Testimony
Statement of
MARK REY
Under Secretary
Natural Resources and the Environment
United States Department of Agriculture
Before the
United States Senate
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Concerning
FOREST SERVICE
FISCAL YEAR 2004 BUDGET
February 13, 2003
Mr. Chairman, Senator Bingaman, and members of the Committee,
thank you for the opportunity to discuss the President’s Fiscal Year 2004 Budget
for the Forest Service. I am pleased
to join Dale Bosworth, Chief of the Forest Service, at this hearing today.
Overview
In my testimony, I want to discuss the President’s
plans for the Forest Service with particular attention to the Healthy Forests
Initiative and the President’s Management Agenda.
However, before addressing these two subjects, I would first like to
congratulate you, Mr. Chairman, on assuming leadership of the Energy and Natural
Resources Committee. I look forward to
working with you and have very much appreciated the support you have given to
important natural resource management issues faced by the Forest Service and
bureaus of the Department of the Interior. A
brief look back over the last several years clearly shows how your personal
involvement and that of Senator Bingaman has provided a focus on managing natural
resources today. This is especially true
in the area of protecting the nation’s communities and natural resources from
the threat of catastrophic wildfire, a key focus of the President’s Healthy
Forests Initiative.
In fiscal year 2000, the nation was “awakened”
by the catastrophic fire that struck the Cerro Grande area of New
Mexico. I use the term “awakened,” because factors that
made this fire so serious had been the subject of expert prognostications for
several years. As the serious wildfires
continued into Montana and Idaho
later in the 2000 fire season, we were very appreciative of your advocacy for
what was, at the time, referred to as the “happy forest” initiative, through
which you proposed significant funding increases for hazardous fuels reduction. It was out of this emphasis that the National
Fire Plan emerged. As the Departments
of Agriculture and the Interior developed plans to restore the health of the
nation’s forests and rangelands, the Forest Service Cohesive Strategy was developed. These efforts later evolved into what is now
referred to as the 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy and Implementation Plan where
federal, state, and local partnerships form a foundation that will lead to improved
protection of natural resources and communities.
Prior to fiscal year 2000, attention was
beginning to focus on the vulnerability natural resources faced from catastrophic
wildfire due to the buildup of hazardous fuels.
In the late 1990’s the Forest Service produced risk maps that highlighted
what Senator Craig referred to as a big “red blob” in Northern Idaho
that represented such a fuels buildup and serious threat to forest health. Congress responded by authorizing some focused
experiments to restore the health and productivity of our forests and rangelands
by authorizing the Quincy Library Group activities in northern California
and stewardship end results contracting demonstration authority.
The catastrophic fire seasons of fiscal
years 2000 and 2002, the serious forest health problems highlighted by the risk
maps, and the initiatives to address forest health, represent a cornerstone
of what is now the President’s Healthy Forests Initiative.
I again want to thank you for your role in supporting and developing
key aspects of the President’s emphasis.
Healthy
Forests Initiative
This
past August the President announced the Healthy Forests Initiative in order
to reduce the risks of catastrophic wildfires to communities and the environment.
With the release of the President’s fiscal year 2004 budget proposal,
a combination of administrative, legislative, and funding emphases is proposed
to address this need. The Healthy Forests
Initiative builds on the fundamentals of multiple use management principles
that have guided the Forest Service since its formation. These principles embody a balance of conservation
and wise stewardship of natural resources that are valid today in accomplishing
the objectives of the Healthy Forests Initiative.
In the near future, the Secretaries of Agriculture
and the Interior will re-propose legislation that supports the Healthy Forests
Initiative. These legislative proposals
and detailed attention to reducing the burden of unnecessary regulatory and
administrative processes that affect management natural resource management,
will over time, lead to federal, state and local forests and rangelands that
are healthy and productive for the nation.
The Healthy Forests Initiative will implement
core components of the National Fire Plan’s 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy. Fundamental to this effort is the outstanding
cooperation that exists between the Forest Service, Department of the Interior,
state governments, counties, and communities in the collaborative targeting
of hazardous fuels projects to assure the highest priority areas with the greatest
concentration of fuels are treated. This
cooperative effort will not only help protect communities, it can also serve
as a model for reducing the morass of appeals and litigation that too often
has prevented the efficient and cost-effective execution of projects on-the-ground. As will be discussed in detail by Chief Bosworth,
the President’s fiscal year 2004 budget supports the Healthy Forests Initiative.
President’s
Management Agenda
In
addition to emphasis on healthy forests, the fiscal year 2004 program for the
Forest Service provides strong emphasis on healthy government through the President’s
Management Agenda. I will work closely with the Administration
and Congress to assure that the President’s objectives of efficiency, performance,
and accountability are reflected in Forest Service operations.
I would like to congratulate the Forest
Service for its significant accomplishment in obtaining, for the first time,
an unqualified audit opinion on the fiscal year 2002 financial statements. This “clean” opinion for the Forest Service
and the entire Department of Agriculture is important, although I must also
note that this clean opinion is the minimum America’s
taxpayers should expect in the management of federal funds. The Forest Service will have to work hard to
maintain this clean financial status. It
will have to further improve its accounting and reconciliation functions, as
well as significantly streamline its organization, improve its integration of
budget and performance, and improve the public’s access to information through
improved technology. These needs directly
respond to the President’s Management Agenda.
The Forest Service is making important progress
in this area. As discussed in the Agency’s
Budget, it is improving its management of human resources by moving forward
on competitive sourcing initiatives, realigning functions of the headquarters
office, and consolidating financial management operations. The agency is implementing important e-government
reforms, including the new National Fire Plan data base in cooperation with
the Department of the Interior. A new work planning process that will tie to
budget formulation and agency accounting systems will be operational in fiscal
year 2004. A process for performance
monitoring, reporting, and integration with financial information, called the
Performance Accountability System will be implemented in 2004. Additionally, improved integration that will
tie budget and performance outputs to the goals of the Forest Service Strategic
Plan will be readily displayed in the President’s fiscal year 2005 budget, which
is now being developed at the field level.
In addition to the broad goals of the President’s
Management Agenda, the agency will improve its accountability in Wildland Fire
Management. The Forest Service along
with the Department of the Interior is the most skilled wildland firefighting
organization in the world. However, recent
criticism of how the agencies spend funds to suppress wildfire is of great concern
to Chief Bosworth and me. In response
to criticisms that occurred during this past fire season, Chief Bosworth promptly
dispatched an accountability team to review specific expenses and policies that
may have contributed to unnecessary expenditures. As a result of this and other efforts, new procedures
have been established that will focus on “least cost suppression” alternatives
in suppressing wildfire and eliminating unnecessary expenses; establish clearer
financial management accountability of incident commanders and line officers;
and provide for improved internal and external controls and incentives.
Additionally, the Forest Service will fully
implement performance measures in cooperation with the Department of the Interior
that reflect the level of risk reduced by treatments as part of the interagency
effort to increase accountability of Federal wildand fire management efforts.
In implementing these efficiency measures,
it is important to emphasize that firefighter safety and the protection of communities
will not be compromised. As we focus
on an efficient wildland firefighting organization, we must not lose sight of
the fact that fire suppression often is an expensive operation where major costs
will be most substantially reduced by accomplishing the goals of the President’s
Healthy Forests Initiative.
Conclusion
Mr.
Chairman, in closing let me emphasize how important the President’s Budget and
legislative agenda for the Forest Service is. The management of America’s
natural resources on federal, state, and local lands has been adversely affected
by polarized views on either the use or conservation of natural resources.
For many years we have been able to find only very limited middle ground.
Rural economies have been adversely affected by the significant reduction
in the production of products and services from these lands. Communities have been damaged and many more
are threatened by the prospect of catastrophic wildfire. The President’s Healthy Forests Initiative,
the National Fire Plan, and legislative initiatives to improve the ability to
cooperate with communities, reduce or eliminate unnecessary procedural process,
and expand contracting authority are important areas of focus for the Forest
Service. With your help the Forest Service
can accomplish a robust performance-based program for the nation’s forests and
rangelands, and do so in full collaboration with state governments, communities
and Congress.
I look forward to working with you in implementing
the agency’s fiscal year 2004 program and would be happy to answer any questions.