they're off to some mission somewhere in the world, and I want to make sure that they come back in one piece. This process ignored that. Senator Lieberman. Senator LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I must comment that Senator Kempthorne has asked you some good, tough questions, and in your answers, which have been direct, you show the results of having been brought up in a large, contentious family. [Laughter.] Senator LIEBERMAN. Although I would guess that your responses to Senator Kempthorne were more respectful than they were to your brothers and sisters in similar arguments. [Laughter.] Ms. MCGINTY. They were all bigger than me. Senator LIEBERMAN. You look like you could hold your own. Let me ask you to look forward a little bit, Katie, hoping that you are confirmed by this committee and by this Senate. In the next year, what do you see as the disputes that are significant that will require CEQ resolution? Ms. MCGINTY. Well, the issues, Senator, that we will need to continue to work on are many of the things that will be before this committee. We want to be an active participant in your consideration of the Safe Drinking Water Act. We want to be an active participant in the consideration of Superfund and the Endangered Species Act. Now, in all of those issues there are numerous Federal agencies that have programs or responsibilities that are very much impacted by the decisions that are made. In Superfund, for example, it has been a very salutary process to be able to have those agencies, frankly, that are regulated in the same room with EPA, who regulates under the Superfund Program, as we propose some of our Superfund reforms. As this committee takes on the Superfund issue, I am certain that there will be numerous issues that come up that, again, will require harmonization of the perspectives that the various agencies bring to bear. On the NEPA side of the equation, we would like significantly to reform the way the agencies implement the law, to make sure that they are acting in parallel rather than in series, which winds up to be a tremendously wasteful process. Also, that they begin, instead of looking at each individual action, each timber sale, each grazing permit, that they step back and only do analysis on the larger landscape so that the programs can be much more efficient. We are getting to agreement on all those points, but I think it will take a little bit more work and perseverance over the next year to bring us to a unified position. Senator LIEBERMAN. It sure will. I appreciate what you've said about Superfund. We came close to an agreement last year, got stopped at the end. People have started out in different positions this year, and it's going to need a lot of work from you and from others, but I think you are in a unique position to try to bring people together, because ultimately we're not going to have any reform, let alone reauthorization, of Superfund unless there is agree ment by the parties involved, which will then be reflected in the Congress and in the White House. Are there any disputes coming between Federal agencies-this takes me to my work on the Government Affairs Committee where we bring in OMB every year and ask them what trouble spots are ahead that we should know about in the Federal Government-is there anything in particular coming that you see that you would be involved in in the next 6 or 12 months? Ms. MCGINTY. Well, I think again, Senator, there are issues that will arise in the course of reauthorizing these statutes. Those will be the most pressing issues that we look to. The other priority will be in the initiatives we announced as part of our reinvention, to make sure that the agencies are prioritizing their resources to get those jobs done. Senator LIEBERMAN. Thank you. I don't have any more questions. Senator KEMPTHORNE. OK. Ms. McGinty, I read with interest in your biographical sketch one line that caught my attention, where you said, "At the request of the President, Ms. McGinty chaired the development of a forest plan for the Pacific Northwest that puts people back to work as it protects ancient forests." Now, I believe you are referring to Option 9? Ms. MCGINTY. Yes, sir, the President's forest plan. Senator KEMPTHORNE. OK. Here is my concern with your statement. Prior to Option 9, the Forest Service had proposed annual timber sales in the Northwest of 4.5 billion board feet. Option 9 cut this in half, to 1 billion board feet. But according to Forest Service figures, sales totals have been well below that number. I understand from industry representatives in the region that the actual sales this year have only been a few million board feet, and that the Forest Service hopes to achieve 500 million board feet. In this particular geographic area, 1 million board feet generates 9 direct and another 9 indirect jobs. Even if the Forest Service attains its goal of 500 million board feet-and many seem skeptical that they will be able to achieve that under the restrictions imposed by Option 9-that is 9,000 jobs lost from what was promised. Total timber sales in the Pacific Northwest have dropped from 7.8 billion board feet in 1990 to only 421 million board feet in 1994; 242 mills in 147 rural towns have closed since 1989, putting 30,000 mill workers out of work. One-third of those mills have closed since President Clinton took office. Keep in mind that these job figures have been cushioned a bit by the fact that timber sales approved before President Clinton and Option 9 have still been coming down the pipeline. However, that is beginning to dry up. How do you square the statement that you have been protecting jobs with what the facts seem to bear out? Ms. MCGINTY. Senator, our priority in that area is to move timber, to offer sustainable economic opportunities for those communities. Prior to Option 9, the forests were shut down. A judge appointed by President Reagan had found that the timber plans that you cite were very much in violation of the law, and therefore the judge took the responsibility away from the Forest Service to manage the timber program. My priority has been to get the experienced professionals in the Forest Service back managing the forest program. As I said, there had been an injunction against forest activities for 4 years prior to the President's initiative. We brought the agencies together, and in December of this year the judge found that we finally had met the requirements of the law, and he ceded responsibility back to the Forest Service to get the timber program moving again. In addition to that, we have launched an economic adjustment initiative in the area that has provided thousands of jobs and job training opportunities, working with the State of Oregon and the State of Washington and the State of California. So while there was real pain and real economic crisis in rural timber communities in all of those States, it never should have happened. We will try our best to make sure it doesn't happen again. As I said, we are finally out of court. We are finally resuscitating the program that you rightly point to; since it was locked up for 4 years, it is rusty, but the Forest Service is back doing the job, delivering timber to those communities. Senator KEMPTHORNE. I believe that you met with committee and personal staff on Friday, and one of the questions asked was whether the Council on Environmental Quality was involved in the decision to write the regulations implementing the timber salvage sale policy that Congress included in the rescission bill. As I understand, you said that the agencies involved hammered out a memorandum of understanding about how to implement this policy. Was CEQ involved in the process? Ms. MCGINTY. Together with the Office of Management and Budget, CEQ convened the meetings where the agencies came together and at least got some of their initial thoughts together as to how they would implement the program. The details were then worked out by the agencies themselves, but the priority in the directive that I gave, as well as OMB, was that we were to efficiently and effectively implement the law, that whatever agreement, the details of which the agencies would come to, we wanted real deadlines in there where decisions would be made and the program, again, implemented as effectively and efficiently as possible. Senator KEMPTHORNE. All right. I will make part of the record a copy of an August 7 memorandum in which various Administration officials were asked to comment on the timber regulations. [The referenced memorandum follows:] FAX FOR: Martha Falay⋅ (UH)_486-2845 Janis Rappaport Clark (USDI/YNE) 208-6916 Bob Davison (UEDI/ASPWP) 206-4684 Kate Kimbal1/Bob Stobra (DOC/NOAA) 482-6328 Jin Eavard (EPA) 260-8383 Den Barty (DOI) 208-4684 Karen Mouritsen (DOI/SOL) 219-1793 David Albersworth: (USD)/ABIN) 208–3144 Jis Lyons (USDA) 720-4732 .: Chris Janhoja (ŽIM) 452-7701 Steven Heraan (XPA) 260-0506 Buth Saunders (Phone: 398-3448) Par this morning's timber salvage meeting, attached is our final draft of the MOA. Please provide any technical comments to Ruth Saunders at 395-1067 (fax). Any serious policy concerns should discussed with T.J. Glauthier. Please provide comments by 4:30 PM today. Pages transmitted: Confirmation No.: 248-398-3760 202-395-1067 Final Draft, 8/7/95 (3:00 p.z MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT RELATED ACTIVITIES UNDER Public Law 104 19 between UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY This Memorandum of Agreement (hɗOA) is made and entered into by and between the USDA Forest Service, USD! Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlif Service, U&DC, National Masina Fisheries Service, and the US Environmental Protection Agency. BACKGROUND The President signed the rescission bill, Public Law 104-19, July 28, 1995, that provider supplemental funds for disaster relief and other programs, as well as making cuts necessary in an overall balanced budget plan. The President did not support the provision cancering timber salvage. Nonetheless, the bill preserves the ability to implement current forest and land uus plans and their standards and guidelines, and to protect other forest resources such clean water and fisheries. Accordingly, the President called for carrying out the timber program in ways that obey our current environmental laws and programs. PURPOSE The Fresident diescted, in a letter signed August 1, 1995, that the Secretsdes of Agriculum "the Interior and Commerce, and the hands of other sognizant agenciat move forward, to implement the timber related provisions of Public Law 104-19 in an expeditious and environmétally-sound manner, in accordance with the President's Pacific Northwest Forest Man, other salaing farest and land management policies and plass, and mxisting environmental laws, except these procedural actions expressly prohibited by Public Law 104 19. |