator from Washington, that will not be the case. If someone comes forward and tries, for example, to unravel the National Environmental Policy Act, or even apply what we are doing in this area to every area, there will be opposition from a whole host of Senators, including this one. Nobody is talking about doing this in a host of other areas. We are talking about saying in this one area where we have been told by, for example, the Governors, it is not just a question of spending more money, it is a question of how you spend the money, I think this compromise strikes a reasonable balance.

I urge my colleagues to support this compromise. The compromise is dramatically different than the approach the other body takes with respect to the National Environmental Policy Act. The other body basically kicks the public out by predetermining the National Environmental Policy Act alternatives. What is offered in the compromise preserves all opportunities for public input and appeal, while making sure that we deal with the paperwork and some of the unnecessary redtape.

I urge my colleagues to support what is in the compromise because not one current opportunity for public comment would be lost, and all of us want to make sure that on an issue that citizens care so strongly about their right to be heard is preserved. This compromise does that.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. WYDEN. Thank you, Mr. President. The hour is late. I am going to be very brief.

I am opposed to this amendment. This is not an unlimited bill. It has a 20-million-acre cap. Suffice it to say, we are going to have a lot of oversight in both the Agriculture Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

But I also thank the Senator from Iowa with respect to how he has handled this legislation. He has been exceptionally kind and helpful to me. He has had differences of opinion with me on this issue. I thank him for all of his cooperation.

Suffice it to say, Mr. President and colleagues, the West has been watching the last few days, and in a particularly contentious area, the Senate has been able to find an awful lot of common ground. Even on some of the amendments that we have had—the question of the urban interface funding initiative, whether it should be 50 percent or 70 percent—these are areas where reasonable people can differ. It is awfully easy to polarize on this issue, to drive people into rival camps, and to a great extent the Senate has avoided this.

So what is important tonight as we deal with this last substantive amendment—and then we have a couple of procedural matters, colloquies, and that sort of thing to finish—is that we recognize how important it is to get this bipartisan compromise to the President's desk.

The bill that the Senate will pass tonight is the one that I believe ought to become law, and it is absolutely critical that it be the one to get to the President so it can become law.

So I hope Senators will continue to work together on a bipartisan basis and make sure the Senate compromise does not unravel.

In addition to the Senator from Iowa, who has been so helpful throughout this process so we could expedite it, Senator Cochran from Mississippi, since the days that we spent those long hours in his office, Senator Craig, Senator Domenici, Senator Crapo, and others, a lot of people thought we would never get to this night.

One person who did was the senior Senator from California who I have been so honored to have had on my subcommittee over the years. We wouldn't be on the floor tonight without the senior Senator from California who consistently, when we bumped up against an issue where we couldn't bring people together, it was the Senator from California who broke the gridlock. I want the Senate to know how much this body should appreciate the contribution of Senator Feinstein. This Senator does in particular.

I yield the floor.

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ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW PROCESS

Mr. WYDEN. Could the Senator from Mississippi confirm that with respect to section 105©(3), it would be the Agriculture Committee's intent that if the agency fails or is unable to make information timely available during the administrative review process, the court should evaluate whether the administrative review process was inadequate for claims or issues to which the information is material?

Mr. COCHRAN. The Senator's understanding is correct.