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Mr. Unger. Certainly, endangers species issues have been and 

 can be dealt with forest by forest in the planning process. It has 

 been true historically. It has been our view that these issues have 

 become more widespread, complicated, and complex and involve 

 larger areas of landscape than individual forests in some cases and 

 that we can be more efficient in terms of costs and more effective 

 in terms of results by dealing with them at a larger scale. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. The words "complicated" and "more complex" 

 simply are not definitive enough. It takes a broad brush and covers 

 over a multitude of sins. That disturbs me. We are talking in the 

 Columbia Basin ecosystem management plan of about 144 million 

 acres, of which 7 million acres are Forest lands, the rest are pri- 

 vate. The cost, to date, I guess has been more than $25 million and 

 where did that money come from, the $25 million? 



Mr. Unger. The funding for the project has come from our exist- 

 ing funds for inventory, and forest planning, from other parts of 

 the Forest Service budget having to do with the kinds of problems 

 that are being addressed in the assessment, whether they be tim- 

 ber, watershed, wildlife, other kinds of issues that we are dealing 

 with. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. The moneys have been diverted from forest 

 management, timber harvesting, assessing potential areas that 

 should be harvested or could be? 



Mr. Unger. We certainly have, by taking our funds from within 

 our existing budgets, had to delay and effect some of our other 

 work in the interest of trying to have a more efficient process over 

 the long run that will save us money over the long run and enable 

 those projects to go forward such as timber harvesting, grazing, 

 and so forth. Hopefully, with less interference from litigation and 

 we will have more defensible decisions. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. Mr. Unger, did the Congress authorize you to 

 divert funds to a program that they have not yet authorized? 



Mr. Unger. All of the use of these funds to my knowledge has 

 been conducted entirely within the guidelines that the Congress 

 has set forth. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. But am I correct in believing that none of the 

 authorizing committees have set forth a program for ecosystem 

 management? 



Mr. Unger. The Congress, we believe, has set forth in a number 

 of laws the authority for us to carry forth ecosystem assessments 

 and ecosystem management in NEPA, in the Organic Act, in the 

 National Forest Management Act, and the other laws that govern 

 our operation. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. I think that is overreaching. In fact, as I look 

 at the ecosystem management program, judging from your testi- 

 mony, sir, you haven't even followed the NEPA process. But I 

 wanted to direct some questions to Mr. Blackwood. 



Mr. Blackwood, since you are in charge of this project dealing 

 with my area, do you feel that you have sufficiently examined the 

 impact of this project on grazing both economically and bio- 

 logically? 



Mr. Blackwood. The question was, do we think that we have 

 had enough examination of the impacts of grazing? 



Mrs. Chenoweth. Yes. 



