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Mr. Haislip. Yes. This project is actually producing four docu- 

 ments — actually five documents. It is producing two EISs. It is pro- 

 ducing a scientific framework and two critical documents. One of 

 them is called the scientific assessment and the other is the sci- 

 entific evaluation of the alternatives. 



The project divided the teams into two teams, one of them is an 

 EIS team an the other is the science team. The EIS team is the 

 products we had access too. We have seen some early drafts of the 

 EIS team, but not the science team, so the foundation of a lot of 

 this material is not available to us. So we are seeing the executive 

 summary, if you will, without seeing the meat behind it. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. Have you been assured that you have access 

 to that scientific information? 



Mr. Haislip. Yes. The project will definitely put them out for 

 public view. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to. We do have a 

 FOIA request in to get a copy of those, but I am not sure it is going 

 to get acted on. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. You know, Mr. Haislip, I was sitting here 

 musing about the National Forest Practices Act, and in that as you 

 were testifying, in that act it states that over and above the green 

 sale, the allowable sale in each forest, that the Forest Service must 

 keep the diseased, insect-infested, wind-thrown and aged timber 

 that has fallen to the forest floor out of the forest. 



In your opinion, if they had done that as the law required, do you 

 think that we would have the problems that we have today in the 

 forest? 



Mr. Haislip. I guess there is a — in my view, a difference between 

 the directive in the law and having the perfect knowledge about 

 how to make that come about. And we are still learning about how 

 to manage forests, and we thought, I think, we were doing the 

 right thing when we were keeping fires out. Now we are learning 

 the terrible consequences of that policy, and so we are trying to re- 

 adjust those policies to meet the letter of the law. 



And so we, as a Nation and the agencies, are struggling to try 

 to make that happen. I think we need to support them in making 

 that happen, too. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. You just reminded me under the salvage sec- 

 tion of the National Forest Practices Act they are also required to 

 keep? So my concern is that we have come almost full circle where 

 our hands-off policy is not allowing us to manage the forest so that 

 the environmental problems that have not been anticipated are 

 building at an exponential rate, far faster than we are able to han- 

 dle. 



Mr. Haislip. I would also suggest we take a look at what is going 

 on in the FEMAT situation to learn some things from these other 

 ecosystem management practices. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. Mr. McGreer, I would like to ask you, how 

 does the State manage the riparian areas? 



Mr. McGreer. Most of the Western States, in fact, all the West- 

 ern States affected by this project, have forest practices acts. An 

 example is the State of Oregon which recently took a couple of 

 years to assess the science associated with, especially, the riparian 

 areas and rewrote their forest practices act to better address those. 



