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Senator Pressler. Thank you very much. 



Let me address this question to any of the members of the panel 

 who want to comment on it. What do you beheve to be an accepted 

 allowable sale quantity, ASQ, level for the Black Hills, or how 

 should it be determined? 



Ms. Many. Tom should be the one answering this instead of me, 

 but I think what we would like to see is 120 million. But we cer- 

 tainly don't want anything over the sustained yield level of the 

 forest, but we think that the Forest Service should be actively look- 

 ing for ways to increase the sustained yield level. And we're work- 

 ing under so many restrictions right now, leaving snag trees, for 

 instance, but not only leaving snags, leaving potential snags. 

 There's just more and more areas that are being denied to us and 

 more and more areas that we're having to not use anymore. And I 

 think we need some creative thinking by the Forest Service to get 

 in there and increase the sustained yield in the areas that we can 

 use. 



You know, one of the things that is real disturbing to me, the 

 Yellowstone fire, for example, burned up enough timber to support 

 this country's needs for 3 years. It's just gone up in smoke. If we 

 don't find ways to find the timber here, then we're throwing the 

 burden on other countries. And most of the other countries that 

 will send timber to us are poorer countries, and some of them will 

 literally strip their forests. They'll have no environmental control. 

 They'll have no funds to replant. We're reforesting here in the 

 United States. There's no sense in contributing to the deforestation 

 of other countries. We need to look hard here in our own forests 

 for ways to find that. 



Mr. Brademeyer. The allowable sale quantity should be a ceil- 

 ing. It's not a target. It has to be determined based on multiple use 

 requirements, which include wilderness, which include wildlife, 

 which include recreation, which include water. Timber cannot dic- 

 tate what they need as an allowable sale quantity. Mechanization 

 and expansion of mills can absorb any amount taken off of this 

 area. If you want jobs, you'll have to do it sustainably. And this 

 whole concept of allowable, demandable sale quantity is where 

 their problems are coming from. They should be worrying about 

 utilization of what they're getting rather than burning the top 

 third of the tree. They should be eliminating waste in the construc- 

 tion industry. They should be stabilizing small businesses to com- 

 pete with these out-of-State corporations. 



Mr. Troxel. The only thing to add is when we talk about those 

 numbers — and Angle is right that the number has to be sustain- 

 able. But in many ways, the timber harvest level is a byproduct of 

 all the other management objectives. If we manage the forest well 

 for those other objectives, there will be a good, high, sustainable 

 level of timber harvest. 



The amount of growth right now in the Black Hills National 

 Forest, I think, is a good comparison because there's a 159 niillion 

 board feet of timber growing each year. Right now the ASQ is 118 

 million board feet. And it just seems to me that we ought to be able 

 to stay close to this same level. 



Senator Pressler. On the issue of the appeal process—and here 

 again, I should mention that I have voted for some Craig amend- 



