Hearing on:
The Committee will discuss the President’s Healthy Forests: An Initiative for Wildfire Prevention and Stronger Communities
H.R. 5319: To improve the capacity of the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Interior to expeditiously address wildfire prone conditions on National Forest System lands and Department of Interior lands that threaten communities, watersheds, and other at-risk landscapes through the establishment of expedited environmental analysis procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, the establishment of a predecisional administrative review process for certain Forest Service projects and for other purposes. (The Healthy Forests Reforms Act of 2002)
H.R. 5214: To authorize and direct the Secretary of Agriculture to take actions to promptly address the risk of fire and insect infestation in National Forest System lands. (National Forest Fire Prevention Act)
H.R. 5319: To authorize the Regional Foresters to exempt tree-thinning projects, which are necessary to prevent the occurrence of wildfire likely to cause extreme harm to the forest ecosystem, from laws that give rise to legal causes of action that delay or prevent such projects. (Wildfire Prevention and Forest Health Protection Act of 2002)
Witnesses
Members Testifying:
The Honorable Scott McInnis, CO-03
The Honorable Dennis R. Rehberg, MT-At Large
The Honorable John B. Shadegg, AZ-04
Panel I
The Honorable Ann Veneman, Secretary
United States Department of Agriculture
The Honorable Gale A. Norton, Secretary
Department of the Interior
Panel II (H.R. 5214, H.R. 5309, H.R.5319)
Charles H. Burley, President, Burley & Associates, LLC
Testifying on behalf of the American Forest Resource Council
Dr. Timothy H. Creal, Testifying on behalf of the Forest Counties Payments Committee
Superintendent - Custer School District, South Dakota
William Wallace Covington, Regents' Professor and Director of the Ecological Restoration Institute
Northern Arizona University
David Calahan
Retired Firefighter
Todd Schulke, Forest Policy Director
Center for Biological Diversity
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