Look at the Interior Committee of the Senate 

 and you will see that its members come from 

 the following States: Washington, New Mexico, 

 Nevada, Idaho, Alaska, Utah, North Dakota, 

 Arizona, South Dakota, Wisconsin — I am 

 happy to see there is one member from 

 Wisconsin — Montana, California, Colorado, 

 Idaho again, Arizona again, Wyoming, Oregon. 



Practically all Western States. It is hard to find 

 anyone from east of the Mississippi who ever 

 serves on the Interior Committee. 



Representative Moorhead: I might say to the 

 Chairman, the same pattern holds in the other 

 body. 



Chairman Proxmire: Exactly. 



So we have, you see, an atmosphere of bias, 

 understandable bias, an atmosphere of political 

 force here which I think we have to recognize. 



The budget data could be analyzed much 

 more closely, but it seems unlikely that any 

 additional useful conclusions could be drawn. 

 It is not possible to show unequivocally now 

 that the Forest Service budget requests (or 

 the recommendations made at any one of the 

 other levels) are the scientifically determined 

 best estimates of need. This can only be ac- 

 complished when budget requests are directly 

 tied to a goal-maximizing program. If the 

 budgeting process could be oriented toward 

 the legislative mandate, and to the specified 

 goal as expressed in the FOREST decision 

 model, the Forest Service might take the giant 

 step required. When budget requests directly 

 reflect the ecological and silvicultural implica- 

 tions of the FOREST model, the agency will 

 be closer to solving its budget problems. 



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