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it is worth, if you were going to give an off-the-cuff opinion, the 

 kind of money you heard about today? 



Is it going to help the Forest Service's abihty to do their job? 

 What would you say? 



Mr. Haislip. I would say, I agree with that. I think it is worth 

 it. I think it needs to be done. I think we need to take a holistic 

 ecosystem view. 



I can't comment on whether we are spending the right amount 

 of money in the study, but certainly the study itself is the right 

 thing to do. 



My personal feeling, though, is that the cost of restoration, of fix- 

 ing the forest health problem, is the one that we ought to be keep- 

 ing our eye on. There is a lot of work to be done, and quite frankly, 

 it won't get done with the existing budgets. I can't tell you what 

 those are going to be, but they are a lot bigger than they are right 

 now. 



Mr. Hansen. As you know, the problem is, we could close our 

 eyes — and I say this very respectfully — and be in any committee in 

 the House or Senate and hear about the existing budget. In a way, 

 you are going to have to turn some of that over to other people to 

 do unless people in America want to come up with more money or 

 think of creative ways to do it — as we are thinking in this commit- 

 tee, the people who use the land should pay for the land. 



In my 16 years in this committee, I have heard many, > many 

 times about the below-cost timber sales. Then you bring in a bunch 

 of witnesses here, that type of thing, but who else uses that land? 

 We get, in that long litany, that it is used by people to hunt, fish, 

 camp, use that forest. Until you start prorating that out among 

 other people, maybe the "below cost" isn't there. 



On the other side, you hear environmental community folks say 

 they are ripping us off. Those same folks are in the next meeting 

 we are having on the cost of houses going up. How come in 1967 

 a 2 by 4 was 87 cents; now it is $3.11, or whatever the figure was 

 I heard the other day? The same thing we get on below-cost units, 

 another relative question we get into. 



I was talking to some Canadian people the other day. They were 

 taking slaughter animals and putting them in Canada to keep the 

 grass down so they can keep this combustible material from going 

 up. They are paying these people 5 bucks a head to keep the 

 grasses down. And I don't remember his name — Jim something or 

 other, from down in one of the colleges — I listened to him give a 

 talk. He said, what people don't realize is, I don't care a hoot about 

 the cattle, what I am worried about is using that as a tool. 



So it is kind of — it depends on what, where you are sitting. And 

 you look out and find out what you are getting. So I have sat here 

 and listened to people be very determined over the years. 



I appreciate your testimony, and I think Mr. Radanovich is just 

 going to be in trouble; he is going to have to submit written ques- 

 tions to you folks, which I hope you do respond to. 



I want to thank Mr. Unger for coming, and your crew and the 

 other folks. I apologize, I had a very important thing on Armed 

 Services to take care of and hab to walk out of this meeting, which 

 I don't like to do. 



