500 



Senator Burns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sitting here listening, 

 it seems to me this comes up in all of this testimony and it sort of 

 bothers me a little bit, that in every case here you want to drop the 

 450 million board feet requirement. In that ANILCA legislation, is 

 that a mandated cut? When I say mandated, they are ordered to do 

 it. 



Mr. Thompson. They have to offer that volume of timber and 

 that is kind of where we got into a hang-up, with the language 

 being interpreted differently. 



Senator Burns. Mandated means you have to cut, but basically 

 the language says that the maximum has to be offered but it does 

 not have to be cut. Every time I come up with all of this and I 

 think in here it says "mandated" — mandated means you have to do 

 it. I do not know how we get hung up on words like this. I am not a 

 lawyer and they have been averaging about 3.7. And yet, in all the 

 testimony, we can find in this thing it is mandated and the man- 

 dated part is not mandated. So, I want to clear that for the record, 

 that some of this testimony is not right. I guess it is how you would 

 identify the problem. 



I have a couple of questions here. Mr. Thompson, you stated in 

 your testimony or you stated your opinion of the environmental 

 rules and regulations, that addresses environmental concerns for 

 the Forest Service in the logging areas. You think that the Forest 

 Service has not done a good job in enforcing some of those rules? 



Mr. Thompson. Senator Burns, I am not any means an expert on 

 logging practices, but I did have a chance to listen to the state bi- 

 ologists and listen to the Agriculture Association biologists, and I 

 get the impression that they are not entirely happy with some of 

 the practices that are occurring. Whether it is a violation of rules 

 or there are simply a lack of rules, I do not know. 



Senator Burns. That is what I am getting to. Do we have to 

 change some rules or do we have to have to get high on enforcing 

 it? Anybody can address that. 



Mr. Thompson. I think Mr. Williams here is more in touch with 

 that, can respond to that. 



Mr. Williams. Well, we feel that some things need to be 

 changed. For one thing, I wanted to put into the record the Nation- 

 al Marine Fisheries policies on stream side management and devel- 

 opment from their research that came out last year, the 1988 

 policy. They call for 30-meter buffer strips on the salmon streams 

 in Southeast Alaska and the tributaries. We would like to see that 

 kind of thing incorporated. 



There have been problems with both enforcement and interpreta- 

 tion. Unfortunately, a lot of things are left up to interpretation in 

 the Southeast and there are differences in the Forest Service dis- 

 tricts even the way things are interpreted. 



Getting back to your 4.5, we are not the only ones that interpret- 

 ed it as a mandate. Unfortunately, the Forest Service kind of took 

 it as a mandate, at least initially, as well and if 4.5 were offered, 

 maybe 3.7 was cut, but there was some being offered at that 450 a 

 month. And that led to some conflicts with fishing by pre-roading 

 and things that our industry is real concerned about. 



Senator Burns. But if you were concerned about it, you can 

 appeal that sale, cannot you? ^ 



