21 



H.R. 2028 is to try to improve that public-private partnership. That 

 concludes our remarks. 



[The prepared statement of Mr. Unger can be found at the end 

 of the hearing.] 



Mr. Hansen. Thank you. I hope all you folks realize that there 

 is no great pride of authorship in any of these bills by anyone I am 

 sure, and we are in a process of trying to work these things out. 

 And so your comments are well received, and we do appreciate 

 them, I will recognize each member of the committee for five min- 

 utes to question the panel. I will start with Mr. Allard of Colorado. 



Mr. i^LARD. Mr. Unger, does the Forest Service support H.R. 

 1527? 



Mr, Unger. We feel, as I indicated, that we would rather proceed 

 administratively with an acceptable fee system, and that if the 

 committee decides to go forward with the bill that we would ask 

 that it be amended as I indicated in my summary. 



Mr. Allard. How strongly do you support it? Moderately or are 

 you opposed to it? 



Mr. Unger. Well, as I say, we are not saying that we are sup- 

 porting or opposing the bill. We are saying that with amendments 

 it would be more acceptable than in its present form. 



Mr. Allard. Let me put it this way. Are you looking at extensive 

 amendments or just one or two? 



Mr, Unger. The amendments that I indicated, which I believe 

 are five in number, were the ones that are of most concern to us. 

 Clearly, our first choice since we spent some time preparing it 

 would be the administrative approach that we have just now pub- 

 lished for public comment to base fees on an appraisal system. And 

 we would hope that the public would give us their best evaluation 

 of that proposal and see if we can go forward with it unless legisla- 

 tion is adopted. 



Mr, Allard, There are some ski areas that are completely sur- 

 rounded by forests or public lands, and they are right now having 

 a hard time finding housing for employees that work in the ski 

 area or even schoolteachers or maybe somebody who works even for 

 the county — not so much the county but probably the city — because 

 sometimes these ski areas are relatively remote. Are you amenable 

 at all to the Forest Service providing some forest lands available 

 just for employees to use for living quarters to meet that employ- 

 ment base in that particular community? 



Mr. Unger. With the permission of the Chairman, I would like 

 to call forward our recreation director, Lyle Laverty, to respond to 

 that question if I might, 



Mr. Hansen. I am sorry, I wasn't following the debate there, I 

 was talking to — what was the question? 



Mr. Allard. I have asked a question about the Forest Service 

 being permitted to make lands available for employees in the ski 

 community that is completely surrounded by public lands, and he 

 wanted to bring up one of his soulmates to answer the question. 



Mr. Hansen. Bring your person up and 



Mr. Unger. Here he is. 



Mr. Hansen. Just give us your name for the record. 



Mr, Unger, This is Lyle Laverty, Director of Recreation, 



