Senate Passes Domenici-Feinstein Amendment to Provide $240 Million to Help Protect National Forests from Devastating Fires
July 12, 2000

Washington, DC – The U.S. Senate today passed an amendment sponsored by Senators Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to the Interior Appropriations bill to provide $240 million in emergency funds to address the dangerous build-up of forest fuels on federal lands.

In a speech to the Senate, Senator Feinstein stressed the importance of this funding to help fight the danger of wildfires, especially in the newly designated Sequoia National Monument as well as the Plumas, Lassen and Lake Tahoe National Forests, where the Quincy Library Group pilot project is being implemented to help protect the forests from devastating fires.

The following are Senator Feinstein’s prepared remarks:

“I rise in strong support of the Domenici-Feinstein Amendment. It is much needed and about time. This Amendment promises to provide emergency funding to address the dangerous fuels build-up on millions of acres of federal lands.

Because dead and dying and small diameter trees and thick underbrush have accumulated in our national forests, the possibility of serious and highly destructive forest fires has dramatically increased, and without any action, will continue to increase in the future.

Senator Domenici and I and several of our colleagues share the belief that we have an emergency on our hands. The Forest Service has identified 24 million acres of land in the Continental U.S. as being at the absolute highest level of catastrophic fire risk.

Almost a full one third of this area (7.8 million acres) lies in California. This is more than any other state. In California, 727,000 acres burned in 1999 and several people lost their lives and dozens of structures were burned . At least 70,000 acres of these acres were prime California Spotted Owl habitat in the Lassen and Plumas Forests. Last year $365 million was spent putting out fires and rehabilitating the land nationally. Of this, $144 million was spent in California. I think this money would be much better spent preventing fires rather than cleaning up after them.

The Sierra Nevada Forests in my state continue to represent some of the highest fire risk areas in the country. This includes the forests in and around Quincy, which provide vital habitat for endangered species like Spotted Owls. It includes the Sequoia National Forest, a part of the newly designated Sequoia National Monument. It also includes populated urban-wildland interface zones like Lake Tahoe.

It wasn’t always this way. Up through the turn of the 20th Century, the U.S. population was predominantly spread out and agrarian. Forest fires burned naturally at fairly predictable intervals. They burned hot enough to restrict encroaching vegetation and prevent fuel from loading up on the ground, but not hot enough to kill old growths.

Forests in the U.S. survived like this for thousands of years. By the middle of the 20th Century, however, an increasing population began to occupy new urban-wildland zones on what had once been forest. Suddenly, forest fires had to be put out or suppressed in order to protect the surrounding communities. It seemed intuitive to simply continue fighting fires as they arise. But nothing was done to groom the forests and prevent subsequent conflagrations.

Dead and dying trees which were no longer consumed by fire, lingered while small-sized brush began to build up on the ground. Newer, different species of trees, no longer stifled by natural fire, began to crowd out some of the older growth trees. Forest’s became crowded and severely fire prone. It is evident that the Forest Service’s decades old policy of fire suppression has failed.

In California, fire-intolerant Douglas and White firs have grown underneath old growth Ponderosa pines. The newer firs which are not resistant to fire, create potential fuel ladders that permit a fire to reach the tops, or crowns of old growths for the first time. For most of recent history an old growth pine was impervious to fire since rarely did a fire reach all the way up to its crown. Now with these relatively new fuel ladders, fire threats to old growths are very real. Drought periods have further stressed the forest, predisposing it to insect infestations, disease and of course, severe wildfire.

California forests provide homes for dozens of endangered and threatened species including the Marbled Murrelet and the Spotted Owl. It is an understatement to say that today, the risk of fire is the most serious threat to our forests and these species. It may be the most immediate short-term environmental threat that our western forests face. That is why this Amendment and this funding is so important. It is imperative that the Forest Service use all available tools to clean up the forests and reduce fire risks.

One-size-fits-all approach of the Forest Service must be changed. Each forest is distinct. Differences in topography, geography, and climate dictate that proper forest stewardship practices for California are not the same ones that should be used for Pennsylvania or Alaska or Montana. A combination of tools must be used to fix the problem. Dead and dying trees must be removed; overgrowth must be thinned; mechanical treatment and controlled burns must each be used separately and in conjunction with each other.

If we don’t do this, incidents of serious fire will only continue to increase. It is only a matter of time before a cataclysmic fire strikes Tahoe. The potential loss of life, habitat and property would likely be enormous. Already runoff and problems associated with erosion have threatened Lake Tahoe’s world-renowned crystal blue waters.

Scientists tell us that if we do not take action to address water quality and forest health, Tahoe’s blue waters will turn a muddy brown within 10 years. A serious fire could make this happen even sooner.

This amendment could help provide funding to remove dead and dying trees from the Lake Tahoe National Forest where almost a third of the trees in the are already dead or dying. I don’t know if there is a more significant risk of catastrophic fire anywhere in the country.

Last year Senators Reid, Boxer and Bryan, Congressman Doolittle, Congressman Gibbons and I introduced the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act to authorize the necessary funding to deal with this problem. It is timely that the bill will be marked up by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee on Thursday and has already been marked up at the sub-committee level in the House. I also urge my colleagues to pass this bill as soon as possible. The Domenici-Feinstein Amendment could also be used in Quincy. In 1998, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Quincy Library Group Project.

The Quincy legislation authorized a five year demonstration project based on the forest management plan assembled by the Quincy Library Group, a coalition of local environmentalists, public officials, timber industry representatives and concerned citizens who came together in the Quincy Library to resolve their long-standing conflicts over timber management on the national forests in the area.

The project, which is only a pilot attempts to see if there is not a better way to manage our forests by combining strategic fuel breaks with selected mechanical thinnings and controlled burns.

I have had some disagreements with the Forest Service in the past on Quincy. But I believe that the project is back on track and I am determined to see if I can that funding is appropriated to complete the project to the letter of the law.

Lastly, I think funding must also go to the forests surrounding the newly created Sequoia National Monument. According to the Forest Service Chief, the fuel load in the Sequoia National Forest is 10 times higher than the level deemed safe to protect against forest fires. Wisely, the management plan asks the Forest Service to address this risk over the next 3 years.

I share with the Forest Service the belief that Tahoe, Quincy and Sequoia are the areas in California with the highest need for hazardous fuels reduction. Certainly there are lots of other opportunities to address fire risk in the rest of California as well. And I know that my colleagues from the other western states also have lots of areas in need of fuels reduction funding.

It is my hope that over the next few years we can pinpoint all 24 million acres that the Forest Service identified as being at a level 3, the most significant threat of fire and then focus on the other 18 million acres also at jeopardy. But in the long-term, the only solution is to change our forest management practices to phase out fire suppression while phasing in fire prevention. I look forward to working with Senator Domenici and my other colleagues to see that this happens.”