Update on Forest Management and Bridge Funding Commissioners, Councilmembers, Judges and Supervisors I wanted to take a moment to update you on our efforts in Washington DC on your behalf as it pertains to management of our National Forests and bridge funding (SRS) The House Natural Resource committee will mark-up their bill on sustainable active forest management sometime during July and we are hoping to have it go to the floor for a vote before the August recess. This bill is a compilation of bills introduced by a number of Representatives and championed by Congressmen Doc Hastings and Rob Bishop. The bill includes bridge funding (Continuation of County payments) as the management activities it calls for are “ramped up”. We will be calling on you to help with calls to your Representative when we have a firm floor date. Last Tuesday the Energy and Natural Resource Committee led by Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Murkowski held a hearing on Forest Management. The speakers covered a myriad of issues related to management and the hurdles that create a lack of timber coming off the public lands. Chairman Wyden mentioned numerous times that we must get the timber harvest up and find ways to streamline NEPA. We were glad to hear this repeated several times and acknowledged by everyone on the panel including Chief Tidwell. We will be working in the Senate to bring changes to forest management a reality and your help will be essential Finally, several weeks ago the Energy and Natural Resource Committee passed the “Helium” bill out of committee on a unanimous vote. Among a variety of public lands issues included in the bill was a one year extension of SRS payments. With a five percent reduction from 2012 Last week the House voted down the Farm bill. It Included very positive elements in the Forestry Title including; good neighbor authority that would allow state foresters to conduct, after completion of NEPA, all facets of a timber sale on Forest Service managed lands; a permanent fix to establish that logging roads are a non-point source activity under the Clean Water Act; language that made it clear that Stewardship Contacting was immune from third party liability as it related to fire. Really the best package of forestry issues since the forestry title was added to the farm bill in 1990. We will keep you posted as these issues move forward. Thanks, Paul Paul Pearce Marc Kelley NFCSC President - (360) 607 7388 Campaign Mgr (707) 843-4750
Posted on: Tue, 02 Jul 2013 22:53:09 +0000
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