96 



IN THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL PARKS, 



FORESTS AND LANDS 



U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 



CONCERNING PROBLEMS WITH THE APPEALS PROCESS 



TESTIMONY OF ALASKA FOREST ASSOCIATION 



Jack E. Phelps, Executive Director 

 Offered June 20, 1996 



Mr. Chairman: 



My name is Jack Phelps. Thank you for the opportunity to address you today. I am the 

 Executive Director of the Alaska Forest Association ( AFA). The Association was established in 

 1957, and represents the forest products industry in Alaska, including more than 250 regular and 

 associate member companies statewide. 



Let me begin my testimony today by pointing out that the timber industry in Alaska is 

 starving in the midst of plenty. Although we operate on the largest national forest in the country, 

 which includes more than five million acres of productive old growth, we are unable to harvest 

 enough timber to meet the needs of our modest domestic processing capacity. Since the Tongass 

 Timber Reform Act passed Congress in 1990, more than 42% of our direct timber industry jobs have 

 been lost. 



Ketchikan, the town in which I live, recently lost another independent mill, putting 35 people 

 out of work. That may not sound like a lot of jobs to you, but in a town the size of Ketchikan, those 

 losses will be felt. In any case, they were important to the families they used to support. 



My message to you today is that the Forest Service cannot supply enough timber to our mills, 

 not because they lack sufficient standing timber to sell, but because the process through which they 

 must defend every sale is seriously flawed. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), though 

 designed with good intentions, is not working to protect the environment so much as it is working 

 to impede America's economy and to interfere with the lives of the resource industry workers upon 

 whom so much in this country depends. 



I bring before you one example: 



There is an island in Southeast Alaska called Kuiu. It is located northwest of Ketchikan, and 

 southwest of Juneau. In the mid-sixties, some logging took place from along the beaches of east 

 Kuiu Island at a place called No Name Bay, although no roads were built. In loy, preliminary sale 



