27 



technical assistance through the State offices and local conserva- 

 tion districts, the Soil Conservation Service, we believe, is the ap- 

 propriate agency to administer a waterways restoration program. 



I certainly appreciate having the opportunity to appear before 

 you, Mr. Chairman, to offer the Administration's views. 



If I might, Mr. Chairman, although we were not invited to testify 

 on H.R. 4481, the National Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Act, I 

 would like to offer a few comments and then follow up with more 

 written detail. 



I, too, want to compliment Congressman Hamburg, Congress- 

 woman Furse, Chairman Studds, Ms. Unsoeld and others who are 

 cosponsors of this important legislation. I want to offer three brief 

 comments, and as I said, provide more detail a little later on. 



First of all, I want to point out that in fiscal year 1993 the U.S. 

 Forest Service expended $65 million for watershed restoration 

 projects. In fiscal year 1994, we expect to expend $100 million. The 

 Soil Conservation Service has expended roughly $100 million each 

 of those two fiscal years. The kinds of projects we have been in- 

 volved in includes riparian areas restoration, revegetation, culvert 

 repair, road maintenance, road surfacing and more and more the 

 elimination of existing forest roads. 



We currently work cooperatively with the Fish and Wildlife, 

 EPA, the National Marine Fisheries Service and other agencies 

 that are designated as part of the task force in H.R. 4481. Unfortu- 

 nately, the Forest Service is not designated as a member of the 

 task force nor participants in developing the restoration strategy 

 and we hope we can address that slight oversight. 



In addition, the bill would designate the Director of the Fish and 

 Wildlife Service to chair the task force and be responsible for the 

 development of the strategy. I would simply offer, based on my ex- 

 perience in working in the Pacific Northwest and attempting to 

 pull together an interagency ecosystem strategy for protection of 

 old growth forest, which I think is a fairly successful model for 

 interagency cooperation, that something more akin to a rotating 

 Chair might be the appropriate way to structure the organization 

 for the watershed restoration efforts that are designated by H.R. 

 4481. 



I think the advantage to that is it eliminates the potential for 

 interagency rivalries and jurisdictional squabbles which unfortu- 

 nately occur more frequently than I would like to see. It might help 

 us move more quickly to address the priority set out by the bill. 



Finally, I think it is important that the bill clarify the funding 

 mechanisms and the role counseling would play in making grants 

 for economic restoration projects so as to be certain not to create 

 a bottleneck for funding to address some high priority issues. 



And by that, Congressman, what I would suggest is that we 

 clearly determine what role each agency would play, and continu- 

 ing to work with the existing partners we have in funding the 

 kinds of projects that we do, working either cooperatively with our 

 other Federal partners or individually with organizations we work 

 with on the ground. I commend you for the bill. 



[The statement of Mr. Lyons can be found at the end of the hear- 

 ing.] 



