IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PRESIDENT'S 

 FOREST PLAN FOR THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST 



TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1996 



House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Na- 

 tional Parks, Forests and Lands, Committee on 

 Resources, 



Washington, DC. 



The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:08 a.m., in 

 room 1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. James V. Han- 

 sen (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 



STATEMENT OF THE HON. JAMES V. HANSEN, A U.S. REP- 

 RESENTATIVE FROM UTAH; AND CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMIT- 

 TEE ON NATIONAL PARKS, FORESTS AND LANDS 



Mr. Hansen. The Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and 

 Lands convenes today for our seventh oversight hearing on Federal 

 forest land management issues. Today, our focus will be on the im- 

 plementation of President Clinton's Forest Plan for the Northwest, 

 also known as Option 9, after the alternative that was selected to 

 guide future management of the Federal forests within the range 

 of the Northern spotted owl. 



The plan covers 24.5 million acres of national forest and Bureau 

 of Land Management lands in Washington, Oregon, and Northern 

 California. It was developed and adopted after the President con- 

 vened his Forest Conference in April 1993, having made a cam- 

 paign promise to solve the forest management gridlock in the 

 Northwest. The plan calls for a significant reduction in Federal 

 timber sales and allows forest management activities on only 12 

 percent of the Federal land base. Twenty-one-and-one-half million 

 acres are reserved by the plan in protected status for wilderness, 

 for lakes, successional and riparian reserves, and other administra- 

 tive withdrawals and adaptive management areas where limited 

 management and research is to be conducted following extensive 

 additional planning and analysis. 



Along with establishing the reserves. Option 9 created a complex 

 interagency decisionmaking process that I hope the witnesses will 

 clarify for us today. Forest supervisors and regional foresters or 

 BLM district managers used to make their own decisions for the 

 Federal land under their responsibility. Now, they must defer to 12 

 Provincial Interagency Executive Committees, a Regional Inter- 

 agency Executive Committee, a Regional Ecosystem Committee, 

 and an Office of Forestry and Economic Development who all must 

 have a say in Forest Service and BLM decisions. 



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