200 



Today, I have asked the Forest Service to explain to us the scope 

 and cost of each of these projects. It is unclear from the written tes- 

 timony how much National Forest land is included within the 37 

 million acres of the Southern Appalachian Assessment or the 25.6 

 million acres of the Sierra Nevada Assessment. Nor is it apparent 

 to what degree the assessment covers State or private lands, and 

 how the information may be used. These are important questions 

 that I hope will be addressed today. 



Collectively, the Federal Government will have invested more 

 than $41 million in the three assessments by the time they are 

 completed later this year, according to the Forest Service. I am 

 sure there are additional costs incurred by the Federal agencies 

 and others that have not been included in this total. In evaluating 

 the cost effectiveness of this process, we will need to consider what 

 additional funding will be needed for smaller scale watershed anal- 

 yses, forest plan amendments or project decisions before the new 

 information can actually be put to use. 



I think we will all agree that it is worthwhile and important that 

 the Forest Service provides the best information possible to its local 

 managers for planning and decisionmaking purposes. Today, we 

 will explore whether the broad, ecoregion-based assessments pro- 

 vide the most effective way to collect the scientific information 

 needed for Federal land management decisionmaking. 



I thank all our witnesses and Members for your participation in 

 the hearing today. Now we will begin with the Honorable Rep- 

 resentative Wally Herger from the great State of California, who 

 is probably known as one of the most dynamic Members from Cali- 

 fornia. We will now turn the time over to you for which time you 

 may consume wisely and effectively, we hope. 



STATEMENT OF THE HON. WALLY HERGER, A U.S. 

 REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNLV 



Mr. Herger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to 

 testify today on the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, or SNEP. 



Management of the Sierra Nevada and the forests of California 

 is an issue of highest priority to the communities I represent. Mr. 

 Chairman, the Sierra Nevada and the forests of California have a 

 centuries-old history of frequent and often catastrophic fires. Be- 

 cause these forests are much drier than the forests in the Pacific 

 Northwest, they burn much more frequently, approximately every 

 25 years. 



In 1994, while fires consume 545,000 acres of Forest lands in our 

 State of California, most, like the cottonwood fire near the city of 

 Loyalton, California, threaten to destroy entire communities. 



Fire risk in the Sierra has increased dramatically in recent years 

 due to a century of aggressive fire prevention coupled with sharp 

 declines in timber harvest. These factors combined have made for- 

 ests unnaturally dense, 80 percent denser than they were just 70 

 years ago, according to Forest Service data. 



To illustrate this point let me provide the committee and you 

 with two photos of Yosemite. First is a picture of the valley in — 



Mr. Hansen. Set it up so the audience can see these, too, if you 

 would excuse me. 



