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Rescission Act is proceeding. Only a small portion has been affected 

 by the Secretary's directive, and the reason for the directive was 

 to ensure that we did truly focus on those emergency situations. So 

 we shouldn't mischaracterize the situation or allow misperceptions 

 to drive public understanding of what we're trying to accomplish 

 here. 



Mr. Herger. I couldn't agree more, and let us clear up the 

 misperception because it seems like you repeatedly are attempting 

 to do that. Let us look at what the facts are and not just what your 

 comments are because they don't seem to match at all. Of what 

 was proposed in California, some 80 percent of what had been pro- 

 posed for California, and as a matter of fact of the planned 103, 

 and let's be precise, 103.7 million board feet of additional salvage 

 that was supposed to have been, or that the Forest Service had 

 planned to harvest during '96, that because of your directive some 

 83 percent of this will not be harvested. So over 80 percent you 

 have prevented. That's what the facts are. 



Under Secretary Lyons. Those aren't my facts, Mr. Herger. I 

 would love to see your facts. 



Mr. Herger. Well I will certainly provide them to you. 



Under Secretary LYONS. I think we ought to take a look at them, 

 and I think that would be very helpful. 



Mr. HERGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Chairman Hansen. Thank you. 



Mr. Lyons, in your testimony on page 8 you spend some time 

 talking about the airtankers 



Under Secretary Lyons. Yes, sir. 



Chairman Hansen. — which you say are from World War II and 

 Korean War vintage, and that you would like some better 

 airtankers. You say. "In 1996, the Forest Service was able to con- 

 tract for only 39 aircraft in the face of a need for 41. As few as 35 

 of these planes may be flying at the end of the contract period. Our 

 proposed legislation is designed to insure that a fleet of efficient, 

 safe and cost effective airtankers is available to support firefighting 

 activities." 



What do you envision there, that Congress finds aircraft from the 

 military that commercial people can buy or the Forest Service buys 

 or what do you envision? 



Under Secretary Lyons. Well, the best of all worlds, Mr. Chair- 

 man, would be a situation where the Department of Defense had 

 the capability and the authority to simply transfer or sell military 

 aircraft to private contractors for use in firefighting. Currently that 

 authority doesn't exist, and as a result back in the early '90's, three 

 or four years ago, there was an attempt to use another existing au- 

 thority, the Historic Aircraft Exchange Act, as a mechanism to try 

 and facilitate this exchange of DOD aircraft to private contractors. 

 Some problems arose with that that actually in fact led to some 

 legal actions, some allegations of illegalities in the use of the au- 

 thority. 



We need to correct that. You've been out I know and have seen 

 some of the firefighting air resources we have, and many of them 

 are older tankers, and in some instances we have difficulty getting 

 spare parts. 



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