22 



We need to return somewhat to this in the forest management 

 itself. We need to determine the poHcies with a great deal of public 

 input, where we are going in this country as far as our forest pol- 

 icy. And once we have made that determination and assigned our 

 professionals the direction, then we should give them as much lati- 

 tude as possible to carry out our direction. 



That doesn't mean that you shouldn't have oversight, such as 

 this committee. It doesn't mean that any organization, whether it 

 is the U.S. Forest Service or any other group, is going to be perfect. 

 There is room for improvement always. But the endless frivolous 

 appeals that come in cost the public a great deal of money, hurts 

 the program dramatically, and generally is put there for posturing. 



Many of the Washington insider organizations, the so-called envi- 

 ronmental organizations, raise close to $600 million scaring people 

 mostly with false rhetoric. And they use this money often to pos- 

 ture in the appeals process, and in many cases it works to the 

 public's detriment, far more than good. 



For instance, we have today a group, Earth First, that has ap- 

 pealed numerous times and in many different ways on national for- 

 est matters. Yesterday, they were in my office because they did not 

 want to obey the permit process. That is, a large group is coming 

 to the district or wants to come to the district, and the Forest Serv- 

 ice has a policy of 75 people or more gathering, they have to get 

 a permit. 



Now, this is based on the fact that when you put a large group 

 in the forest — we had over 12,000 one year in our forest, the Rain- 

 bow Coalition — that health questions come up and other questions 

 come up. So on the one hand, here is a group that will appeal al- 

 most anything with postcards or anyway they can. On the other 

 hand, they don't want to obey the forest regulations, and they don't 

 want to take part in the regular process. 



The appeals process that we have had in the past allows those 

 people who are not involved, have not been involved in the original 

 planning, have not been involved in the numerous public hearings 

 and informations to be gathered, to come in and appeal when they 

 have had absolutely no consciousness of what has been going on 

 and many hours that the public has put in many cases working out 

 problems with the Forest Service. They can come in and start the 

 process all over again from outside. 



Many of the environmental organizations also are not appealing 

 in good faith. They are, in fact, wanting no harvest in our national 

 forest. They want no cutting at all. And the appeals process is only 

 one weapon they use to see that there is no harvest. 



Now, it would be a lot better to have honesty and to go ahead 

 and leave the appeals process alone and just come out with a pool 

 fight and say, "We are going to debate and determine whether or 

 not we will have harvest in our national forests." They have not. 

 Then we could address that on a national basis. 



The Sierra Club just voted two to one to have no harvest in our 

 national forest. They will continue, I am sure, to appeal. Even 

 though their objective is no harvest, they will be appealing a proc- 

 ess that the public agrees with. 



Environmental groups that call for little or no harvest in the na- 

 tional forests have not given us an alternative. This table is made 



