49 



Mr. Rose. At this time, we will call Mark Reimers, the Deputy 

 Chief of the Forest Service for any comments he may have. 



STATEMENT OF MARK A. REIMERS, DEPUTY CHIEF, FOREST 

 SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Mr. Reimers. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the 

 subcommittees. I would like to submit my entire statement for the 

 record and I will highlight that. 



I appreciate the opportunity to present the views of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture concerning H.R. 3732. Mr. Chairman, we com- 

 mend Mr. LaRocco for his efforts to complete a wilderness bill for 

 the national forests in his congressional district, which includes all 

 or parts of the Boise, Clearwater, Nez Perce, Payette, and Idaho 

 Panhandle National Forests. 



Although it is our preference to see a bill addressing the entire 

 state of Idaho, we understand the desire to try to move ahead at 

 this time. The debate over wilderness designation in Idaho has 

 gone on for many years. The difficulty in resolving the issue has 

 resulted in considerable uncertainty and we concur with the desire 

 to resolve the wilderness question in Idaho. 



However, the Department of Agriculture does not support enact- 

 ment of H.R. 3732 unless amended to address the concerns that we 

 will note. 



We do have a display map here if you should want to get into 

 more detail. The existing wilderness is indicated in yellow, the pro- 

 posed wilderness in green, the blue represents special management 

 areas. And if you were close, you could see the inventory of 

 roadless areas that we so often discuss. 



H.R. 3732 would designate 19 additions to the National Wilder- 

 ness Preservation System totaling 1.3 million acres, and 14 special 

 management areas, totaling 283,000 acres within the affected na- 

 tional forest. 



Mr. Rose. Could I ask you in the interest of time, if you could 

 submit your statement for the record and then in about 3 or 4 min- 

 utes just give us a summary. 



We are going to ask the full committee to discharge this sub- 

 committee, I believe that is our intent, 



Mr. Reimers. I will do that. 



Mr. Rose. While your excellent statement is going to be in the 

 record, if you would give us the high point in a few minutes of 

 what the problem areas are. 



Mr. Reimers. As we indicated, we support the wilderness des- 

 ignations. They do exceed what was in the forest plans but rep- 

 resent a reasonable compromise. We have concerns regarding the 

 special provision in section 107 regarding private property rights. 

 We think existing law will take care of the need under the Tucker 

 Act. 



We have concerns with the water language because it specifically 

 limits our ability to seek water rights should it be necessary. We 

 support the wilderness release language as written. 



We have concerns with the special management areas and would 

 have preferred, and continue to prefer that those areas be managed 

 under the provisions of forest plans and the National Forest Man- 

 agement Act. We believe that ecosystem management will allow us 



