323 



5. Senator Murkowski stated that his bilL (S.237) repeals, "...the requirement 

 that the Forest Service make 4.5 billion board feet of timber available to the 

 dependent industry each decade." 



RESPONSE: While the bill removes the former timber supply goal mandate of 

 Section 705, it replaces it with an even more rigid Allowable Sale Quantity 

 requirement for each decade. As George Leonard, Associate Chief of the U.S. 

 Forest Service noted in response to questioning from Senator Wirth, "Yes, we'd 

 be required to supply 4.5...". Murkowski even declared in the hearing that 

 his bill is "...not a mandate to cut. It's a mandate to keep a timber base." 

 The new language in Senator Murkowski 's bill is indeed a mandated Allowable 

 Sale Quantity (ASQ) -- the Secretary is "directed". . .to. . . "achieve an 

 Allowable Sale Quantity of 4.5 billion board feet per decade." (The term 

 Allowable Sale Quantity was formerly known as the "allowable cut") ASQ is a 

 term of art from the appropriations process, and the forest planning process 

 established in NFRA, thus the new 4.5 ASQ language of S.237 is actually more 

 inflexible than the original Section 705 of ANILCA. Finally, last year the 

 GAO urged Congress to remove the "rigid per-decade requirement" of ANILCA -- 

 Murkowski 's bill not only fails to respond to this concern, but makes matters 

 vtforse . 



6. Senator Murkowski asked witnesses to refute that ANILCA removed 70 percent 

 of harvestable old growth from timber production. 



RESPONSE: Of the total old growth commercial forest land in the Tongass, 26 

 percent is included in Wilderness and 74 percent is in a non -wilderness 

 classification. If all 23 areas in S. 346 were permanently removed from the 

 timber base, the percentage of commercial forest land in Wilderness would be 

 increased from 26 percent to 37 percent. 



7. Senator Murkowski asserted that his bill ensures that the Tongass timber 

 program will be managed in the same way timber programs are managed in all 

 other national forests. 



RESPONSE: No other national forest has an ASQ written into law. 



8. Senator Murkowski stated that S.346 only allows 30 percent of the Tongass 

 to be managed for multiple use. 



RESPONSE: Wilderness is recognized by law as a "multiple use". Currently 32 

 percent of the Tongass is designated as Wilderness. Sixty-eight percent of 

 the Tongass is classified as non-wilderness . The temporary moratorium of 

 S. 346 does not change this allocation whatsoever. Even if all 23 areas 

 became Wilderness, there would be a ten percent increase in the percentage of 

 Wilderness within the Tongass. This would be a change from the existing 32 per 

 cent (5.376 million acres) to 42.9 percent of the Tongass. Today, 12 national 

 forests have a higher percentage of the forest acres in Wilderness than the 

 Tongass. If all 23 areas were protected as Wilderness, the Tongass would 

 still only rank number five in the National Forest system. 



