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value with only a 200,000 acre or one and a half percent reduction 

 in roadless land, including designated wilderness. 



In short, the benchmarks show that multiple use under TLMP as 

 it was approved in 1979 is working well. The ALA urges the Con- 

 gress to treat the Tongass like every other national forest in the 

 country and allow the TLMP revision process to make any changes 

 needed in the existing management program. 



The Forest Service has spent $7 million on the TLMP revision 

 process to date. The Forest Service has used the same planning 

 process used on every other national forest in the country. 



The Forest Service has received input from every community in 

 southeast Alaska over the last three years. Any land designation or 

 change in management regime which preempts the process now es- 

 tablished in law for land designations will not have the same factu- 

 al, scientific, and public backing as that which will come from the 

 Tongass land management plan revision. 



Why not use its alternative land plans as the basis for Congres- 

 sional action? 



It is no secret that H.R. 987 sets out 23 land areas that were 

 originally requested by the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council. 

 There was no process used to select those areas. They were just 

 areas that SEACC wanted. 



There was no debate, either, in the House Interior Committee or 

 on the floor of the House regarding whether those were good 

 boundaries or bad boundaries. 



In the absence of Forest Service information, Congress has no 

 way of knowing what was good public policy and what was not. 

 Why should any special interest group's wish list be substituted for 

 the process you have told the Forest Service to follow under exist- 

 ing law? 



The Southeast Conference approach is certainly better than 

 SEACC's. Yet, it too should not be substituted for the TLMP revi- 

 sions. 



We in the ALA take our hard hats off to the Southeast Confer- 

 ence because at least they recognize this point, and they have writ- 

 ten to you that they would prefer for the TLMP process to go for- 

 ward. 



However, they are saying that if Congress preempts the TLMP 

 revision process that, rather than enacting the SEACC wish list, 

 Congress should use the lands the Southeast Conference is propos- 

 ing. 



Unlike SEACC, which is interested in setting aside vast wilder- 

 ness areas, the Southeast Conference is interested in setting aside 

 specific areas of special interest to local communities. 



The Southeast Conference has emphasized over and again that it 

 does not want wilderness areas, but instead suggests that, if Con- 

 gress is going to preempt the TLMP process, it should consider spe- 

 cial no-timber harvest designation only in certain specified areas. 



These would be areas of no timber harvest. These areas would be 

 areas near communities which community residents could use for 

 things such as recreation. 



The ALA is adamantly opposed to the SEACC proposals incorpo- 

 rated in H.R. 987. H.R. 987 would add 23 new wilderness areas con- 

 taining 1.8 million acres of designated wilderness. This is in addi- 



