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Most of you know that we are down to the point now that we 

 only can consider for harvest around 20 to 25 percent of the na- 

 tional forestland. In other words, 75 to 80 percent of the national 

 forest has been put off limits now to any harvest consideration. 

 That doesn't mean we are going to harvest that 20 percent because 

 we have got opposition against doing that. That just means we are 

 down to — that is all we are in the position to consider now. 



Mr. COOLEY. Since you have been in Congress quite a few years 

 and are very familiar with this area, the statement you made sort 

 of begs the next question. Are there no standards by the Forest 

 Service as to the personnel that they are required to have in order 

 to run a good shop? 



I mean, what I am hearing is that in some districts, depending 

 on the forester, he can decide the makeup of the forester's team. 

 And so if you are getting rid of our silviculturists and keeping 

 other people, therefore, making the inability for them to put out 

 sales. Is that what I sort of understood from your statement? 



Mr. Taylor. Well, the blame should not be put on a district for- 

 ester or the forest supervisor or even the regional forester or even 

 the chief forester all the time. The blame stops right here around 

 this circle. We establish the policy. And for 20 years in this coun- 

 try, we took the general direction of the Sierra Club. We want no 

 harvest in our forests. 



Now, we would couch it by saying, "Oh, I want to see the forest 

 harvested, but I don't want to see it this way," and there was al- 

 ways a but there so when you finished at the end, it is like the old 

 fellow that you ask a question, "Where are you going?" and he said, 

 "You can't get there from here." 



Well, you couldn't get there from here. You couldn't work out any 

 harvest. There were so many roadblocks, and we kept putting them 

 in. We layered regulations. We layered laws that in many times 

 were conflicting. And then we handed all that to a Forest Service 

 to try to carry it out. 



At the same time, as the Administrations changed, the Secretary 

 of Agriculture and, more importantly, the Assistant Secretary over 

 Forest Service Management changed, and they then set the — or put 

 pressure down from the chief on for forest policy to go a certain 

 way. And it has taken on more of a political correctness than it has 

 forest management. We have said to them, "We want to be politi- 

 cally correct." 



We have this enormous amount of campaign money coming in to 

 the various environmental organizations in Washington, and they 

 are scaring people with a lot of false information. And they are tak- 

 ing positions as the Sierra Club did, which takes in $54 million a 

 year itself, thus saying, "We want no harvest in the forests." 



And they are putting pressure on Members. Therefore, the word 

 comes down — even if you are a silviculturist, the word comes down 

 that with this kind of conflict that we can't move any further ahead 

 in modern silviculture practices. So the blame is here more than 

 it is in the Forest Service level itself. 



Mr. CoOLEY. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. My time is up. Madam 

 Chairman. 



Mrs. CUBIN. Mr. Vento, did you have any 



