22 



sponded to the final environmental impact statement had no new 

 information to provide us. 



We continue to work with our friends and neighbors in the outfit- 

 ting business to adequately analyze and display the economic ef- 

 fects, and I will make another decision, as I said. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. If a licensed CPA made a statement that this 

 report was concluded under standards of the normal practice with- 

 in the industry of accounting, a licensed CPA gave you that sort 

 of statement, would you then use this information? 



Mr. Richmond. I would consider it. I am not going to say here 

 that I would use it. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. You would only consider using the information 

 if a CPA said that they used standard accounting methods? 



Mr. Richmond. I believe that the method that we are currently 

 using, based on reviews that we have had by the regional econo- 

 mists in Region I of the Forest Service, Region IV of the Forest 

 Service, and Region VI of the Forest Service confirms that our 

 analysis is right, and I believe that I can use that as a standard 

 report if I have to accept it. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. Are these people certified public accountants 

 in their reviews? 



Mr. Richmond. They are card-carrying economists. See, one of 

 the problems with the agency model is that they are basing it on 

 investment and in some cases on what I call blue-sky potential in 

 terms of selling your businesses, and there was a term that 

 whipped around this town a few years ago called voodoo economics, 

 and I think that there is some of that involved in the model so far. 

 Unless that is shaken out. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. Now, a certified public account would not put 

 his name on the report verifying that these figures were acquired 

 under standard practices if there is voodoo economics in play here. 



Mr. Thomas. Could I respond to that, Mr. Chairman? 



For one thing, a CPA is a CPA, which says you got an accounting 

 principle. An economist is an economist who usually develops econ- 

 ometric models that utilize that sort of information. 



What a CPA says about an accounting process doesn't have much 

 to do with the econometric model. I think here, we are talking 

 about econometrics, not a CPA assessment. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. Mr. Chairman, I don't think so. I think that 

 the economists engage in an art and CPAs engage in a science, and 

 that is what we are after. 



I think that by engaging in art, it gives the Forest Service too 

 much latitude to impose personal preferences by public policy, and 

 so that is why I think we need to stick to general accounting prin- 

 ciples as set forth as science and followed by the CPAs. 



Mr. Thomas. I think we do. The point of it is, having some train- 

 ing in econometrics myself, I still think there is a very clear dis- 

 tinction between what goes into an econometric model which might 

 have some utilization under CPA regulation, but running a model 

 is a whole different question. 



We are talking about — for example, I don't think a CPA has 

 much to say about the validity of an econometric model. Con- 

 versely, I am not sure that economists have much to say about ac- 

 counting practices. I think those two things are very different. 



