187 



Mr. PiHL. It is true. Name me one pulp mill or large integrated 

 operation that is not supported by ensured supply of timber — now 

 that ensured supply can come in the sea on a ship, it can come in 

 ship contracts, it can come in timber contracts but you have to 

 have an ensured supply of timber. 



Now in Alaska it is all National Forests and that is the only 

 game in town. 



Senator Wirth. Is there any other national forest that has a re- 

 quirement that a certain amount of federal money must be spent 

 on that forest every year or that a certain amount of timber must 

 be cut from that forest every year? Now is there any other one — I 

 am just trying to understand and I think that members of the 

 United States Senate ought to understand and I am sure that there 

 is a good reason for that, why Tongass is treated one way and 

 every othei* forest is treated a different way. 



Mr. PiHL. On those two pieces you are speaking to in terms of 

 the funding, we have for a long time advocated an overhaul of the 

 Tongass Timber Supply Fund to scale it down to a much lower 

 number, to expand it for limited purposes of intensive forest man- 

 agement, of thinning and in fact a series of other enhancements. 

 Now in terms of the annual supply, that is not in our vocabulary, 

 we do not believe in it. 



Senator Wirth. Then we can remove the 4.5 billion board feet 

 and that would be no problem? 



Mr. PiHL. No sir. What is important is to maintain an adequate 

 land base available to the Forest Service to manage, to make avail- 

 able up to 4.5 billion per decade subject to markets, economics and 

 industry capacity. 



Senator Wirth. Does any other national forest have that kind of 

 a legislative requirement in it? 



Mr. PiHL. I do not believe so. 



Senator Wirth. I am just trying to understand Mr. Pihl, why 

 this national forest is treated differently from others. That's what I 

 am trying to get at. 



The third point on the long-term contracts, do other National 

 Forests in the country have the kind of long-term contracts that 

 Tongass has? 



Mr. PiHL. There have been some in the past. 



Senator Wirth. But they were all phased out in the fifties and 

 sixties, were they not? 



Mr. Pihl. I believe they were. 



Senator Wirth. Now the question comes back, I think it is a per- 

 fectly legitimate question: that we have one forest that is treated 

 in one way and every other national forest is treated in a different 

 way and there must be a reason for that. Ms. Shaub. 



Ms. Shaub. No other forest in the United States has one-third of 

 the forest in wilderness and going back to 1980 when they put a 

 third of the Tongass National Forest into wilderness 



Senator Wirth. Now it is in the record, let me point out Ms. 

 Shaub, that there are many many other national forests that have 

 a much higher percentage of that forest in wilderness than does 

 the Tongass. 



Ms. Shaub. Which forests are those? 



