Red Lodge Clearinghouse

Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell said S. 2593 would work well in concert with the agency's current efforts and the ecosystem services demonstration projects included in the president's fiscal 2009 budget proposal.

"Each would help different groups find their common interests and leverage resources to get work done," Kimbell told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee yesterday.

The bill establishes a collaborative and science-based forest landscape restoration program that would prioritize and fund ecological restoration treatments, which Kimbell said would help land managers prioritize landscape-level restoration work.

Sponsors claim the bill would lead to an overall reduction of wildfire management costs by focusing funding on collaborative, sustainable projects that would offer the greatest protections against devastating wildfires.

"As wildfire activity and suppression costs have grown dramatically, as the affects of global warming are posing an ever-greater threat to forest and watershed health, and as the economy struggles, the time is right for this approach," said Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.).

Federal land managers would work with state and local authorities to identify parcels of at least 50,000 acres comprised mostly of National Forest System lands that need active ecosystem restoration. The projects must include several stakeholders representing multiple interests.

The bill would also require that the projects be in proximity to current or future wood-processing facilities that would be able to use the collected biomass. Those forest restoration byproducts would offset the treatment costs.

While supportive of the legislation, Bureau of Land Management Deputy Director Henri Bisson questioned the fund that would provide up to 50 percent of the cost of carrying out ecological restoration. He said the legislation is not clear what mechanism would require federal agencies to seek partner funding from non-federal sources.

The legislation has not only enjoyed support from lawmakers and the administration but also from a plethora of environmental organizations, timber groups and local governments.

Howard Gross, executive director of the Forest Guild, said he was pleased to see the eligibility criteria for projects "addresses a range of process concerns and values that are important in moving beyond a limited focus on fuels reduction and toward a more comprehensive approach to forest restoration."

Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council, said his group would like to see the legislation extend the Forest Service and BLM's authority to use stewardship contracting in forest treatment. First authorized by the 2003 omnibus spending bill, the agencies' authority to use stewardship contracting expires in 2013.

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