43 



take, I am not sure about that. This is a relatively new idea. But 

 there were times in the past when there were enough research for- 

 est pathologists and entomologists around the country that we used 

 to send them abroad to do some of this work. 



At this point you hear a lot about forest health these days, but, 

 on the other hand, if you look at what is going on underneath, you 

 will find that the research staffs involved in pathology and ento- 

 mology have shrunken very badly. And we simply do not have the 

 personnel to handle the research needs anymore. We certainly do 

 not have it. 



Mr. Rose. Mr. Russell seemed to agree with that when he was 

 talking about the limited resources that your State has for what 

 this discussion here is about, and you said, we are involved because 

 we care about this issue. Did you hear my suggestion that we need 

 to make a more special effort? 



Mr. Russell. Right, I agree. 



Mr. Rose. At the Federal level. And I am not sure necessarily 

 has to be cooperating with the State level. Because you all do not 

 make your own budgets. Some legislature somewhere negotiates 

 with your department head, and if the Federal Government is 

 going to put — if you have been putting $500,000 into something 

 and the Government offers you 500,000 to piggyback, the resulting 

 program is rarely a million dollars. It is usually the State cuts its 

 portion to 200 and uses its 300 somewhere else and takes your 500 

 and says, my God, we have gone to a $700,000 project. 



Now, that is not universally done. I am not trying to generalize 

 and cover everything, but I know the pressures that are on State 

 governments. I also know how scarce it is to get any money from 

 the Federal Government. Any reaction to that proposal? 



Mr. Russell. We would support added input in exotic pests, and 

 as Fields Cobb has said 



Mr. Rose. How you do it is something else. 



Mr. Russell. We need more researchers and more detail on indi- 

 vidual pests and knowledgeable people that can create a good pro- 

 gram for preventing these pests, taking care of them before they 

 ever get here. All these things are something that is desperately 

 needed. And we are so understaffed in trying to deal with it. 



I felt just like a little ant when I met this chip ship in Longview, 

 Washington. This one chip ship would fill this building to the ceil- 

 ing — the entire building with chips. And here Eric Lagasa, the en- 

 tomologist in the Department of Agriculture, and I are supposed to 

 look at this ship. It just blew us away because we realized the im- 

 mensity of the thing. And if there is one pest in there, how in the 

 heck are we going to find it? 



And that is what we need, is an assessment by the importing 

 companies. We need people to be there 24 hours a day to watch the 

 ship, because there are chips that fall off the ship into the river. 

 We were concerned about that. We watched the chips floating down 

 the Columbia River. We said what is in those? We do not know. 

 So those are the kinds of things that if we had more people to work 

 with, we could monitor those things. 



Mr. Rose. All right. 



Dr. Belsky, any comments about the need for more effort, more 

 funding for USDA directly to concern itself with this? 



