282 



Mr. Hummel, I want to thank you for your testimony here today. 

 It was very well thought out and I congratulate you for that and 

 you dealt with the managing of the Tongass and I guess it brings 

 out why Senator Wirth has been continuing to ask you questions 

 and well put, I might add, about why manage different here or cer- 

 tain things about Tongass that is not applied to other forests. 



Would you agree that management of our different national for- 

 ests all over the 50 states should be determined on a case-by-case 

 basis? 



Mr. Hummel. Yes, I think it should be determined at the Forest 

 Service level and you guys are here to provide policy but not to fill 

 in all the numbers is my understanding and what has happened 

 here in the Tongass that you said that there is this 4.5 billion 

 board foot mandate and that in essence did take a policy which is 

 allowed for use. 



Senator Burns. Now as you said that the forests should be dealt 

 with on a case-by-case basis by professional foresters, not by us, but 

 when we get the right information and sifting through it, would 

 you agree or disagree at this point that S. 237 addressed this? 



Mr. Hummel. Senator Wirth's bill addresses this, yes, I think 

 that he addressed that. 



Senator Burns. I think S. 237 is Senator Murkowski's Bill. 



Mr. Hummel. No, I do not think because in his bill he does not 

 eliminate the mandate from Congress to provide 4.5 billion board 

 feet of lumber per year. 



Senator Burns. But you don't want us to get into the microman- 

 agement? 



Mr. Hummel. That is what Senator Murkowski does, it stays in 

 the micromanagement business but what I am asking you to do is 

 to get out of it. 



Senator Burns. Would you agree that S. 346 best addresses that? 



Mr. Hummel. Yes, I think Senator Wirth's bill best addresses 

 that. 



Senator Murkowskl Now our bill provides up to the determina- 

 tion being made on the state of the industry, the ability of the 

 market to assimilate that, does not necessarily mandate 4.5. 



I have been reminded that I have one very brief question I would 

 ask Mr. Clifton if he generally agrees with the statement made by 

 Mr. Dirksen with regard to real estate values. If the pulp mills 

 were to shut down here the values, as I understand you, would de- 

 cline 50 percent, is that basically it? 



Mr. Clifton. Yes. 



Senator Wirth. Would you agree, being in the banking business, 

 that you would expect that kind of decline? We have already seen 

 what happened in Anchorage so we have some comparison. 



Mr. Clifton. Then the best I can speak to that question would be 

 that in, I believe 1984 or 1985 there was a shutdown of a spruce 

 mill locally. Prior to that, I think it was 1985, real estate prices hit 

 a high. There was a very high use of rental units, no vacancy rates. 

 With that mill closure and also with the slowdown of the crews at 

 that time in the logging industry, housing prices fell dramatically. 

 Even with the strength now of the timber industry and the fishing 

 industry and the tourism, prices still have not reached that level 

 again. They say what the decline in the real estate prices would be 



