State of Nation's Federal Forests and 2026 Wildfire Outlook

The subcommittee on federal lands will come to order without objection. The chair is authorized to declare a recess of the subcommittee at any time. The subcommittee has a meeting today to hear testimony on the state of our nation's federal force and outlook for the twenty twenty-six wildlife year. I ask unanimous consent that the following members be allowed to participate. In today's hearing from the dais, the gentleman from Arizona, Doctor Gosar. Gentlelady from Wyoming, Miss Hagerman, the gentleman from, gentlemen from Colorado, Mister Hurd and Mister Crank, and the gentleman from Montana, Mister Downey. Also the gentleman from Puerto Rico, Mister Hernandez, and the gentlelady, Miss Hoyle from Oregon. Without objection, so ordered under committee rule four F, any oral opening that the hearings are limited to the chairman and the ranking minority member. I therefore ask unanimous consent that all other members' opening statements be made part of the hearing record if they are submitted in accordance with committee rule three parent O. Without objection, so ordered. I'll now recognize myself for an opening statement. Thank you, Chief Schultz, uh, Chief Tom Schultz, for being here with us today. I know that our members are eager to hear, um, you discuss the challenges facing our federal forest and learn more about our efforts to restore forest health, protect American communities, and ultimately return the forest service to its core multiple use mission. This is no small task, and your leadership during this challenging time is certainly appreciated. And in just under two years, the results of your leadership are already speaking for themselves. Last year, despite the highest number of ignitions on national forest system land since two thousand sixteen, The forest service's aggressive fire fire suppression efforts kept the total number of acres burned to roughly half the ten year average. The forest service is more prepared than ever to aggressively attack new fire ignitions with more than twenty eight thousand wildlife uh, wildfire responders and twenty two thousand contracted resources ready to go at a moment's notice. And the forest service has launched a strategy to increase timber harvest by twenty five percent. with a goal of reaching four billion board feet annually by twenty twenty eight, a level not achieved since nineteen ninety three. While these numbers are noteworthy under ordinary circumstances, they are particularly remarkable given the agency you inherited. Under the previous administration's misguided policies and fiscal management, the forest service was effectively insolvent, facing a seven hundred and fifty million dollar budget shortfall and hiring freezes during the peak months of the wild. fire year. In fact, we now know that the previous administration lived so far beyond its means that Secretary Vilsack sought on January seventeenth, twenty twenty five was approved to offer voluntary separation to seven thousand Forest Service employees. This was only after Secretary Vilsack openly contemplated the sale of federal lands to offset his rogue spending. I'd like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter dated June one, twenty twenty six, from USDA Deputy Secretary Steve Vanden outlining the true extent of the previous administration's frivolous spending that has only now been truly uncovered. Without objection, so ordered. I suspect that we'll hear a lot of sky is falling rhetoric today from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, over things like closing vacant forest service buildings that are falling into disrepair, or a unification that hasn't even happened yet, I'd only ask them where the similar levels of outrage were when their own administration seemingly lit over three quarters of a billion dollars on fire, and functionally tried to bankrupt the forest service. As I have said repeatedly during my time as Chairman of this subcommittee, healthy forests require active management. For decades, timber harvests have fallen while catastrophic wildfire has risen. Witness the uh chart just over my right shoulder. That is not a coincidence. When we stop managing forests, nature eventually does it for us, usually through insects, disease, and fires. I applaud Chief Schultz for his leadership. However, Congress still has work to do. Regulatory burdens continue to ham hamstring efforts to ramp up forest management. Nearly two billion board feet of timber are tied up by frivolous lawsuits. These onerous hurdles add years of delays and drive up costs for common sense projects that need to get done to protect lives, and stop homes from burning down. That's why it's imperative that the Sen Senate send the Fix Our Force Act to the President's desk without further delay. Yes, our friends in the Senate, send it without further delay. FOFA, which is the most comprehensive forest management and wildfire prevention legislation before Congress passed the house with bipartisan support, four hundred and ninety-seven days ago. That means nearly five hundred days of missed opportunities to accelerate forest restoration projects, reduce litigation, strengthen partnerships, and better protect our communities from catastrophic wildfire. On the eve of what many are predicting to be one of our worst wildfire years on record, we can't another five days, fifty days, or five hundred days. More than two point four million acres have already burned, nearly double the ten year average for this point in the season. We have already witnessed record-breaking fires, including the largest wildfire in Nebraska history, which burned more than six hundred and forty-three thousand acres. And the National Inter-agency Fire Center continues to forecast above normal fire potential across large portions of the country as we enter the height of activity of the fire year. These conditions do not, did not just appear overnight. And fixing our forest won't happen overnight either. The scale of this crisis cannot be understated. An area the size of the state of New Mexico is at elevated fire risk. Forty-six million at-risk fire, uh at-risk homes in the wildland fire, um wildland urban interface. forty percent of all national forest system lands overgrown with hazardous fuels, insect infestations, and disease. But through active forest management, strengthened wildfire response, regulatory reforms, increased timber production, and coordination with states and localities, we can begin to reverse the tide of our forest health and wildfire crisis. I want to once again thank Chief Schultz for appearing before the subcommittee today. The status quo is failing our forest, our firefighters, and the growing number of communities that live with a threat of catastrophic wildfire every year. I look forward to hearing more about the Forest Service's efforts to meet these challenges and how this subcommittee can partner with you in that effort. With now, I will now recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Mister Huffman, for his opening comments.

Thank you, Mister Chair. Chief Schultz, good to see you again. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate that you have come to testify twice uh in our committee in the span of nine months. That is a good track record and I hope we will see an ongoing commitment to um to maintaining an open line of communication with the committee. You have uh you have a big and very important job. I am uh mindful of that. Our national forests are both uh important resources for this country, but they're also uh the natural heritage that we've inherited, that we are entrusted to steward and take care of for future generations. Uh forests provide clean water, clean air, abundant wildlife habitat, and so much more. These are places where Americans go to escape hectic a everyday life, connect with nature, and of course pursue all kinds of outdoor recreation opportunities. And uh national forests also have a deep and complicated connection to indigenous communities throughout the country. This includes sacred sites, cultural resources and landscapes, where cultural burning, co-management, and tribal priorities should be central to the mission. Overseeing all of this, uh, is just a massive responsibility. Uh, unfortunately, since the last time we've had a chance to to talk, from where I sit things have gone from, uh, troubling to actually much worse. Uh, the administration has overseen a devastating cut to the forest services workforce. We've lost approximately twenty five percent of the entire workforce since the beginning of twenty twenty five. And if we can go back in time a little bit, and we need to do this because um Deputy Secretary Vaden has been trying to blame staff cuts and reorganization on the previous administration which I think is um completely inappropriate. Uh, but for years Congress underfunded the forest service. We should just accept that. Decades of Republican attacks on conservation, climate resilience, public lands led to underinvestment, particularly in the agency's non-fire budget. And House Democrats did take the opportunity to invest in the forest service, to change that trend, uh, and think about the next generation. We did that through the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law. Under the Trump administration, We have g seen damaging and unilateral actions to undo that progress, to indiscriminately hollow out the agency. And so, yes, a prior administration was prepared to make the case to Congress that the Forest Service needed more resources to adequately maintain our public lands, but this administration has taken a very different path, pursuing public land sell-offs, workforce cuts, and unilateral decisions that make the Forest Service less capable of doing its job. And chief, um, I think government reform could be, should be a bipartisan priority if that's what this is about. If the goal is truly to make the forest service a better partner, a steward of our forests, uh, Democrats are gonna be right there with you to to work on those things, but I don't think that's what's happening. This has never been about administrative efficiency. It seems to be about dismantling uh, what is a vital institution, stripping down our public lands and selling it off for parts. decimating the Forest Service staff is actually having major impacts on the ground. As ranking member Nagoose has pointed out, uh, under your leadership, chief, the the Forest Service saw a thirty-five percent reduction in hazardous fuel mitigation work. That should be very alarming to anyone who lives in fire country. But instead of rebuilding capacity, the administration seems to be busy pursuing reckless political priorities, a plan to reorganize the Forest Service, eliminating entire offices, shuttering shuttering research facilities, including several in my district, squeezing the agency staff, and moving the headquarters, these are things that don't improve efficiency or produce better outcomes. They're just checklists on the Project twenty twenty five agenda. To make matters worse, you're going after the very protections that keep our forest intact. Uh, for one, you're proposing to roll back the two thousand and one roadless area conservation rule. This rule safeguards forty four million acres of the most pristine treasured forests across our nation from clear cutting and road building. President Trump stripped stripped away hard-fought protections for the boundary waters, greenlighting a proposal to allow foreign mining corporations to operate in a sensitive water shed right next to our most visited and cherished wilderness area. And if all of that wasn't bad enough, the administration appears to be closely following uh Trump's playbook of corruption. Michael Boron, the Under-Secretary at USDA that oversea oversees the forest service, appears to have planted his own yes-men in the agency to give him a clear path to influencing decisions that impact his own properties in the Sawtooth National Forest, despite ethics guidance. He has used his wealth to silence his detractors by relaunching a dormant slap-suit against two seniors. for having the audacity to speak out against his unpermitted airstrip in a national forest years ago. As we prepare for what many anticipate being a very difficult fire season, the vital importance of an adequately resourced and supported forest service and the full attention of its leaders has never been more important. So I look forward to the conversation today and I truly hope we can find a way to turn things around. I yield back.

Gentlemen, this time has expired. the uh i'd like to recognize the chairman of the full committee mister westerman

thank you chairman tiffany for holding this important and timely hearing and chief schultz uh welcome back it's great to see you again thank you for being here and for your leadership at the forest service part of what we'll be discussing today is the state of our our nation's federal forest but i hope this hearing can also serve as a wake-up call not just for our federal forest but for the entire forestry sector. The reality is what we're seeing in this country is nothing short of a silent collapse of our forest products industry. We have one hundred ninety-three million acres of largely overgrown, fire-prone national forest, and yet the United States is the largest importer of wood and paper products. Try explaining to anybody how we have abundant forest land in this country, yet we're the world's largest importer of wood products and paper, and we spend billions of dollars putting out forest fires every year. How does that make sense? It it doesn't make sense. It's also created a doom loop for the health of our nation's forest and our nation's f- forest economy. Since two thousand, approximately third of the total number of sawmills been in operation, have shut down or severely curtailed their business activities. What used to be a problem confined to the west has now spread even further. And since two thousand nineteen, twenty-nine pulp and paper mills have also closed across the country. There are a couple of root causes, but one of them, and the biggest one, is markets. Without markets, the economic incentives to manage are forced to evaporate. Mills shut down and rural communities lose jobs and livelihoods, forced to go unmanaged, becoming overgrown, and eventually turning into powder kegs for the gigafires we're now experiencing in the west. On top of the lack of markets, we have a problem with, uh, especially in the pulp and paper industry of actually being able to upgrade these mills. While we're uh repairing and maintaining mills that were built some of them a half century to a century ago our competitors around the world are branding building brand new highly technical mills that dwarf the mills that we have and create efficiencies that we cannot create here in the united states because we can't uh get past the the permitting and the regulatory phase of being able to make our mills competitive Uh, we're yielding another part of Americans, of of America's vast economy to foreign competitors, and we've got to stop letting that happen. I'm sure a lot of today's conversation will focus on the Forest Service's budget request. What's crazy is that we've gotten so backwards on forest management that we can't even remember a time when the Forest Service used to return money to the treasury. and not be a drain on taxpayer resources. If we can end this doom loop of meal closures, restricted markets, and inactive management, the economics of forced management can start making sense again. Recent studies support this. A report from earlier this year examining three hundred Western wildfires found that fuel treatments prevented two point eight billion dollars in economic losses. I've said it many times that there's probably no place more profound than forest management where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Another statement backed up by research showing that every dollar invested in forest management saves seven dollars in wildfire suppression cost. There's no silver bullet to achieve uh what I've just described. It's gonna take a lot of hard work hard work and it's gonna take a focus and an effort on making things better. A good starting point has been ment as has been mentioned, passing the Fix Our Forest Act and sending it to the President's desk. FOFA incentivizes markets for forest products, both for high-value and low-value materials. The bill does this by fixing twenty year stewardship contracts so that businesses have the certainty they need to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in new sawmill infrastructure. FOFA also supports new markets for low-value materials by creating biochar demonstration projects across the country. Above all, FOFA creates the regulatory environment necessary to stimulate new market growth. NEPA delays, endless inter-agency consultations and frivolous lawsuits, all stymie investment in our federal forest and choke markets. Nobody will build a new mill near federal lands when it takes three point six years to begin mechanical treatments and four point seven years to begin a prescribed burn, on average, and where they have no certainty in what's going to happen when uh one administration changes to the next. Nor will they invest hundreds of millions of dollars in wood processing infrastructure when forest projects are the number one litigated project type across the entire federal government, adding an average of two to four years of additional delays. Though expanded categorical exclusions codified emergency authorities and common sense litigation reform, Uh, FOFA starts to fix not only our forest, but our forestry markets and the rural communities that depend on them. It's a forest health bill, it's a job creation bill, and it's an economic growth bill. It's past time for the Senate to act and send it to the President's desk. In closing, uh, Chief Schultz, I appreciate your efforts to refocus the forest service on its core multiple use mandate to actively manage our forest, protect communities from catastrophic fire,

ensure Americans can access and enjoy our federal lands. I hope we'll be able to send some more help your way soon with the Fix Our Forest Act, so you can keep up this great work. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.

Thank you to the chairman for his opening statement. I now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Nguz, for his statement.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman,

Morning.

uh, good morning, Chief Schultz. Welcome back uh to the committee. Grateful uh that you are here uh to uh present a testimony on behalf of your agency and to answer questions. uh from me and my colleagues on both sides of the dais. I uh as you probably could imagine uh although I I certainly uh respect you know the the work that's done uh by your agency and appreciate uh that we've had an open line of communication wouldn't surprise you to know uh that I disagree uh with uh a lot the Trump administration is pursuing with respect to public lands management policy uh in issues impacting our national forests including in my state of Colorado. And I want to just paint a picture for you, and this is not isolated to your agency, of course, Chief Schultz, but it's important contextually, uh, in terms of why my constituents in Colorado are so concerned about the approach that the Trump administration has taken. In Colorado, we have lost twenty-six percent of all public lands staff across the US Department of Agriculture and Interior Department. Twenty-six percent. So, one out of every four federal civil servants working on public lands, BLM, forest service, variety of, you know, the penalty of agencies, uh, that are subsumed by the interior and forest service are gone. And that has real world consequences. Real world consequences, of course, for those individuals, uh, proud Americans, proud Coloradans who've given their lives to service, uh, to their country. But it also has real world consequences on the ground. in terms of how these lands are managed and how we address some of the consequential challenges that you heard the ranking member, the chairman, and the chairman of the subcommittee articulate. All of that is happening while uh your agency, and I understand, you know, it will get into it a bit during the question and answer segment, uh I don't know if this is, if it's your prerogative or if it's OMB's, but the gutting of the Forest Service's world-class research brands and decimating state, private and tribal forestry programs, uh, in my view, is not a prudent step to take, particularly during a very difficult fire season. I would also just say, uh, and this is less, uh, directed at you, uh, chief, and more at, uh, the chairman of the full committee who I, uh, unfortunately has stepped out. But just to be clear, to correct the record a bit, a recent analysis is depicted on the, or rather is depicted in a recent analysis done by an external entity, found that the Forest Service completed around thirty five percent fewer acres of hazardous fuels work in twenty twenty five than it did in twenty twenty four. And notwithstanding all of the externalities and you know external factors that the chairman described, uh none of that changed from twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five. The only thing that changed was the presidential administration. And I think it's an important question uh that deserves to be answered, why there's a thirty five percent reduction in hazardous fuels treatments in the first year of the Trump administration, the second term, compared to the last year of the Biden administration. And I hope that that's a question uh that we uh can uh get to the bottom of today. In any event, I do want to say, representing a district that spans twelve thousand square miles, representing a district that includes three of our nation's most prominent, certainly the most beautiful national forests, I am very grateful to the folks in the forest service who are working each and every day, uh hard on behalf of Coloradans and Americans writ large. Uh, I do think it's important for us to have an open line of communication, and so I look forward to your testimony and to uh asking you some questions about some of the challenges that we face.

Thank you. To the ranking member of the committee, we're gonna move on to our witnesses' testimony. Just want to remind you, though you're a veteran here, you must limit your oral

Chairman Tiffany, Ranking Member Nagoose. and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here today to testify. The USDA's Forest Service is the nation's foremost federal forestry organization. We have the privilege of managing a hundred and fifty-four national forests, twenty national grasslands, covering a hundred and ninety-three million acres. Since day one, my work as chief has been to refocus our efforts on the fundamental work that delivers the greatest good to the American people. Today I'd like to share the priorities guiding the forest service forward, as well as share key accomplishments from this previous year. Our priorities reflect a back to basics approach that centers on the work that we know matters most. Keeping people safe, protecting communities from wildfire, actively managing our forest for health and productivity, supporting communities recovering after disasters, expanding access to the outdoors, increasing domestic mineral production, cutting unnecessary red tape, and strengthening partnerships that make all of this possible. Safety is at the center of everything that we do, whether it's firefighter safety on the line or an employee in the field, safety is our first and last priority. I'm proud to say that we reduced OSHA OSHA related recordable incidents by more than fifteen percent year over year between twenty four and twenty five. That's a direct reflection of the culture that put safety first. While for readiness and response remains one of our most urgent responsibilities, we're prioritizing rapid, aggressive initial response, so that we can keep fires small. We've invested in staffing, coordination, contracting, and infrastructure to meet the reality that the fire season in many cases can extend upwards of twelve months and we're seeing results as was mentioned in uh the chairman's opening statement in fiscal year twenty five even though we had the highest number of wildfire starts on the national forest nearly a decade the acres that were burned were held to about half of the ten year average our initial attack success rate was the strongest in twelve years and we traded about three point three million acres to reduce hazardous fuels and for the fiscal year We have already treated nearly two point two million acres nationally, or sixty-one percent of our tar target as of May, with more than one point six million acres in prescribed fire at nearly five hundred thousand acres more than last year at this time. In addition to these hazardous field treatments, other forms of active forest management, including timber production, grazing, reforestation, all remain essential to healthy resilient forest. In twenty twenty five, we exceeded our timber targets by two point nine five billion board feet. This supports domestic mills, strengthens rural economies, and improves forest health. We are implementing the National Active Forest Management strategy, and we are on target to increase our volume offered by twenty-five percent, with an overall goal of four billion board feet by fiscal year twenty-eight. We're also modernizing grazing processes and expanding access to ensure grazing continues to promote healthy landscapes in resilient rural communities. Last year we completed the highest level of reforestation in more than twenty-five years, reforesting almost two hundred eighty-seven thousand and improving stands on another hundred and sixty-five thousand acres. America's forest also play a critical role in supporting domestic energy and mineral production. The forest service is committed to facilitating responsible development, especially if critical mineral is essential to national security, technology and energy, while reducing unnecessary regulatory delays. We're currently working on twenty FAST forty-one projects, including six covered and fourteen transparency projects. Disaster recovery, when disasters occur the forest service is a key partner in recovery. Following the twenty twenty four hurricane season with Hurricane Helene, we opened up more than fifteen hundred miles of roads and nearly seven hundred miles of trails and thirty four recreation sites. Across more than a hundred disaster recovery events, we awarded eight hundred and eighty five million dollars in contracts, and one point five billion in agreements to restore landscapes and infrastructure. Recreation access and infrastructure, we're also working to expand recreation access and improve visitor experience for millions of Americans who enjoy their national forest. Under the Great American Outdoors Act, we completed a hundred twenty-five deferred maintenance projects, implu improving a hundred and sixty-two wreck sites and seventy-eight roads and bridges. The Forest Service is working alongside states, tribes, and local governments to manage the nation's forests more effectively. In the past two years, we have signed and entered into shared stewardship agreements with seven states and three tribal nations. By the end of fiscal year twenty-five, we had five hundred forty active good neighbor agreements, ninety-nine which were signed in the past year. These partnerships help expand capacity, cut through operational challenges, and deliver restoration work. We're also taking significant steps to reduce red tape and improve organizational efficiency. Since reorganization, relocating headquarters to Salt Lake City, shifting to a state-based leadership model and creating operational support centers, and unifying research programs designed to move decision making closer to communities and landscapes that we serve. This shift represents a structural reset and common sense approach to improve mission delivery. As we look ahead to the twenty twenty six fiery winter season that is facing elevated fire potential across large areas of the country, we're also unified and prepared. We have hired more than eleven thousand firefighters, up six percent last year at this time. We will reach our goal of eleven thousand three hundred firefighters by July. We have increased the number of red-carded personnel, non-fire staff by more than four hundred and fifty employees, giving us more surge capacity when fires do occur. Finally, we're working with the Department of Interior and Congress as directed in the administration's

Thank you for your testimony, Chief Schultz. And we're gonna turn to questions now. I will lead off questioning. Uh, Chief, the subcommittee hears consistently about the loss of wood processing infrastructure in the west and in rural communities across the United States. It's one of the biggest barriers to active forest management. I wanna uh uh I ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record maps from Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington that show the closure of more than four hundred and thirty sawmills since nineteen ninety. Without objection? So ordered. What is the Forest Service doing to provide the certainty and reliable timber supplies that will encourage new built, new mills to be built in these communities?

I mean, chairman.

It it's a very difficult question that you've raised. Um, we have lost significant capacity, but the Forest Service has stepped up on the supply side. As I mentioned in my opening statement, we're increasing supply and certainty. So what industry is looking for, what communities want is certainty of supply in many cases. Um, we are increasing this year our outputs by about twenty, uh, it's gonna be about two hundred fifty million board feet over last year. Um, and then Congress has directed in the reconciliation bill for us to increase that every year over the next ten years by two hundred and fifty million feet. So the plan over the next ten years is to basically get us close to the forest plan direction. If we implemented every forest plan in the country, and did what the plans say we should do, we would be selling about seven billion board feet a year. The direction from Congress aligns with that forest plan direction. And over time, over the next ten years, we will be in a position that we will be implementing forest plans fully.

So if we just followed the existing plan, we would get to seven billion board feet? Is that correct?

Yes, sir, and that's pretty much directly aligned with what Congress has given us direction in the reconciliation bill to do. So there's direct alignment between full forest plant implementation and direction from Congress.

So in other words, we're about half of that seven billion or less. Is that correct?

Yes, sir. That is correct.

Yeah. Um, the uh comment was brought up here that um there's a thirty five percent reduction in hazardous fuel treatments. Give us some context behind where that comes from.

Yes, sir. So just to be clear on numbers, um, we we treated about three point three million acres last year. thirty five percent doesn't recognize that three point three million acres, I'm not sure who produced that number. But just to put this in perspective, going back to twenty twenty, you can't cherry pick any one number of acres, in my view, to get a an accurate perspective. So if we go back to twenty twenty, we treated two point six million acres, it was three point six and twenty one, it was three point two and twenty two, and twenty three it was four point three, it was four point two and twenty four, and three point three and twenty five, and this year our goal is three point six. We've already treated two point two million acres year to date, which is about a half a million acres ahead of where we were last year. So when you look at the context, terms of a five year average, we're right in there last year about where the five year average was. It is correct that we did drop year over year, but you have to look at where we dropped. Primarily that was in the south. So when we talk about where we protect communities from wildfire threats in the west, the western acres that were treated for prescribed fire were pretty much where we've been and where our goals were where we had to fall down a little bit was in the south, in Region eight predominantly. And that was due to some issues about moving people around early in the season. So what we've seen this year is Region eight stepped up, we got our acres treated earlier in the year, so we're on target to hit our goal this year. Last year there was a little bit of fall down, but it wasn't predominantly in the west where we have a lot of the concerns about communities being impacted. The impact was primarily in Region eight, which a lot of that's tied to silviculture, in terms of southern yellow pine and what is needed to re to basically grow and maintain that we manage southern yellow pine plantation. So that's that's the picture. So when you look at a five year average, we're about right in where we were over the last five years. We did have a fall down year over year, but it was primarily in Region eight. It was not across the West.

Breakthrough Institute recently uh released a report understanding NEPA litigation. And in the study they found that NEPA lawsuits oftentimes add nearly four years of delay to forced uh management projects. Even when the agency wins the lawsuit, how much time an agency manpowers the forced service currently devoting to frivolous lawsuits? you know, bullet proofing NEPA documents, we hear that from staff out in the field to fighting it in court, and away from actively managing our fire prow uh our fire prone forest. How much time is your staff having to dedicate to that?

Uh, Mister Chairman, we dedicate a significant amount of time, I mean when you look at our cost structure, a lot of it is tied to NEPA, but what I can tell you what we have done at USDA this past year, we have reviewed our NEPA regulations, the forest service no longer has NEPA regulations, we have USDA NEPA regulations. So the the agency as a whole took an approach working with USDA, consolidated that, we used some of the PLM um NEPA regulations, so now we have a much more streamlined approach. So in NEPA we have clear requirements to complete NEPA within um two years for an EIS and within twelve months for an EA. So it has been a significant burden in the past. We are gonna be streamlining that process within the regulations that the secretary has adopted for entirety of USDA.

So you're trying to fix that problem.

Yes, sir.

I yield and uh I recognize the ranking member for his questions.

I thank the the chairman uh and you first I wanna say again thank you uh chief for visiting with me last year, uh and I think unlike the vast majority of your uh colleagues in the Trump uh administration's cabinet, um I appreciated uh your bipartisan reach out to both Democrats and Republican members uh here in the house. Uh I also wanna say I appreciate the factual description you gave with respect to hazardous fuels reductions. And I know the chairman is still not uh he'll come back here at some point. I I presume to ask you some questions. Uh, but I thought what you said was really important because again, the facts are facts. And so I'm not uh it the when I was making those comments about, you know, the kind of year-to-year comparison between twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five, it's not uh directed as a pejorative uh about you. It was more to the chairman's point of that we constantly hear about frivolous NEPA lawsuits and all of these the sort of external factors that are driving the lack of uh treatment on federal lands. And my point was simply that in last year, the first year of the Trump administration, there was less hazardous fuel reduction than in the last year of the Biden administration. And you've offered some explanations uh in your view uh that uh explain that delta. I wanna talk a bit about Pine Beetle. I'm sure you're very familiar with this. Uh, I understand that representatives from your agency from the Rocky Mountain Region are serving on Colorado's Ponderosa Mountain Pine Beetle Task Force, along with my staff. and other members of the congressional delegation, this is a task force that the governor uh convened. And your agency has been engaged with the state of Colorado on how to address those issues. I just wanna ask if you'd be willing to commit to continue to work with the state of Colorado and my office on some of the legislative efforts that we may need to pursue, uh in response uh to uh that task force's work.

Yes, sir, Mr. Goosen. Just so you know, I have met with the governor on this issue and I've met with the state forester and we are definitely committed to working with the state of Colorado

I appreciate that. Again, I appreciate the open line of communication with our state forester, who I think is doing a great job in Colorado and uh, and our governor. And so we'll we'll follow up on that front. Um, I know we've had this exchange previously, so I'm not gonna, I don't wanna rehash it here a year later. But suffice to say, as you are well aware, uh, I deeply disagree with OMB's uh, suggestion uh, that we eliminate the state, private and tribal forestry program. uh, in the forest service. I just think that that is a terrible mistake. I don't I I'm I welcome your your views on that front. I understand. I maybe it is something that your agency is supportive of, or perhaps this is something that, you know, OMB has has simply uh dictated. But yeah, I welcome your your feedback. I just think that given all the challenges we're facing and the really intense fire season that state uh and uh private and tribal forestry program is really important.

Yeah, Mr. Nguz, uh, Mr. Chairman, I've been involved in the state forestry for about thirty years, um, working at the state level, and I can assure you that state and private forestry programs have always been viewed at a state level with skepticism in terms of ongoing federal funding. It's something that has been an ongoing issue and has been on the chopping block in many cases for many years. Uh, what the administration is trying to do is recognize that, um, as we look at responsibilities of the federal government versus the state, where are those responsibilities best placed? What I can tell you though, is you look at the house mark in the budget. The house mark that has come forward right now funds state and private and tribal programs at about ninety-one percent of what we were funded in fiscal year twenty-six, for twenty-seven. So, right now, if the house moves forward with the existing mark, I would not expect significant changes in the state, private and tribal programs.

Thank you. Um, last question. Maroon Bells. Have you ever been to Maroon Bell scenic area in Colorado?

I have not, no sir.

Yeah, we welcome you to come visit it. Uh, I know uh my colleague from uh third congressional district, very proud of, he's got a lot of wonderful scenic areas. This happens to be one of them. Uh, I uh, you're probably familiar with this, but essentially the forest service has just recently made some announcements. Regarding the Maroon Bell's scenic area, there's a lot of uh backlog with respect to deferred maintenance. And the forest service has essentially said uh that they will no longer or are looking for arrangements to be able to offload the management of the scenic area, to private or public parties. And while I have every uh belief that uh Pitkin County of course would be a trusted steward of maroon bells I think it's a mistake to think of our public lands in this transactional way where if the math simply doesn't you know even out and because of a particular deficit in terms of deferred maintenance here that that now longer means that the forest service is willing to ensure that these lands are still preserved uh in public lands uh or excuse me in public management of those lands. And so I'll give you a chance to respond here, but I I just I would encourage you uh to take a look at some of these scenic areas that yes perhaps there is deferred maintenance and it's a, you know, a larger number, but at the end of the day it's important for the Forest Service to continue to maintain those on its balance sheet, in my view.

Uh, yes sir. So um, Mister Goose, Mister Chairman, when it comes to sites, different sites, we've actually w- entered in a lot of We have concessionaires that we use on a number of locations. So when we talk about, I wouldn't use the word offloading necessarily, but how we manage sites. We actually work with the state of Colorado and we're looking to expand some of those with the state parks there in terms of opportunities where the state can provide actual management of some of those different sites. We've also worked with tribes. I, here's an example of the tribes of the Great Sioux Nation. I was just out in Rapid City here a month and a half ago. The wilderness area, the Black Elk Wilderness, um, in in and around Rapid City is an area that's about thirty five, forty thousand acres. The Great Sioux Nation is gonna be managing it well in this area. So we we are looking for partners in many cases, whether it's concessionaires, whether it's states, whether it's tribes, to work with the Forest Service to insure that those sites can be managed. In some cases, we're the best entity to manage those sites, in other cases, it's other entities. And uh the um, Mister Westerman's uh state of Arkansas, we've actually got a a site there, Blanchard Caverns, where the state is actually stepping in,

Gentleman's time has expired now. Recognize the gentleman from California,

Thank you.

Mister McClintock, for his questions.

Uh, thank you. Uh, m- Mister Schultz, my district comprises the Sierra Nevada of uh, California. And I've often commented about the marked difference between the health of the private timberland in the Sierra, uh, and that of the public timberland. You can literally tell where the boundary lines are between the public and private lands by the condition of the forests on each side. The private timberland is healthy, green, properly spaced, it's fire resilient. The public land is morbidly overgrown. dead and dying trees everywhere. In fact, a few years ago, your predecessor, Randy Moore, admitted that we'd lost over a quarter of our national forest to catastrophic fire over the past decade. Now, I just took a look at the largest of the nation's private timber uh owners, Sierra Pacific Industries. They make about one and a half billion dollars a year from their timber, and they own about two and a half million acres. So that averages about six hundred and twenty-five dollars per year per acre. Then I looked at the US Forest Service. We make about two hundred million dollars a year from our timber, and we own a hundred and ninety-three million acres of timberland, so that averages about ten dollars per acre per year. So SPI makes six hundred and twenty-five dollars per acre, keeping its forest in excellent condition. The Forest Service makes ten dollars per acre, and keeps its forest in decrepit condition, so I guess my first question is, Uh, WTF?

Uh, Mister McClintock, uh, Mister Chairman, um, you've opened a can of worms and I'll try to address it. So I know the folks at CRP said very well they're very good managers. Um, and

Why can't we be as good?

Well, and we're working on that. Um, so just a couple things.

What's keeping us from being as good managers, do you know?

Well, not not just sir, I'll touch on that. So we just the the chairman was talking before about litigation, um, as an issue. So when you look at litigation, for instance, we have about a billion board feet of timber that is currently under litigation. So that that does become a sh

And that litigation arises from what?

It litig- it litigation primarily arises through people challenging NEPA decisions predominantly from the environmental community is where that typically comes from What what you see though is in Kel-