81 



Western Forest Industries Association 



1500 S \)^' TAYLOR STRF. ET ■ PORTLAND. OREGON 97205 



TELEPHONE 

 5 3-224- 5dS5 



April 1, 1993 



The Honorable Bruce Vento 



United States House of Representatives 



Washington, DC 20515 



Dear Congressman Vento: 



I would like to clarify a point raised in Mr. Neil Sampson's testimony before your 

 committee hearings on March 30, 1931. As you may recall, Mr. Sampson advised you 

 to ask more penetrating questions the next time Chief Dale Robertson testifies before 

 your committee. He then accused the U.S. Forest Service of "re-deflning" the agency 

 out of a substantial reforestation backlog problem. As evidence, he asserted that the 

 Forest Service re-classified 213 million acres of what the Agency formerly identified as a 

 reforestation backlog as "other forest land" and thereby escape the scrutiny of Congress. 



While there are indeed 213 milHon acres of "other forest land," little if any of 

 this forest land is in need of reforestation. This acreage is, according to the Forest 

 Service, 



"Forest land other than timberland and reserved timberland. It includes available 

 and reserved unproductive forest land, which is incapable of producing annually 

 20 cubic feet per acre of industrial wood under natural conditions because of 

 adverse site conditions such as sterile soils, dry climate, poor drainage, high 

 elevation, steepness, or rockiness." 



As you can determine from the enclosed excerpts from "Forest statistics of the 

 United States, 1987," more than half of the "other forest land" is in Alaska. Much of 

 the remainder is located in arid states such as Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. 

 Furthermore, most of this area is under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land 

 Management and other agencies in the Department of Interior. 



What is now called "other forest land" was once termed "unproductive forest 

 land." In either case, this land is not, for the most part, denuded. In the arid West, for 

 example, much of this forest is pinyon-juniper and similar vegetative types. In Alaska, 

 such land supports stagnant stands of slow-growing aspen, cottonwood, black spruce 

 and related taiga species. For certain, most does not require reforestation. Aside from 



