40 



It is possible to have a ten-year contract. We do have the legal 

 authority to do that, and like what was said earlier, I do not be- 

 lieve that that has ever been exercised within the Forest Service. 



Likewise, though, we do not have any law or any authority to 

 specify the location at which timber might be processed, so we 

 could not guarantee that it would be processed in Sitka. 



The Chairman. I understand, but you did deny a ten-year lease 

 to Sealaska; is that correct? 



Mr. Morrison. I am not familiar with that. 



The Chairman. Ten-year contract? 



Mr. Morrison. I am not familiar with that. 



The Chairman. We will check that out. This is not your problem, 

 Gary. I know you have been told to say this, the administration 

 would object to the transfer of Federal assets at taxpayers' expense. 

 It is funny the administration is supporting the Presidio for a 

 large, large sum of money, taxpayers' money. Could not be a little 

 politics there, could there be? I would not think that would happen. 

 Huge taxpayers' expense to transfer some land over to the State of 

 California and the park service, about $50 million a year. 



Mr. Morrison. I am not familiar with the Presidio. I have driven 

 across the Golden Gate Bridge. 



The Chairman. Inconsistency always amazes me. 



The Awardo lawsuit, how much timber, what are the issues ad- 

 dressed, what are the expenses, how expensive is the environ- 

 mental work, how many times did the sale undergo a NEPA, and 

 what was the settlement? 



Mr. Morrison. That is a lot of questions at once. 



The Awardo lawsuit came about as a result of an objection that 

 we took the timber offerings that had been made to APC and put 

 them up as independent timber sales after the cancellation of the 

 APC contract. 



I believed and signed documents suggesting that all environ- 

 mental conditions were the same and there was no need to do any 

 additional environmental analysis to do that. It went to court. Out 

 of that settlement it was decided that about 105 million of the 290 

 million board feet that had been originally available to APC could 

 move forward as independent timber sales. 



We are in the process right now of redesigning some of those 

 sales that were agreed to in the settlement, and we hope to be able 

 to offer those as quickly as possible, and those that had already 

 been sold, we hope that activity could begin on them as soon as 

 possible. We believe and have submitted requests for funding for 

 slightly more than $1 million to make the modifications, and that 

 would not include the additional environmental analyses that will 

 have to be done for the difference between 105 million and 290 

 million that was not released. We have to go back and supplement 

 the environmental impact statements for those, and that would be 

 an additional cost. 



The Chairman. What environmental concerns were actually ad- 

 dressed with that additional money? What was the problem? I 

 thought we had already done a NEPA before. 



Mr. Morrison. Actually, environmental concerns were very few 

 in the modifications that we made and the things we have to go 

 back and change. Closing roads — in fact, in some cases obliterating 



