40 



Mr. Vento. We need to have a base that we are operating from, 

 if areas still remain uncut, virgin areas, old-growth areas, or other- 

 wise. You don't anticipate sending crews in to work in natural 

 areas that have been untouched do you? Chief, do you have work 

 going on in those areas? 



Mr. Robertson. Well, we don't have a lot of work going on in 

 those areas now. 



Mr. Vento. No, I know, but what is the design? 



Mr. Robertson. I think Congressman DeFazio talked about this 

 earlier. We have got to decide what the land base is that we can 

 use for management, and once we determine that land base, which 

 is very much up in the air right now, then we will decide how to 

 manage that. 



So right now we have an injunction that we are staying out of 

 all spotted owl habitat, and most of the natural areas that you de- 

 scribed are spotted owl habitat. 



Mr. Vento. Yes. 



Are there constraints built into the budget process that prevent 

 forest supervisors and BLM district managers from asking for 

 funds that they need for forest rehabilitation projects. Chief? 



Mr. Robertson. Well, yes and no. I would say yes, there are con- 

 straints, with a safety valve. But normally how we handle our 

 budget process is, we ask our forest supervisors, regional foresters, 

 to give us alternative budgets. One is a no change budget from last 

 year; another one, plus 10 percent; and a minus 10 percent; so that 

 we have got a range. So we do try to keep them confined to a real- 

 istic budget. But then the safety valve— if they have got something 

 out there they just need to do, they can't fit it into the regular 

 budget, they can send those projects into us. 



Mr. Vento. Isn't this the case where there are dramatic changes 

 in terms of use where we are going to need to liberalize that proc- 

 ess? It assumes that the base numbers are accurate in terms of 

 what goes on for watershed or precommercial thinning. 



You said these aren't plantations with monocultures of Doug firs 

 and so forth, at least that if the ecosystem type of management ap- 

 proach. It isn't so much what we plant, I might say, that wasn't 

 the criticism of the IG which I think came up here. It wasn't the 

 issue of tree planting or reforestation. That is hardly reforestation 

 in the ultimate sense. The criticism was that you idn't maintain 

 what you have. It wasn't a matter of a die-back or bad year or 

 something, it was a matter of not going forward and maintaining 

 what you have. I think both of you need to address that. 



But let me first get to Mr. Penfold with regard to budget ques- 

 tions, and I will come back to that. 



Mr. Penfold. Our process is very, very similar to what the chief 

 just described, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Vento. Okay. 



Mr. Penfold. I also agree with your point. As we see these new 

 forest plans, we are going to have to take a fundamentally new, 

 basic look at the mix of funds that we want to have to drive those 



fl.COVltil6S 



Mr. Vento. It sounds like you got a little liberalization when the 

 IG report came out, but because you are responding to O&C lands 

 and there is a concentrated effort and legislative initiative in that 



