23 



Mr. Kingston. Mr. Lee, the question I have is are the importers 

 required to post a bond with USDA? 



Mr. Lee. No, they are not. 



Mr. Kingston. Has that ever been looked at? 



Mr. Lee. Not officially, to our knowledge, it has not been. 



Mr. Kingston. Would it in your opinion be part of the solution 

 if they put up a bond that was guaranteeing that lumber that they 

 were importing was pest free? 



Mr. Lee. I would like to defer the answer to that. I have not 

 thought that deeply on the necessity of posting a bond to ensure 

 that the imports were as described. 



Mr. Rose. Mr. Smith? 



Mr. Smith of Oregon. If the gentleman would 3deld a moment. It 

 may be necessary for the country of origin to post the bond. The 

 importer has to rely upon risk assessment from the country of ori- 

 gin as well as here, without much control. So I think the gentleman 

 has a point, the question is where should the responsible 



Mr. Kingston. What we are really talking about is not the pest 

 but the damage caused by the pest, and a bond would pay for that 

 damage and, presumably, the cleanup in the extermination of the 

 pest. I don't know, that might fit into this situation. 



Mr. Rose. Okay. 



Mr. Rains. Mr. Chairman, may I speak to Mr. Smith's state- 

 ments just a little bit? 



Mr. Rose. Yes. 



Mr. Rains. First of all, we need to understand the rules that are 

 being proposed. We have some comments. Mr. DeFazio's state- 

 ments are really well taken and on target. Nobody disagrees that 

 we want to reduce the risk; nobody is disagreeing that we want to 

 have risk assessments that are highly scientifically based, and 

 what we want to try to do is take the comments that we have on 

 the proposed rule, and the findings that we have in other places 

 and make sure our proposed rules are adequate, and that is really 

 what we are talking about here. 



Mr. Rose. All right. 



Mr. DeFazio. Chairman, could I, before you dismiss the panel? 



Mr. Volkmer on the way out asked, and again I am not on the 

 committee, but I would concur in his request, that the Forest Serv- 

 ice and the APHIS, as best as possible, answer the questions enu- 

 merated in Mr. Cobb's and — Professor Cobb's and Professor 

 Lattin's — it is a total of about I think seven questions and I don't 

 think it would be that difficult to answer, if they could answer 

 them in writing. 



Mr. Rose. Yes, we would ask that they apply in writing to Mr. 

 Volkmer's request to answer these questions. Thank you. 



[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 



Mr. DeFazio. And, Mr. Chairman, if I could, if the Chair would 

 abide one further? 



Mr. Rose. Yes. 



Mr. DeFazio. I hate to belabor this, but I guess I still remain a 

 bit puzzled. If I could ask two questions. 



First off, let us take chestnut blight. It was not identified as a 

 problem, I guess overseas, nor known here before it decimated 

 some hundreds of millions of acres of land in the eastern United 



