19 



chot and Teddy Roosevelt, we have moved far from that, and I just 

 hope that we can move ahead into the futute and move back to the 

 wisdom that they had nearly 100 years ago. 



Mr. Unger. We certainly support and continue to support the 

 concept of multiple use. I found the answer to your question. The 

 definition in our appeal regulation that deals with this section of 

 the law regarding who may file an appeal says that it may be filed 

 by a person or an organization that meets any of these criteria: 

 submitted written comment in response to the draft environmental 

 impact statement or provided comment or otherwise expressed in- 

 terest in a particular proposed action by the close of the comment 

 period. So it is a broad definition similar to the definition in the 

 law. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. I think there is a lot of work we can do there. 



Mr. Hansen. Thank you. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for being so gener- 

 ous with my time. 



Mr. Hansen. Thank you. Dawn, we are going to go to lights be- 

 cause we have got one of our colleagues here, and when we will fin- 

 ish this panel, we are going to have to go a little faster. So the gen- 

 tleman from California. 



Mr. POMBO. I have nothing, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Hansen. The gentlelady from Wyoming, Mrs. Cubin. 



Mrs. Cubin. I have nothing at this time, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Hansen. The gentleman from Oregon. 



Mr. COOLEY. I am sorry, Mr. Unger. I was late getting in here, 

 but I got tied up in another meeting. I need to ask you a couple 

 of things. In this appeal process, given the fact that anyone can go 

 to court with a complaint, can you tell me why the appeal process 

 is actually necessary under your — because the USDA is the only 

 agency that has this appeal process, and I don't quite understand 

 why? 



Mr. Unger. Well, there are some other agencies with appeal 

 processes, but as I was saying earlier, this actually dates back to 

 nearly the beginning of the century when there were no real oppor- 

 tunities for citizens to litigate the government under the cir- 

 cumstances of the time, and there were no public involvement or 

 public participation processes of the kind that have been estab- 

 lished in the last 10 or 20 years. 



So it was the only way that a person who is dissatisfied with a 

 Forest Service decision could really seek some higher level of re- 

 view of a decision, and that was the reason that it was established 

 in the first place. 



This has continued through the years, and even though these ad- 

 ditional opportunities have been provided, why, the appeal process 

 has remained and has been considered important by the public and 

 the interest groups that represent the various interests across the 

 spectrum. 



We did propose, as I mentioned a minute ago, a couple of years 

 ago that we abolish the appeals process for project level of decisions 

 and replace it with a very much expanded process of upfront in- 

 volvement to try to get people discussing these issues and engaged 

 upfront. 



