47 



have them serve two forests rather than a single forest. Frankly, 

 there are some opportunities out there to actually close individual 

 ranger districts and so on, and reduce that total overhead cost. 

 Those savings cannot be attained in 1 year with that kind of a 

 move. But some of the things, such as instead of hiring a sale prep- 

 aration crew on every district in 1994, we could hire one for all the 

 districts on a forest. Some changes in the types of sales that we 

 offer in silvicultural treatments can also enhance the economic out- 

 look. 



We have not clearly defined yet how far we can go on savings. In 

 the timber sale cost efficiency study that we made, we estimated 

 we could save about $19 million through cost efficiencies, but I 

 don't think we can achieve that all in 1 year. 



Senator Daschle. Nineteen million over what period of time? 



Mr. Leonard. I think it is going to be several years before we 

 achieve that level of savings, because some of the things, as you 

 start reducing your organization — these are permanent personnel 

 out there, and attrition takes you so far in a given year, and you 

 have transfer station costs — so it may take several years to get an 

 organization down to that more efficient level. 



Senator Daschle. So to the degree you can't reach the $46 mil- 

 lion objective through efficiencies, obviously, the bid prices go up; is 

 that what you are saying? 



Mr. Leonard. And if we get bid prices going up, that, of course, 

 takes the forest out of being a candidate for reductions. 



Senator Daschle. Mr. Riley or Mr. Francis, do you have any 

 comments? 



Mr. Riley. I am concerned about the magnitude of the financial 

 cut involved here, and I am glad this discussion happened for the 

 record. The simple truth is you can't make a $46 million cut with- 

 out taking substantial cuts in programs that have historically sup- 

 ported these 23,000 jobs. And there is some opportunity for efficien- 

 cy improvement, but it is small in comparison to the $46 million 

 recommendation. That is the problem we have to deal with over 

 the next month, and I hope we can come to grips with it. 



I don't know if I am permitted to ask a question, but I have just 

 got to do this because it just recently happened. I was in Idaho re- 

 cently, and I was talking with some representatives of fish and 

 game and a local environmental group, and the proposal was a 

 timber sale that had burned last summer, and it was a salvage 

 timber sale. The issue was whether we should build a road up to 

 the timber sale or whether to log it by a helicopter. And the heli- 

 copter was substantially more expensive just because of the way 

 the terrain lay, but that's what the fish and game folks wanted to 

 have happen; because of hunting access, they didn't want it to be 

 too easy to shoot the big elk. And that is what the environmental 

 groups wanted. 



Now, I suspect, quite frankly, that the decision to use the heli- 

 copter to log that timber rather than build the road made that sale 

 below cost. And I am just curious if I could ask Mr. Francis: Would 

 you rather we built the road or used the helicopter? 



Mr. Francis. Well, I guess I don't understand why using the heli- 

 copter cost the Government more. Did the Government pay for the 

 helicopter? 



