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upon market demand, but the Forest Service is required to retain a 

 sufficient land base so that using intensive management monies, it 

 can achieve a harvest level of 4.5 billion board feet. 



The Alaska Loggers Association believes it essential to maintain 

 a timber program which makes available the supply of 4.5 billion 

 board feet per decade with annual harvest levels within the decade 

 responding to market demand. 



Some people have argued that the 4.5 billion board feet allowable 

 sale quantity should repeal because it drives the planning process, 

 thereby subjecting fish and game and other resources to the risk of 

 inadequate protection. This is wrong for at least two reasons. 



First, the 4.5 billion is needed only because Congress designated 

 so much wilderness in 1980 that the remaining nonwilderness land 

 is insufficient to maintain the job base. Accordingly, from a sub- 

 stantive point of view, repealing the 4.5 billion and rolling back the 

 amount of wilderness would be the best way to put the Tongass 

 planning process in the same position that it enjoys in other na- 

 tional forests. 



Second, there are only 3.9 million acres of commercial forest land 

 not in wilderness. Of this, 2.2 million acres are not scheduled for 

 harvest, leaving only 1.7 million acres available to protect the job 

 base. This can only occur if there is sufficient funding to provide 

 precommercial thinning, construction of roads in marginal areas, 

 and a Region 10 timber management budget. 



Accordingly, the sufficient funding, the additional acreage pro- 

 vides a buffer so that 4.5 billion board feet will not affect the plan- 

 ning process or the ability to protect other resources. 



Senator Murkowski. I wonder, Mr. Finney, if you could consoli- 

 date your remaining remarks. I would like to hold everybody to 

 about seven or eight minutes. 



Mr. Finney. Very good. I will summarize here. 



When people are put out of work in southeast Alaska, it is not 

 like losing a job in the lower 48. There are no roads connecting 

 communities. There are few alternative jobs. Usually losing one's 

 job means leaving southeast Alaska with major attendant family 

 dislocations and impacts. The impacts on people deserve a lot of 

 consideration. There are 23 timber-only dependent communities in 

 southeast Alaska, representing over 2,000 people who would be dis- 

 located with the suggested legislation. 



Finally, making land allocations in advance of TLMP makes a 

 mockery of the planning processes. Congress put the Resources 

 Planning Act into operation and amended it with the National 

 Forest Management Act of 1976. The idea of the planning process 

 is to determine, among other things, which land should be set aside 

 in an administrative category. To have Congress designate those 

 lands a few months in advance of the planning process because the 

 environmentalists do not trust the Forest Service is a bad prece- 

 dent. 



At least this committee should see what the proposals of the 

 Forest Service are without trying to influence those proposals by 

 legislation before they are made. If this committee makes the mis- 

 take of allowing environmental groups to dictate the results of the 

 process in advance of the forest planning process, you can be as- 

 sured that each of the forest plans in other national forests will be 



