223 



[Prepared statement of Mr. James E. Loesel may be found at the 

 end of hearing.] 



STATEMENT OF BILL SNYDER, CHIEF FORESTER, GEORGIA 

 PACIFIC CORP., MARTELL, CA 



Mr. DOOLITTLE. The Chair would like to note, due to the tem- 

 porary absence of the real Chairman, I have the pleasure of intro- 

 ducing a constituent of mine. Bill Snyder, who is Chief Forester for 

 the Martell Operation of the Georgia-Pacific, Corporation. 



Mr. Snyder. Thank you. 



Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I am Chief For- 

 ester for Martell Operations, Georgia-Pacific. Georgia-Pacific is a 

 fully integrated wood products company with fee timber landowner- 

 ship in the United States of over 6 million acres. 



Management of our Company's Natural Resources is guided by 

 an 11-point environmental strategy specifically designed protect 

 water quality, wildlife, recreational resources and promote research 

 and development. Part of the strategy also commits us to promot- 

 ing excellence in the management of all timberlands regardless of 

 ownership, and we are here to look at Federals land within our op- 

 erating circle. 



Since the mid-1980's, we have watched the Forest Service en- 

 gage in a series of major planning efforts. The Forest Service in our 

 region has suffered greatly in terms of public criticism and we face 

 probably two immediate problems. The first problem is how to deal 

 with threats by various groups to petition for the California spotted 

 owl for listing under the Endangered Species Act as threatened or 

 endangered, and the problem was how to deal with concerns over 

 declining old-growth base within the Sierra Nevadas. 



In response to the first issue, the Forest Service developed a 

 California spotted owl strategy which involves State and private in- 

 terests within the State, and out of that came the CALOWL EIS 

 that we discussed earlier. The response to the old-growth issue was 

 dealt with in H.R. 6013, and after considerable debate that bill was 

 defeated, but it did call for a comprehensive study of the Sierra Ne- 

 vada ecosystems, and in a lot of ways had a large degree of support 

 among a number of concerns. 



As a result, Representative Panetta, through an appropriations 

 bill, included language that basically provided funding for the Si- 

 erra Nevada Ecosystem Project, and SNEP had its birth. 



Your questions that were posed in the letter obviously are too 

 lengthy to get into a 5-minute discussion in terms of just mag- 

 nitude and order of them, but I would like to highlight a couple 

 that I had particular concerns with and reinforce some of Congress- 

 man Merger's concern with respect to the relationship between the 

 CALOWL report and SNEP. 



First, with respect to SNEP; in essence, it was exempted from 

 the Federal Advisory Committee Act and has not had the degree 

 of public and political input that the CALOWL report has had over 

 time. I think we are all frustrated to a certain degree with SNEP, 

 in that it is both a congressional report and a scientific report that 

 will be subject to peer review by scientists. Other than updates, 

 newsletters and that type of information, I think the public and 

 user groups have not had a clear picture of what is going on. 



