[Senate Hearing 111-290]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-290
CLIMATE CHANGE ON FEDERAL FORESTS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC LANDS AND FORESTS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
TO
RECEIVE TESTIMONY ON MANAGING FEDERAL FORESTS IN RESPONSE TO CLIMATE
CHANGE, INCLUDING FOR NATURAL RESOURCE ADAPTATION AND CARBON
SEQUESTRATION
__________
NOVEMBER 18, 2009
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
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55-124 WASHINGTON : 2009
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico, Chairman
BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
RON WYDEN, Oregon RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont JIM BUNNING, Kentucky
EVAN BAYH, Indiana JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan BOB CORKER, Tennessee
MARK UDALL, Colorado
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
Robert M. Simon, Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Chief Counsel
McKie Campbell, Republican Staff Director
Karen K. Billups, Republican Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests
RON WYDEN, Oregon, Chairman
TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
MARK UDALL, Colorado BOB CORKER, Tennessee
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
Jeff Bingaman and Lisa Murkowski are Ex Officio Members of the
Subcommittee
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS
Page
Barrasso, Hon. John, U.S. Senator From Wyoming................... 3
Batten, Kit, Ph.D., Science Advisor, Office of the Deputy
Secretary, Department of the Interior.......................... 6
Johnson, Hon. Tim, U.S. Senator From South Dakota................ 4
Law, Beverly, Professor, Global Change Forest Science, Oregon
State University, and Ameriflux Network Science Chair,
Corvallis, OR.................................................. 30
Oneil, Elaine, Ph.D., M.S., BSF, RPF, Research Scientist, School
of Forestry, College of Forest Resources, University of
Washington and Executive Director of Corrim (Consortium for
Research on Renewable Industrial Materials), Seattle, WA....... 35
Risch, Hon. Jim, U.S. Senator From Idaho......................... 5
Tidwell, Tom, Chief, Forest Service, Department of Agriculture... 12
Wood, Christopher A., Chief Operating Officer, Trout Unlimited,
Arlington, VA.................................................. 43
Wyden, Hon. Ron, U.S. Senator From Oregon........................ 1
APPENDIXES
Appendix I
Responses to additional questions................................ 55
Appendix II
Additional material submitted for the record..................... 77
CLIMATE CHANGE ON FEDERAL FORESTS
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2009
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:35 p.m. in
room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Wyden
presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RON WYDEN, U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON
Senator Wyden. The subcommittee will come to order.
Good afternoon to all, and welcome. The purpose of today's
hearing in the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests is to
explore how the relevant Federal agencies are managing Federal
forests in response to climate change, including for natural
resource adaptation and carbon sequestration.
I know in my home State, we understand how important it is
to manage forests with an eye to the future, to preparing for
both the stresses that climate change will place on our
forests, and for the opportunities they have to be part of the
climate solution. These are certainly among the top concerns
facing the Department of Agriculture and the Interior
Department, and we look forward to hearing from them today.
The country's forests already provide a wide array of
benefits--clean water and air, fish and wildlife habitat,
timber and recreation. But, perhaps most timely is their
potential to contribute to tackling the issue of climate
change.
In particular, I see two significant opportunities for the
Federal forests. First, they could provide renewable energy,
biomass energy from the millions and millions of acres of land
that are dangerously overstocked and ready to explode into the
next inferno; and second, they can sequester carbon to help
battle climate change. In my view, it is time to manage the
nation's forests, to address climate change, and unlock their
potential.
Substituting renewable biomass from forests for fossil
fuels will help reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases that
fossil fuels would have created. In addition, thinning Federal
forests and restoring their health will also help protect them
from insects, disease, and unnatural forest fires which release
still more carbon into the atmosphere. Healthy forests lock up
carbon dioxides through sequestration and provide an
opportunity to create carbon offsets. These offsets can be used
to help minimize the cost of carbon reduction in other parts of
the economy, and finally, provide a way to truly account for
this economic benefit that Federal forests provide to our
environment.
There is no doubt that climate change is having a
significant impact on Federal forests. In recent years, forests
have suffered from wildfires and bark beetle outbreaks that not
only clearly prove that climate is, in fact, changing, but also
that our forests are surprisingly sensitive to that change.
These findings will require forest management actions that help
make them more resilient to the impact of climate change.
In my part of the country, particularly in our dry forests,
this means that forest restoration and thinning activities are
urgently needed to save the very forests that have the
potential to be part of the climate change solution.
I am very much aware that these issues are not without
controversy and uncertainty, and I know the nation's land
managers are faced with a daunting challenge, and know that
they are dedicated to building a healthier future for our
forests. So, they're going to face some important questions in
the days ahead. How can be forests be managed so that they can
withstand the ongoing and expected impact of a warming climate?
What are the best tools for making sure that fish and wildlife
adapt to a changing climate? What is the best way to manage
forests for carbon sequestration while working to reduce
emissions? These are difficult questions to answer given the
daunting complexities and uncertainties that are involved, but
I have faith that our witnesses are up to this challenge.
In a few minutes, we are going to hear from Dr. Kit Batten,
a science advisor of the Department of the Interior, and Tom
Tidwell, the chief of the Forest Service at the Department of
Agriculture. We welcome both of you this afternoon and are
anxious to hear your testimony.
I'm going to recognize the ranking minority of the
subcommittee for any statement, and Senator Johnson, as well.
I want to tell my colleagues that this will be perhaps a
hectic afternoon. I may have to step out and take several calls
in connection with some of the discussions going forward with
respect to healthcare. Both of my colleagues, I know, have a
great interest in this, as well, so my hope is, is that we will
be able to work together and keep this going. At the very
worst, we would have to take a short recess, but I hope that
that won't be the case.
So, I'd like to recognize Senator Barrasso, the ranking
member of the subcommittee, for his statement. Senator Johnson
and I have been involved in these issues together since our
days in the other body, and he's got a great interest in this,
as well. So, let's begin with Senator Barrasso's opening
statement.
[The prepared statement of Senator Bingaman follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Jeff Bingaman, U.S. Senator From New Mexico
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing, which addresses
an important topic--how to manage national forests in response to
climate change. There is no doubt that our Federal lands play a unique
and essential role in our response to climate change, and that role
demands unique responsibilities of our land managers and special
considerations for policy-makers.
The science is clear that climate change already is having
significant impacts on our forests, and land managers across the county
are faced with the difficult challenge of managing them in light of
these impacts.
To help address these problems, I recently introduced legislation
to facilitate natural resource adaptation across the Federal land
management agencies, States, and tribes.
I believe that coordination and communication among the various
land managers will be vital to ensuring that our forests and other
public lands become more resilient to climate change.
In my opinion, it is clear that land managers will need to use a
variety of tools to successfully manage our forests in light of a
warming climate. Adaptation and carbon sequestration are two of those
tools.
Our Federal land managers already consider the protection of stored
carbon and the sequestration of additional carbon as an important part
of their mission-and I think that is appropriate. But I am very
skeptical about managing-much less marketing-Federal lands with a
singular objective of sequestering carbon.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO, U.S. SENATOR
FROM WYOMING
Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want
to thank you for scheduling this hearing today.
Forest adaptation and climate change, as well as carbon
sequestration, are extremely important issues, especially given
the increasing risk of catastrophic wildfires and the
continent-wide incidences of bark beetles that are killing our
forests.
Mr. Chairman, while we like to focus on all of the good
things that are happening in our forests--and there is a lot--
we cannot ignore some of the not-so-good things that are
happening, such as forest fires or the 300,000 acres of forest
killed by insect and disease in the Intermountain West.
Research has shown that, as carbon dioxide levels increase in
the atmospheres, plants actually grow better. They become more
efficient carbon sinks, and they provide the soil and moisture
conditions which benefit the trees. Research also tells us that
about half the carbon dioxide sequestered by a tree is stored
in its wood and in its needles, and the other half is stored in
the soil that the tree grows in. When trees are harvested and
converted into lumber for housing, then carbon within them is
sequestered for decades, if not centuries. The soil-bound
carbon dioxide is slowly released over time.
When a tree dies in the forest, the tree almost immediately
begins to decompose and release carbon right at that point.
Perhaps even more devastating is when those stands of dead
trees burn. Most of the carbon stored within the soil is
volatized and released into the atmosphere.
Now, I know we're going to hear, a little bit later,
mention from Ms. Oneil in her testimony, but it bears
repeating, that between 2002 and 2006 wildfires in the United
States emitted the equivalent of between 4 to 6 percent of all
manmade emissions of carbon dioxide for the country for those
same years. Wildfires in California from 2001 to 2007 released
277 million tons of carbon dioxide from both the fire and the
decay of dead trees. This is the equivalent of the emissions
from half of the registered automobiles in California for an
entire 7 years.
So, we all know the importance, and we all love our public
lands. We all want them to maintain a resiliency that allows
them to respond to changing environmental conditions. Forests
are not as fragile as we humans sometimes believe them to be.
They have survived dramatic climatic changes in the past, and
they will continue to do so in the future. They have survived
dramatic events like volcanoes, floods, and fires; they also
likely will adapt to a changing climate, if and when that
occurs.
The real question is how best to manage the lands to
produce the resource values that we need and that we desire
while adapting to changes in our forests and in our climate.
Mr. Chairman, I think it's important that any carbon
sequestration plan for our Federal forests consider the
following:
How much carbon is released as a result of fires, insect,
and disease, and ultimately, the decomposition of dead trees?
What is the total energy cradle-to-grave carbon cost of the
various management plans in each forest type?
Allowing forests to grow for 300 hundred years may be a
great idea on the west side of Oregon, but, as Senator Udall
and I are experiencing, we can't expect lodgepole pines to
survive 150 years in the Intermountain West. Logging some or
all of this material might be wise, in terms of carbon and the
future. Is there a management strategy to remove material that
might burn or rot, and turn that material into products that
will store carbon while improving the health of the forest?
Finally, how do we account for those fire and insect events
that occur in the wilderness and other protected areas?
So, we have to be able to answer questions like these as we
look at ways to reduce our carbon footprint.
Mr. Chairman, thanks for the time of the committee, and I
look forward to hearing from our witnesses.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
Senator Johnson.
STATEMENT OF HON. TIM JOHNSON, U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH DAKOTA
Senator Johnson. I am pleased that as the committee
continues to examine a range of climate change issues, that the
Public Lands and Forest Subcommittee is examining the effects
of changes in our climate and public forestlands.
The clear evidence suggests that the worldwide accelerated
release of greenhouse gas emissions is resulting in observable
changes to regional climates. For the forestlands in the West,
including my State, the Black Hills, these changes in climate
could produce dramatic effects on forest health. Even modest
changes in temperatures that result in milder winters and
hotter and drier summers can create the conditions for insect
epidemics, leaving in their wake millions of dead standing
trees and increasing the risk of catastrophic wildfires.
In the Black Hills and in large areas covering Wyoming and
Colorado, hundreds of thousands of acres of lodgepole and
ponderosa pine are infected by a mountain pine beetle epidemic.
Although these epidemics historically come and go, the severity
and depth of the current infestation is causing uncertainty and
concern that permanent changes in temperature and moisture will
further strain the forest health of the Intermountain West.
In the near term, public land managers must develop
strategies for combating insect infestations and forest land
thinning projects to reduce the threat of catastrophic
wildfire. While these acute issues must be tackled immediately,
I hope that today's hearing produces a better understanding of
how our public forestlands can be managed in a manner that
adapts to climate changes while meeting the important regional
and national purposes. Specifically, I am looking for insights
and answers to how individual forest management plans
incorporate climate change impacts into strategies for
effective forest health stewardship, timber sale management, as
well as recreation and public enjoyment.
Again, thank you, Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member
Barrasso, for holding this important hearing, and I look
forward to hearing from the panel.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Senator Johnson. We look forward
very much to working with you. I remember our efforts and
discussions on timber payments and the counties, and it will be
great to team up with you.
We're also very glad to have Senator Risch on this
subcommittee, as well. He has a great interest in these issues
and, I think, is going to be a very good partner in these
efforts, on the basis of our discussions.
So, Senator Risch, welcome, and any statement you'd like to
make.
STATEMENT OF HON. JIM RISCH, U.S. SENATOR FROM IDAHO
Senator Risch. Thank you so much, Senator Wyden, for
holding this important hearing.
This is a subject that's particularly important to Idaho
and to the Intermountain West. As you travel across the State
of Idaho today, the landscape that's been described,
particularly in the lodgepole pine habitats, is very troubling.
When I was in forestry school, I visited a number of these
places, and it's saddening--it's very saddening to go back, at
the present time, and see what's happened to the condition of
those. A lot of them are just waiting for a match to strike,
and it's going to be very catastrophic, particularly in the
central parts of Idaho, where we have large stands of lodgepole
pine, similar to the stands that are in the Yellowstone Park. A
fire there will be just as catastrophic as it was in the
Yellowstone ecosystem.
We all know that we're going through these cycles of drying
conditions and wet conditions. Last year in Idaho, we had a
particularly wet winter, followed by a wet spring, and things
were actually pretty good in the ecosystem. But, for some years
prior to that, we had drought conditions, and those drought
conditions, of course, weaken the tree. The tree is not able to
pitch out the attacks from the pine beetles. As a result of
that, your get massive stands of these standing matches, if you
would, ready to burn.
So, it's important that we have this hearing, and I'm very
interested to hear what the witnesses have to say. With that,
Congress hopefully will be able to create some unique ways of
addressing the situation.
Thank you, again, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Senator Risch.
All right, let's welcome Ms. Kit Batten and Mr. Tom
Tidwell. We will make your prepared statements part of their
record--part of the record in its entirety. I know there is
always almost a compulsion to kind of read statements, and if
you could take a few minutes and summarize your principal
views, we'll make your prepared statements a part of the record
in their entirety.
Dr. Batten, welcome.
STATEMENT OF KIT BATTEN, PH.D., SCIENCE ADVISOR, OFFICE OF THE
DEPUTY SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Ms. Batten. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, members of the
subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before
you today to discuss the impacts of climate change on the
ecosystems managed at the Department of the Interior, including
forests and woodlands. I am Dr. Kit Batten, science advisor to
the Deputy Secretary of the Interior.
My written testimony today highlights the impacts of
climate change on these lands, and describes how sustainable
public land management can help forests and other ecosystems
adapt to and mitigate climate change. I would like to summarize
the main points for you, and I ask that my complete statement,
as you just said, be entered into the record.
Senator Wyden. It will be done, without----
Ms. Batten. Thank----
Senator Wyden [continuing]. Objection.
Ms. Batten [continuing]. You. Thank you.
In the Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land
Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs all oversee the
management of forestland in the refuges, parks, public, and
tribal lands under their jurisdictions.
A recent report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program
and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research predicts that
forestlands will respond in different ways to changes in
temperature, precipitation, and other factors related to
climate change. With warmer temperatures, tree species may
respond by migrating both northward and to higher altitudes.
Thus, species with restricted ranges may be most vulnerable,
while species with broader climate tolerances may be able to
adapt more easily. Species composition of forests may also
change dramatically. Climate change may favor drought-resistant
species, such as juniper is some areas, which are expected to
migrate into higher-elevation forests, and could compete with
other forest types for moisture.
Southwest woodlands are at a high risk of conversion to
desert shrub and grassland. Wildlife and plant communities may
migrate as temperature, habitat, and water resources change.
Climate change may result in an increased establishment of
invasive species, such as tamarisk, that not only pose a risk
of displacing desirable native plant species, but can also
consume water in already dry areas, leading to increased
competition for this important resource.
Finally, forest seed production could be impacted due to
its cyclical nature and response to temperature and
precipitation. Seedling establishment, survival, growth, and
vigor are all critically dependent on available soil moisture,
and would be reduced during periods of increased drought.
Insects, pathogens, invasive species, drought, and
increased wildfire activity are all risks for forests and
woodlands as a result of climate change. In fact, the
Department's land and wildlife managers are already confronting
many of these impacts.
In the interior forests of the Rocky Mountain States, a
combination of warmer winters over the past decade, drought
stress, and a prevalence of overmature, overstocked, even-aged,
single-species forests have created a perfect condition for
proliferation of bark beetles and increased vulnerability for
fire.
Approximately 800,000 acres of BLM-managed forestlands in
Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho are suffering from
mountain pine beetle attack, and are at risk of widespread
mortality. Similar effects are seen in Rocky Mountain,
Yellowstone, and other western national parks.
Pinyon pine forests have experienced widespread both
mortality in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.
Climate change adaptation strategies can enhance the
ability of our ecosystems, such as forests and woodlands, to
adapt to or withstand current and projected climate change
impacts. Departmental bureaus are working with each other and
our external partners to adapt our forest and woodland
management programs to anticipate and adapt to the effects of
climate change and mitigate the potential impacts across our
lands.
Key strategies in the Department include reducing
stressors, encouraging diversity, such as through fire
management and control of invasive plants, forests pests, and
pathogens. To assure that our adaptation strategies are
grounded in sound science, Secretary Salazar has created a new
climate change strategy for the Department of the Interior
through Secretarial Order Number 3289, which he signed on
September 14 of this year, and it's entitled, ``Addressing the
Impacts of Climate Change on America's Water, Land, and Other
Natural and Cultural Resources.'' This order establishes a new
departmentwide strategy to address climate change, with an
emphasis on climate change science, adaptation, and mitigation,
and it recognizes the value of relying on partnerships with
other agencies, States, and adjacent landowners, to respond to
climate change.
Forestlands also play an important role in climate change
mitigation by sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
through photosynthesis and storing this carbon in tree--in the
trees biomass, soils, and wood products. The use of biomass,
such as waste material from timber harvests, as a substitute
for fossil fuels, which emit more greenhouse gas emissions for
generating power, is expected to increase as bioenergy
facilities come online.
The Department is actively engaged with partners who are
interested in acquisition and restoration projects resulting in
carbon sequestration. For example, more than 22 million trees
and 40,000 acres of restored habitat have been added to the
national wildlife refuge system, and such partnerships have
resulted in the restoration of more than 80,000 acres of native
habitats, benefiting fish, wildlife, and migratory bird
populations in bottomland hardwood forests in the Southeast.
In the Sacramento Delta of California, the USGS and its
partners are developing a process to farm carbon by restoring
wetland vegetation and rehydrating and restoring organic peat
soils. This not only sequesters carbon, but provides wildlife
habitat, and actually increases the soil elevation in restored
areas, decreasing the stress across delta levees. I actually
have a short factsheet on that, that I'd also like to submit
for the record.
Senator Wyden. Without objection, it's ordered.
Ms. Batten. Thank you.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is also exploring new habitat
restoration techniques that could enhance carbon sequestration
in the Florida Everglades and across the expansive coast and
wetlands of the Carolinas.
Finally, the Department, through the U.S. Geological
Survey, is developing a methodology to measure and assess
biological carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas fluxes, and
will use this methodology to conduct a national assessment of
ecosystem carbon storage and greenhouse gas fluxes. This
methodology will be released in 2010.
Restoring the health and maintaining the resiliency of our
nation's public lands, including forests and woodlands, is
crucial to ameliorating and adapting to the effects of climate
change. Much has been learned as this effort has evolved. Most
importantly, the Department has recognized that landscape-scale
problems require landscape-scale responses. The impacts of
climate change do not distinguish between lands managed by
different Federal agencies.
The development of successful science-based adaptation and
mitigation strategies is critical to the health of these
resources and to the human communities and fish and wildlife
that are dependent on them.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am
happy to answer any questions that you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Batten follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kit Batten, Science Advisor, Office of the Deputy
Secretary, Department of the Interior
introduction
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the impacts of
climate change on the ecosystems managed by the Department of the
Interior, including forests and woodlands, wetlands, and many others. I
am Dr. Kit Batten, Science Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of the
Interior. My testimony today highlights the impacts of climate change
on these lands and describes how sustainable public land management can
help forests and other ecosystems adapt to and mitigate climate change.
The Department manages over 500 million acres of land--one-fifth of
the nation's land mass--and these lands include many types of
ecosystems, from coastal estuaries to riparian corridors along our
nation's rivers to prairie wetlands to alpine forests. The U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land
Management, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs all oversee the management
of forest land in the refuges, parks, public and tribal lands under
their jurisdictions. Forests and other lands and waters managed by the
Department's bureaus provide critical ecosystem services, such as
wildlife habitat for a variety of species, clean air and water,
biodiversity, pollinator services, cultural heritage resources,
recreational opportunities, forest products, and mineral and energy
resources.
potential climate change impacts to forests
Perhaps no resource management issue is as complex and challenging
as climate change. Climate change affects biota, water, ecosystems,
cultures, and economies. The Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes that climate
change is expected to affect precipitation patterns, vegetation types
and distribution, wildlife habitat and behavior, wildfire frequency and
risk, sea levels, and the spread of pests and diseases. These, in turn,
will affect a broad range of human activities.
With specific regard to forest and woodland plant species, a recent
report by the U. S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee
on Global Change Research predicts that these lands will respond in
different ways to changes in temperature, precipitation, and other
factors related to climate change.\1\ With warmer temperatures, tree
species may respond by migrating both northward and to higher
altitudes. Species with restricted ranges may be most vulnerable, while
species with broader climate tolerances may be able to adapt more
easily. Alpine forests are at risk of loss because there will be no
place for them to migrate. However, forests in the Pacific Northwest,
west of the Cascades, may benefit by increased growth if both
temperature and precipitation increase as forecasted in some climate
change models. Interior Northwest forests may suffer as warmer winters
decrease the retention of snowpack.
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\1\ Climate Change Science Program, The effects of climate change
on agriculture, land resources, water resources, and biodiversity in
the United States, Backlund, et al. (2008).
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Species composition of forests also may change dramatically.
Climate change may favor drought-resistant species such as juniper in
some areas. Juniper woodlands are expected to migrate into higher
elevation forests and could compete with other forest types for
moisture.
In addition, changes in biodiversity are possible with changes in
species mix and habitat. Southwest woodlands are at high risk of
conversion to desert shrub and grassland. Wildlife and plant
communities may migrate as temperature, habitat, and water resources
change. Climate change may result in increased establishment of
invasive species such as tamarisk that not only pose a risk of
displacing native plant species but can also consume water in already
dry areas, leading to increased competition for this limited resource.
Finally, forest seed production could be impacted due to its
cyclical nature and response to temperature and precipitation. Seedling
establishment, survival, growth, and vigor are all critically dependent
on available soil moisture, and would be reduced during periods of
increased drought. Insects, pathogens, invasive species, drought, and
increased wildfire activity are all risks for forests and woodlands as
a result of climate change.
current landscape changes
In fact, the Department's land and wildlife managers are already
confronting the impacts of climate change on the lands they manage.
Reduced snowpack combined with earlier melting and runoff--particularly
in the Northwest and Mountain-West--is leading to decreased recharge of
groundwater systems, increasing stress on public water systems and
altering river flows, temperature, depth, and other characteristics of
spawning environments for fish.\2\ Our Arctic parks, refuges, and
public lands are seeing some of the earliest impacts of climate
change--for example, melting sea ice threatens marine mammals as well
as coastal communities, and contributes to a warming feedback loop--
melting ice reduces albedo, which only leads to greater melting of sea
ice. Thawing permafrost not only destabilizes buildings, roads, and
facilities and disrupts the structural basis of large regions of
interior lands, but also leads to even greater amounts of greenhouse
gas emissions into the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide and methane,
which only reinforce the warming cycle.
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\2\ Stonestrom, D.A. and J.R. Harrill, Ground-water recharge in the
arid and semiarid southwestern United States-climatic and geologic
framework. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper, 1703-A: 27
(2007); IPCC Fourth Assessment Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation
and Vulnerability (2007); Barnett, T. P., and D. W. Pierce (2008), When
will Lake Mead go dry?, Water Resour. Res., 44, (2008).
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Vegetation in some places has converted to more drought-hardy
species\3\ and, in some instances, species numbers have been reduced or
lost.\4\ Our scientists are also noting changes in abundance and
distribution of species, including changes in migration patterns; the
expansion of pests and invasive species; increased vulnerability to
wildfire and erosion; and overall changes in carrying capacity and the
ability of ecosystems to support different species populations.\5\ Many
of the iconic wildlife species that the Department manages from the
Arctic to the Everglades will see their habitat and ranges affected by
global climate change.
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\3\ Backlund, Peter, et.al. (2008).
\4\ IPCC Fourth Assessment WG II (2007).
\5\ IPCC Fourth Assessment WG II (2007); Parmesan (2006) Ecological
and Evolutionary Responses to Recent Climate Change, Annu. Rev. Ecolo.
Evol. Syst. 37: 637-69.
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In the interior forests of the Rocky Mountain States, a combination
of warmer winters over the past decade, drought stress, and a
prevalence of over-mature, over-stocked, even-aged single species
forests have created perfect conditions for a proliferation of bark
beetles. The stressed condition of the forests makes them more
susceptible to fatal insect attack.\6\ Approximately 800,000 acres of
BLM-managed forestlands in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho are
suffering from mountain pine beetle attack and are at risk of
widespread mortality. The effects of bark beetle infestation can also
be seen in forests in Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone, and other western
national parks. Similarly, pinyon pine forests have experienced
widespread mortality from bark beetle attack in Colorado, Utah, New
Mexico, and Arizona. As noted in the previous paragraph, forestlands
suffering from these stresses--especially in combination with drought--
are also more susceptible to wildfire, increasing the threat of
catastrophic fire in the wildland-urban interface areas across the
West.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Bentz, B., J. Logan, J. MacMahon, C. Allen, et al. 2009. Bark
beetle outbreaks in Western North America: Causes and consequences.
Chicago, IL: University of Utah Press. 42 pp. Also Logan J.A.; Powell
J.A. 2001. Ghost Forests, Global Warming, and the Mountain Pine Beetle
(Coleoptera: Scolytidea). American Entomologist. 160-172; Kurz, W.A. et
al. Mountain Pine Beetle and Forest Carbon Feedback to Climate Change;
Campbell, Elizabeth M. 2007. Climate change, mountain pine beetle, and
the decline of whitebark pine, a keystone species of high-elevation
ecosystems in British Columbia, Canada. Ecological Society of America
meeting, August 2007, San Jose, CA.
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adaptation and mitigation strategies
Climate change adaptation strategies can enhance the ability of
ecosystems, such as forests and woodlands, to withstand, or adapt to,
current and projected climate change impacts. For example, a healthy
forest--a species-diverse, multi-aged forest, with proper stocking
densities--is resilient in response to environmental stresses, better
able to resist insect attacks and diseases, and less vulnerable to
catastrophic wildfire. Restoring forest health on our public lands
through active management is one way to promote adaptation to climate
change.
The Department of the Interior is on the front lines of protecting
our country's water, land, marine, fish, wildlife, tribal, and cultural
heritage resources from the effects of climate change we are
witnessing--from the Arctic to the Everglades. The realities of climate
change will require the Department to change how we manage the
resources we oversee. To assure that our climate change adaptation
strategies are grounded in sound science, Secretary Salazar has created
a new climate change strategy for the Department through Secretarial
Order #3289 (September 14, 2009): ``Addressing the Impacts of Climate
Change on America's Water, Land and Other Natural and Cultural
Resources.'' This Order establishes a new Department-wide strategy to
address climate change, with an emphasis on climate change science,
adaptation, and mitigation.
This Order also recognizes that the Department must rely on
important partnerships to respond to climate change, including the
White House Council on Environmental Quality, the White House Office of
Energy and Climate Change, the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy, the National Science and Technology Council, the
U.S. Global Change Research Program, the Department of Agriculture, the
Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, the Environmental
Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
Tribal governments, State and local governments, universities, non-
governmental organizations, and private landowners.
Specifically, the Order establishes the following:
DOI Climate Change Response Council: Composed of the
Secretary (Chair), Deputy Secretary (Vice-Chair), Counselor to
the Secretary (Vice-Chair), Assistant Secretaries, Bureau
Directors and the Solicitor, the Council will help coordinate
activities within and among the Department's agencies and
bureaus to develop and implement an integrated strategy for
responding to climate change impacts involving the resources
managed by the Department.
Regional Climate Change Response Centers: Eight Regional
Climate Change Response Centers will deliver climate change
impact science, modeling, and forecasting to DOI natural and
cultural resource managers within a region; synthesize,
integrate, and communicate climate change impact data gathered
by the Department and external partners; develop management-
relevant adaptation tools that the Department of the Interior's
resource managers and its partners can use when managing
resources in the face of a changing climate; and help to
educate the public about climate change impacts within the
region.
Landscape Conservation Cooperatives: Interior bureaus and
agencies, guided by the Climate Response Council, are working
to stimulate the development of a network of collaborative
``Landscape Conservation Cooperatives.'' These cooperatives
will work interactively with the relevant DOI Regional Climate
Change Response Centers and help coordinate landscape-scale
adaptation efforts with federal, Tribal, state, and local
governments, and private landowner partners.
DOI Carbon Storage Project: DOI is working to develop
measurement and verification methodologies and carry out
assessments of carbon storage in geologic formations
(geological carbon sequestration) and in plants and soils
(biological sequestration) in a manner consistent with the
Department's responsibility to provide comprehensive, long-term
stewardship of its land, water, marine, fish and wildlife, and
cultural heritage resources.
DOI Carbon Footprint Project: DOI is developing a unified
greenhouse gas emission reduction program, including setting a
baseline and reduction goal for the Department's greenhouse gas
emissions and energy use.
As an example of what this will look like on the ground, the BLM is
conducting a series of eco-regional assessments to improve our
understanding of the existing condition of BLM-managed landscapes,
identify potential impacts from climate change, and develop and
implement strategies and conduct on-the-ground restoration projects on
the public lands to help native plant (including forest) and animal
communities adapt to climate change. These assessments will work with
and contribute data to the Regional Climate Change Response Centers and
be used in conjunction with climate change models to aid BLM and other
managers within Landscape Conservation Cooperatives in developing
regional adaptation strategies that promote sustainable land
stewardship across the landscape.
Strategies to protect forest ecosystems managed by DOI focus
primarily on increasing the resilience and the natural capacity of
these forests to adapt to new conditions. Key strategies are to reduce
stressors and encourage diversity, such as through fire management and
control of invasive plants, forest pests, and pathogens. Successful
adaptation efforts must involve cooperation and collaboration with
adjacent lands and partners.
The same sustainable management activities used on our public lands
to restore forest health and help forests adapt to climate change
impacts can also contribute to minimizing GHG emissions. Forestlands
play an important role in climate change mitigation by sequestering
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and then
storing this carbon in tree biomass, soils, and wood products. Forests
can also provide biomass for energy production, which can supplant the
use of fossil fuels that emit greater amounts of GHG. The use of
biomass (e.g., waste material from timber harvest) as a substitute for
fossil fuels for generating power is expected to increase as bioenergy
facilities come on-line.
biological carbon sequestration
Forests, range lands, wetlands, and other landscapes play a vital
role in the carbon cycle. These natural systems take in and store
carbon dioxide in plants and soils. Secretarial Order 3289 established
the DOI Carbon Storage Project through which the Department is
developing methodologies for both geological and biological carbon
storage, and is working with states, Tribes, localities, private
landowners, and other stakeholders to execute on-the-ground restoration
projects that sequester carbon, consistent with our existing
stewardship responsibilities.
The Department is actively engaged with partners, including the
Trust for Public Land and the Conservation Fund; energy and other
industrial companies, and the Carbon Fund, who are interested in
acquisition and restoration projects resulting in carbon sequestration.
Our partners secure lands and sponsor habitat restoration through
carbon sequestration value in the form of credits, as calculated
through methods developed by Environmental Synergy, Inc. and the
Conservation Fund. These partnerships have so far added 40,000 acres of
restored habitat to the National Wildlife Refuge System and restored
more than 80,000 acres of native habitats benefiting, fish, wildlife,
and migratory bird populations in bottomland hardwood forests. More
than 22 million trees have been planted through this partnership.
In the Sacramento Delta of California, USGS and partners are
developing a process to ``farm carbon'' by restoring wetland vegetation
and re-hydrating and restoring organic peat soils. Carbon farming works
through the sequestration of carbon in native plants such as tules and
cattails, which in turn decompose very slowly and create new peat soil.
This effort is not only sequestering carbon, but is also providing
wildlife habitat and increasing the elevation of the soil surface in
restored areas, decreasing the stress across Delta levees. Additional
scientific work is necessary to learn how to maximize growth rates and
minimize decomposition rates, verify greenhouse gas benefits over
several years, and minimize any potential adverse environmental
impacts, such as methane and nitrous oxide emissions.
In addition, the Fish and Wildlife Service is exploring new habitat
restoration techniques that could encourage carbon sequestration in the
Florida Everglades and across the expansive pocosin wetlands of the
Carolinas. A project at Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife refuge involves
verifying carbon sequestration benefits of the pocosin hydrology
restoration work that began in the 1900s.
In accordance with responsibilities mandated in the Energy
Independence and Security Act of 2007, the Department (through the U.S.
Geological Survey) is developing a methodology to measure and assess
biological carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas fluxes, and will use
this methodology to conduct a national assessment of ecosystem carbon
storage and greenhouse gas fluxes. This methodology will be released in
2010.
Scientists, using geospatial data, remote sensing applications, and
ecosystem modeling, have developed research and working models to
describe storage and fluxes of carbon in relationship to climate change
and land use for large-scale landscapes. These efforts will be expanded
into a national framework that is adaptive, incorporating new
information about carbon cycling and sequestration as it becomes
available. Best management practices for carbon sequestration in saline
and fresh-water wetlands, soil and sediments, permafrost areas,
hardwood and coniferous forests, grasslands and rangelands are needed
for use by public, Tribal, and private land managers.
opportunities & challenges
The Department is working to increase its ability to monitor,
assess, forecast, and respond to landscape changes over time,
implementing programs to address climate change on a broad scale.
Restoring the health and maintaining the resiliency of our nation's
public lands (including forest and woodland ecosystems) is crucial to
ameliorating and adapting to the effects of climate change. Much has
been learned as this effort has evolved. Most importantly, the
Department has recognized that landscape-scale problems require
landscape-scale responses. The impacts of climate change do not
distinguish between lands managed by different federal agencies.
The various bureaus at the Department of the Interior are working
with each other and external partners to adapt our forest and woodland
management programs to anticipate and adapt to the effects of climate
change and mitigate the potential impacts across all lands. As
mentioned earlier, coordination is one of the keys to our success.
Secretarial Order #3289 establishes a new Departmental strategy to
promote Department-wide coordination as well as coordination with
outside partners on climate change science and resource management
strategies for understanding and responding to climate change impacts.
conclusion
Climate change is impacting all of our ecosystems, including our
forests and woodlands. The development of successful science-based
adaptation and mitigation strategies is critical to the health of these
resources and the human communities, and fish and wildlife that are
dependent on them.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am happy
to answer any questions that you might have.
Senator Wyden. Doctor, thank you. Very helpful.
Mr. Tidwell, welcome.
STATEMENT OF TOM TIDWELL, CHIEF, FOREST SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE
Mr. Tidwell. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the
subcommittee, I want to thank you for inviting me here today to
discuss how we need to be managing the national forests and
grasslands in response to climate change.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for your opening remarks.
I appreciate your understanding of these issues, and I can tell
you that I share those concerns.
You know, climate change is altering our landscapes,
altering the national forests and the grasslands. That change
will likely accelerate in the future.
Climate change will also have a variety of effects across
different parts of the country. But, what will--what's probably
more problematic is that the level of disturbances--these level
of disturbances are going to increase, and their frequency will
increase. When I talk about ``disturbances,'' I'm talking about
wildfire, about floods, insect and disease outbreaks. Our
response to these changes is going to be increase our--increase
our focus on restoration.
The goal of the Forest Service is to restore the forest and
grassland health so that we have healthy, functioning
ecosystems, so they can withstand the stressors from climate
change and they can continue to deliver all of the ecosystem
services, all of the benefits that we need and want from our
national forests, but especially water. With the increase in
disturbances, watershed management is going to only increase in
its importance, and it's essential that, as we go about
designing our restoration work, that we focus on the benefits
to watershed health.
Now, we cannot do this alone. You know, these changes are
occurring on a landscape scale, and we must work together with
our partners across all jurisdictions to restore healthy,
functioning ecosystems. We need to work on all the landscapes
that we share.
Secretary Vilsack has helped in this regard by giving us
direction that we need to take a more all-lands approach. Now,
this will require additional collaboration, but it's essential
that we work with our Federal--the other Federal agencies, the
States, the local communities, tribal, and private landowners
to be able to take on the restoration that needs to occur at a
landscape level.
Last year, the Forest Service developed a strategic
framework for responding to climate change to help us set
priorities. This framework has seven goals: science and
management, adaptation, mitigation, policy, sustainable
operations, education, and alliances. Now, these goals will not
be realized immediately, but we already have made a good start.
Now, before I close, I'd want to just say a few words about
science, adaptation, and mitigation. Forest Service researchers
have been in the forefront of climate change science. Our
challenge now is to transfer that knowledge to the land
managers so we can make a difference on the ground. We now have
developed tools that actually help our land managers and help
the public to understand the carbon consequences of various
project designs.
On the national forest system, we're now designing projects
to help us--systems adapt to climate change. Our restoration
efforts can make these systems more resilient, more resistant
to the climate changes that we are seeing. For example, with an
overgrown stand of ponderosa pine, we can make it more
resistant to climate-induced drought and wildfire. We can also
introduce more diversity into the species mix, for that will
help these systems adapt. We also need to look at expanding
restoration of wetlands, of flood plains, to reduce the effects
of floods, but also to prolong seasonal water flows. Now,
mitigation is another part of that strategy.
Now, carbon likely will not be the primary management
objective for the national forests, but it will be one of the
ecosystem services, one of the benefits that we will manage for
and we will factor into our decisions, and we can tailor our
restoration treatments to increase carbon storage over the long
term.
Now, net carbon uptake by our terrestrial systems in the
United States, coupled with wood products and landfills,
currently offsets about 12 percent of our nation's greenhouse
gas emissions. Now, our goal is to hold that steady, and
hopefully be able to increase that.
Now, whether we're talking about the life cycle or the
effects of climate, we need to understand that, even with the
level of science that we have today, there is much that we need
to learn. Now, we're going to be--it's going to be necessary
for us to be flexible and adaptive in our management. You know,
the value and the importance of the national forests are just
going to increase, and especially provide us the opportunities
to help address the effects of climate change.
This concludes my opening remarks. Thank you again for the
opportunity, and I look forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tidwell follows:]
Prepared Statement of Tom Tidwell, Chief, Forest Service,
Department of Agriculture
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me today to discuss the important role National Forests and
Grasslands play in addressing climate change. As you may know
observations show that climate change is already altering our Nation's
forests in significant ways and those alterations are very likely to
accelerate in the future, in some cases dramatically\1\. These
alterations present significant challenges to sustainable management of
these forests. Decisions being made today by policymakers and resource
managers will have implications through the next century.
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\1\ CCSP. May 2008. Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.3 (SAP 4.3):
The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water
Resources, and Biodiversity in the United States, P. Backlund, A.
Janetos, and D. Schimel, lead authors. A report by the U.S. Climate
Change Science Program (CCSP). Abstract.
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Secretary Vilsack is asking the Forest Service and our sister
agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), to adopt an
``all-lands approach'' in our restoration efforts. Our approach takes
actions across large landscapes so that our actions will make a
substantive difference. It also, will include close collaboration on
our part with Federal, State, local, tribal, and private landowners,
land managers, and other stakeholders.
climate change--managing uncertainty
In the uncertain environment of climate change, risk management
will become critical. This is managing ecosystems for resiliency to
prepare for uncertain future outcomes. I have spoken many times in the
past about our desire to restore the health of the nation's forests.
When we use the term restoration, we do not mean returning a stand or
forest to a previous condition but rather bringing back some of its
previously lost ecosystem functions or returning its ability to
withstand otherwise mild disturbance events. Our approach is to make
forests and grasslands more resilient to disturbances under a range of
future conditions.
To help the land management professionals deal with this uncertain
environment, the Forest Service developed a Strategic Framework for
Responding to Climate Change to guide our actions in addressing climate
change. The Framework envisions a future where ecosystem services are
sustained and forests and grasslands are adapting successfully to a
changing climate and our management actions are contributing to
mitigating impacts of climate change. The Strategic Framework
identifies seven key goals:
Science--Advance our understanding of climate change and its
impacts and develop effective ways to improve science delivery
to managers.
Adaptation--Enhance the capacity of forests and grasslands
to adjust to the impacts of climate change.
Mitigation--Promote the management of forests and grasslands
to reduce the build-up of heat-trapping gases in the
atmosphere.
Policy--Integrate climate change considerations as
appropriate into Forest Service policies, program guidance, and
communications.
Sustainable Operations--Reduce the environmental footprint
of our operations and facilities.
Education--Advance awareness and understanding of climate
change implications among Forest Service employees and the
public.
Alliances--Establish, enhance, and retain strong alliances
and partnerships.
These goals have helped us organize our thinking about climate.
Forest Service goal implementation teams are recommending key actions
that the Agency can take for the short-term and to position itself for
the long-term. I recognize these goals will not be realized
immediately, but we have already done much. The Science, Adaptation,
and Mitigation goals are most germane to today's topic, so I will focus
my testimony there.
current state of science
Having science that advances our understanding of the
environmental, economic, and social implications of how climate change
affects forests and grasslands in the future is essential for managers
and policy officials to make informed decisions. The Forest Service
already has wide breadth of experience with managing and responding to
weather extremes and natural catastrophes. The scientific community has
generated an even greater abundance of knowledge and produced an
extensive literature on the subject. These two bodies of knowledge,
that of managers' and of scientists', is being transformed into best
management practices, land management tools, and information. In
addition, we are communicating through various means to citizens the
effect of climate change and its impacts on ecosystems so they will be
better prepared to participate in decisions and actions affecting their
National Forests and Grasslands.
The Science & Management goal will be forwarded by Forest Service
Research & Development. As you may be aware, the Forest Service has
amassed over two decades of focused climate change research, three
decades of air pollution research, and a century of experience in
scientific assessments and research that provides a firm scientific
foundation for addressing the challenges of managing these ecosystems
relative to climate change.
I need to stress again, however, that we are a long way from
knowing all we need to know about the impacts of climate change on
forests and grasslands. In some areas of study we have significant
science gaps that need to be addressed. Climate models lack the ability
to provide projections at the detailed scale that is more useful to
land managers and local and regional planners. To address this gap, our
scientists are working with the Department of Commerce's National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and USGS to improve these
models. Our scientists are also looking for better ways of forecasting
how terrestrial ecosystems will change in response to a changing
climate and how the changes will affect animals and plants that depend
on these ecosystems. The Strategic Framework recognizes these gaps and
I want to assure you that the Forest Service is working with USDA and
other Federal agencies and partners to address these and other issues.
adaptation and carbon sequestration
I want to now switch my attention to how we are beginning to adapt
our National Forests and Grasslands to a changing climate. During my
many years with the Forest Service, I have come to realize that
effectively accomplishing our mission will require us as land managers
to anticipate and adapt to the profound environmental stresses of
climate change. These systems must be capable of delivering the
ecosystem goods and services that this country needs, such as pure,
clean water; habitat for wildlife and fish; opportunities for outdoor
recreation; wood products; and energy. These systems can create local
economic opportunities to support local communities. I want to assure
you that we at the Forest Service are committed to success in this
enterprise.
Many of the same management techniques used to restore forest
health can be used to help forests adapt to climate change impacts.
Forest Service land management professionals know they will need to be
vigilant, strategic and flexible in using new information to
accommodate changing conditions because the scope of climate change and
its impacts on ecosystems are difficult to predict. In addition, our
management decision processes will need to include ways of dealing with
risks and uncertainties introduced or made worse by climate change. In
some cases, failing to take management actions will result in
significant disruptions to ecosystems, so we must maintain as many
options as possible, both now and in the future, for handling
unexpected events and conditions.\2\
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\2\ CCSP. 2008: Preliminary review of adaptation options for
climate-sensitive ecosystems and resources. A Report by the U.S.
Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change
Research. [Julius, S.H., J.M. West (eds.), J.S. Baron, L.A. Joyce, P.
Kareiva, B.D. Keller, M.A. Palmer, C.H. Peterson, and J.M. Scott
(Authors)]. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, USA,
873 pp. http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap4-4/final-report/
#finalreport
Scott, D. and C. Lemieux. 2005. Climate change and protected area
policy and planning in Canada. The Forestry Chronicle 81(5):696-703.
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In addition, we are designing a better science-based adaptive
management approach to, promote learning through doing, monitoring, and
modifying. This approach involves actively making decisions and
monitoring the results of those decisions to improve our understanding
about the complex systems we manage. Some management actions may need
to be expanded, such as reforestation with a more diverse species mix
that may be better adapted to future climate projections.
Our land managers are also learning from their close working
relations with our scientists. The West Wide Climate Initiative (WWCI),
a partnership among scientists and managers at the three western Forest
Service Research Stations and National Forests, is developing decision-
support tools to help managers address climate change and adaptation in
national forests and national park units representing major regions of
the West. These case studies are on the Olympic National Forest and
Olympic National Park, the Tahoe National Forest, the Inyo National
Forest and Devils Postpile National Monument, and Shoshone National
Forest. With these pilot projects the Forest Service is analyzing
projections of future vegetation and developing specific adaptation
strategies to promote resilience of national forest resources to
climate change.
Another management responsibility is mitigating the effects of
climate change. As we all know, to significantly reduce our greenhouse
gas emissions, the United States will need to implement a variety of
mitigation strategies. These strategies include storing more carbon in
forests and wood products implementing greenhouse gas capture and
storage from point sources, and reducing fossil fuel use through
multiple options. For instance, biomass from restoration and hazardous
fuels reduction projects can be used for energy production.
However, the issue is complex and requires both science and
thoughtful land management policy. However, the potential of some of
our forests to store additional carbon may be limited because of
management designation, accessibility, and/or stand characteristics. In
many areas our forests contain overly-dense stands that are under
stress and have become more susceptible to wildfire, insects, and
disease\3\. Management actions, designed to restore these forests and
grasslands and protect communities, such as thinning or allowing fire
to resume its natural role as a cleansing and regenerative force, can
improve the ability of these ecosystems to adapt to the continually
increasing stress of changing climate and may have the increased
benefit of sequestering more carbon over the long-run through increased
net growth.\4\
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\3\ Fettig, Christopher J.; Klepzig, Kier D.; Billings, Ronald F.;
Munson, A. Steven; Nebeker, T. Evan; Negron, Jose F.; Nowak, John T.
2007. The effectiveness of vegetation management practices for
prevention and control of bark beetle infestations in coniferous
forests of the western and southern United States. Forest Ecology and
Management, Vol. 238: 24-53.
Graham, Russell T.; McCaffrey, Sarah; Jain, Theresa B. 2004.
Science basis for changing forest structure to modify wildfire behavior
and severity. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-120. Fort Collins, CO: U.S.
Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research
Station. 43 p.
\4\ CCSP. May 2008. Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.3 (SAP 4.3):
The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water
Resources, and Biodiversity in the United States, P. Backlund, A.
Janetos, and D. Schimel, lead authors. A report by the U.S. Climate
Change Science Program (CCSP).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While healthy functioning forests may serve as a means to sequester
carbon, under current practices, many of our western forests are at
risk of turning from a carbon sink to a carbon source. Projections
indicate that while these forests continue to sequester more carbon in
the short-term, in 30 to 50 years\5\, disturbances such as fire and
insects and disease could dramatically change the role of forests,
thereby emitting more carbon than currently sequestering. Monitoring
both climate change effects and the outcomes of management actions are
key to adapting to a changing climate.
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\5\ Westerling, A. L., H. G. Hidalgo, D.R. Cayan, D. R., and T.W.
Swetnam, 2006,. ``Warming and earlier spring increase western US forest
wildfire activity'', Science 313(5789): 940-943.
Haynes, R.W., et al. 2007. The 2005 RPA timber assessment update.
Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-699. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 212p.
Smith, J.E.; Heath, L.S.; Nichols, M.C.. 2007. US Forest Carbon
Calculation Tool: Forestland Carbon Stocks and Net Annual Stock Change.
USDA, Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Gen. Tech. Report NRS-
13.
Smith, J.E.; L.S. Heath, 2004. Carbon stocks and projections on
public forestlands in the United States, 1952-2040. Environmental
Management 33(4): 433-442.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2009. Inventory or U.S.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2007. EPA 430-R-09-004.
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working with private landowners
Although there is much we can do to sequester carbon on federal
lands, it is also crucial for us to recognize the role that private
forest land in the United States can and must play in the Nation's
mitigation options for greenhouse gas emissions. People are often
surprised to learn that the majority of forest land in the United
States--about 56%--is owned privately\6\. An important contribution we
can make to increase carbon sequestration in and decrease emissions
from U.S. forests is by working with the owners of these 423 million
privately-owned forested acres.
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\6\ USDA. May, 2008. Forest Ownership Patterns and Family Forest
Highlights from the National Woodland Owner Survey. U.S. Forest
Service. Northern Research Station. NRS-INF-06-08.
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Privately-owned forests can be converted into subdivisions, other
developed uses, or agriculture--all land uses that sequester
substantially less carbon per acre than forest trees and soil\7\. Even
though the private forest landowners of the United States are making
significant contributions to cleaner air, cleaner water, and carbon
sequestration simply by maintaining their land in a forested state,
they often make decisions to convert their forest land.
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\7\ Joyce, Linda A.; Birdsey, Richard 2000. The impact of climate
change on America's forests. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-59. Fort Collins,
CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain
Research Station. 133 p.. http://www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/pubs/4567
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Forest Stewardship, Forest Legacy, and the Community Forest and
Open Space Program are voluntary landowner assistance programs that
recognize how important it is that private forestland stays forested
and continues to provide these benefits. Landowners across the U.S. can
receive assistance with forest management and a written forest plan
through the Forest Stewardship Program. Today, about 22 million acres
of private forest lands are already managed under a current forest
stewardship plan and there continues to be enormous demand for the
program. The Forest Legacy Program recognizes the public benefits
provided by private lands; conservation easements on vulnerable forest
lands guarantee that they will not be subdivided or developed, and that
they will be able to store carbon in their trees and soils. To date,
the Forest Legacy program has protected over 1.8 million acres of
vulnerable private forest lands from development.
conclusion
Secretary Vilsack is asking the Forest Service and our sister
agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), to adopt an
all-lands approach working with willing land owners across boundaries
when addressing restoration. The Forest Service's Strategic Framework
provides a guide to addressing climate change and the challenges at
spatial and temporal scales unimaginable in the past. Coming to grips
with climate change will require landscape-scale conservation, working
together across borders and boundaries, and focusing on a common
restoration vision for the greater good. The future of America's lands
and waters, and the future of generations who will rely on them, depend
on nothing less.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss these issues with the
Subcommittee. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Senator Wyden. Thank you both very much. I've got some
questions for you, and I know colleagues do, as well.
You all, of course, have been intimately involved in these
issues, and you represent our government in two agencies that
are central to this debate about climate change. I think this
is the first time, in this Congress, we've looked at Federal
lands as it relates to the whole debate about climate change.
Let me see if I can ask some questions to get your position on
the record on some of the key questions.
First, we'll just go to you, Dr. Batten and Mr. Tidwell.
What is your position on including Federal lands in a cap-and-
trade offset program?
Ms. Batten. We think that--the Department of the Interior
thinks that there are tremendous opportunities for the
incorporation of offsets into a cap-and-trade program; and, in
fact, just as you just said earlier, Mr. Chairman, that they
can be cost-reducing measures that can be incorporated into a
cap-and-trade program. We're willing to work with you and
provide as much information as we can, in terms of the amount
of carbon that our ecosystems currently store and can store
with best management practices, and we--as this--as legislation
is being developed here in the Senate, that includes offsets.
We're happy to provide as much information as we can during
that process.
Senator Wyden. I may have a second round, again, because--
the fact that today is so busy--to talk about the some of the
science and policy questions in that, but I'm glad to hear that
you all would favor Federal lands being part of a cap-and-trade
offset program.
Mr. Tidwell, your position on that?
Mr. Tidwell. This is a very important topic that we need to
spend, you know, time carefully considering. No doubt, this is
one way to bring considerable investment, you know, to the
nation's forests. There is also, you know, some concerns and
some questions. You know, and some of those are, like, with the
Federal Government setting up the rules and the regulations,
should we also, you know participate? There is the question
about accountability. There's also questions about, you know,
how would public lands--how would that affect the market for
private lands? Then, there's also the--you know, the question--
and I pointed it out earlier--about how essential it is that--
you know, carbon will be just one of the benefits that we
manage for.
I think these are, you know, some of the questions that we
need to address. We look forward to working with the Senate,
you know, to find our way through this. It has tremendous
potential. There's no question--there's just no question that,
in--you know, investing in the resiliency of our national
forests and grasslands are going to have positive-benefit
effects. Carbon is part of that overall benefit.
Senator Wyden. So, you're not quite where Dr. Batten is
today; you didn't answer ``yes,'' but you did say you thought
that there was considerable potential. Is that the word you
used?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes.
Senator Wyden. OK. Chief, one other question for you, and
then we'll have one other for you, Dr. Batten. You all have
done a fair amount of work with ecosystem services and carbon
sequestration. My understanding is that the Department has
established an office for ecosystem services marketing to
explore opportunities, to advance payments, to look at a
variety of issues. Can you tell me the current thinking you
have with respect to ecosystem service markets for Federal land
and how carbon sequestration could be factored into that? I
mean, what we'd really like to know is whether it could be a
source of revenue for the Federal Government.
Mr. Tidwell. That's one of the things that this new agency
that we've set up is working on, to help address those
questions. One of the things that that staff is working on is
to develop methods for quantification of greenhouse gas
emissions and offsets. They're also looking at ecosystem
services around water quality, around biodiversity, and it's
also with wetlands.
One of the advantages of this group, it's going to help the
USDA to have a very--take a consistent approach to answering
these questions, because this agency will be looking across all
of USDA, but it's essential that we--I feel great that we have
this staff that's in place now. Sally Collins, who used to be
our associate chief that I worked with for years, I'm very
confident to have her leadership in this arena on this agency
to help us find these answers, to help us kind of work our way
through this.
Senator Wyden. I'll have some additional questions. I think
we will have to have a second round, at least, to get at a
couple of other matters.
But, let me recognize ranking minority member, Senator
Barrasso.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Batten, if I could--as you know, I've been concerned
about Secretarial Order Number 3289. It relates to climate
change. Secretary Salazar wrote a reply to me and to the
Western Caucus on October 30. The Senate and House Western
Caucus, you know, represents just about every Western State. In
our letter to the secretary, we expressed concerns, because
this Order 3289 will inject climate change into all Department
of the Interior decisions and activities--it actually said
``activities.'' So, it could potentially put into question past
and future management agreements related to oil and gas
development, renewable energy, recreational use of the land,
grazing, hunting on public and private property, and wildlife
protection. I mean, it is a broad, broad area that the
Department covers. We expressed some concerns that the order
was signed by the Secretary before Congress, which was
currently considering different climate change legislation
before Congress could pass any kind of a bill. So, the
Secretary responded that his order relies on existing legal
authority to implement these activities.
So, the question is, Just because the Secretary has the
legal authority to do something, does--you know, does it mean
he has to do that, he should do it? Or should the Department be
taking its direction on something as big as injecting climate
change, quote, ``into all land management decisions'' from the
people who are elected to represent folks around the country?
Ms. Batten. Thank you for the question. If I may just very
quickly clarify a statement that I made earlier, the
administration has no official position on the use of public
lands in the offset program; however, we stand ready to provide
as much knowledge that we have, in terms of the science that's
available and best management practices. We stand ready to work
with you in the development of this legislation.
To answer your question, sir, I understand the concerns
that you just presented, and I want to comment on a number of
them.
Secretary Salazar is faced, as the Secretary of the
Department of the Interior, with managing 20 percent of our
nation's terrestrial lands, 35,000 miles of coastline, 1.7
billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf, and millions of
acres of national monuments, parks, and refuges. So, as a
result, all of those land management decisions, resource
management decisions--we need to be considering climate change
as the driving force in making decisions about how best to
protect those resources and those lands for our communities and
for fish and wildlife, and in order to continue to be able to
provide the water, land, marine, cultural, and fish and
wildlife and other resources that we have been tasked to
oversee thus far.
So, in so doing, recognizing that climate change is such a
challenge for all managers, both public and private across the
United States at this time, we are including the consideration
of climate change in making decisions about how to manage our
resources, moving forward.
In terms of existing agreements that we have, we look
forward to continuing our relationships with our Federal
partners, our State and local partners, and additional private
land partners, in terms of making--forging agreements, making
sure that we're taking in the inputs, in terms of designing
strategies that--for adaptive management of our landscapes.
But, this is not a change from the past; this is a continuation
of the type of interactions that we've had in the past with the
American citizens and other Federal and State agencies.
Senator Barrasso. When you said that this climate change
will be ``the driving force''--I mean, people are concerned
about agreements that are already in place and what,
retroactively, is going to happen.
Ms. Batten. Climate change is certainly a driving force, in
terms of land and natural resource management. So, is land-use
change and other forces. As we move forward, with the continued
balanced energy strategy that the Secretary is committed to, in
terms of oil, coal, and gas development, as well as renewable
energy development, we will consider climate change as we're
developing these resources and providing transmission to
connect these resources to the populations that need them, and
doing so in an environmentally sustainable way.
Senator Barrasso. So, what's going to be the impact on
agreements that have already been----
Ms. Batten. There is nothing in this secretarial order that
addresses any existing agreements. This is about unifying all
of the bureaus' work on climate change science, on adaptation
strategies and mitigation strategies, so that we can design a
unified way to move forward in order to best protect and
continue to provide the services that our bureau and our
Department is committed to do.
Senator Barrasso. OK.
Mr. Chairman, perhaps in a second round I'll have a few
more questions.
Senator Wyden. Thank you. Very good.
Senator Johnson.
Senator Johnson. Chief Tidwell, if climate change means a
warmer, drier climate with a higher risk of catastrophic forest
fires and pine beetle epidemics, what specific management
strategy is the Forest Service considering to increase the
resiliency of the national forests to catastrophic
disturbances?
Mr. Tidwell. Thank you, Senator.
Yes, our information, our science, indicates that, with
these warmer and drier seasons that we're having, we're seeing
a direct effect on fire, and that we are experiencing, you
know, larger fires, more intense fires than we have in the
past.
Some of the things that we are looking at doing, and have
been doing, is to recognize that. Where we can, to get in and
do some strategic thinning to reduce the stand density is one
way to help mitigate some of the effects of these large fires.
It's essential, you know, to be able to place these treatments
on the landscape where they'll be effective. We primarily look
at around our communities and key watersheds, but there's also
opportunities to look at places where we can break up the fuel
loading across watersheds.
That's probably one of our best opportunities that we have
to get in and do some thinning. Then, often follow that with
prescribed burning to just reduce the overall fuel loading so
that when we do get the fires, we don't see probably as large
as fires, and we definitely will not see the level of
intensity.
Then, the other benefit is that, when wildfires do burn
into these treated areas, the fire behavior lessens, and our
suppression actions are much more effective to be able to get
in and to control those fires.
Senator Johnson. Would you discuss the value of diversity
of age classes; for example, having representative proportions
of all age classes, not just old or mature trees, especially in
forests like the Black Hills National Forest, where we've seen
examples of catastrophic fires and beetle epidemics? Would you
agree that forest diversity is a key component of forest
management, similar to planning a stock portfolio?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes. You know, species diversity and also age
diversity are two other things that we want to look at to
increase that, especially in the--you know, some of the areas
in the Intermountain West with lodgepole pine, where we have
the hundreds of thousands of acres of, basically, even-aged
pine. One of the things we want to work with in the future is
to be able to break that up so we have more age diversity, and
then, where we have the opportunity, to also increase the
species diversity so that when we do get these large-scale
events, we won't have that continuous fuel loading across, you
know, the hundreds of thousands of acres that we do have in
some places now.
Senator Johnson. How do you envision individual forest
plans developing specific strategies and approaches in response
to climate change? How would you account for differences
between Black Hills ponderosa pine forests, New England maple
forests, and West Coast Douglas-fir forests? What is your
timeline to incorporate climate change into the forest plans?
Mr. Tidwell. We've issued direction to our forests and
grasslands, that they need to factor in, you know, the current
science that we have about climate change into their plans and
also into their project designs. Where we have the opportunity
to be doing forest plan revisions, we'll be able to factor that
in--you know, into that plan.
But, even today, that--when we're designing projects, it's
essential that our managers are factoring in the latest
science, and also the changing climate that we're seeing. For
instance, in the Pacific Northwest, on the Olympic National
Forest, folks have been noticing how we're getting much more
winter runoff, in that our infrastructure, when it comes to
culverts and bridges, is no longer large enough to be able to
handle those winter flows. We recognize that, and are in--and
need to get in there and restore some of those drainages. But,
one of the things is to increase the culvert size. So, just to
be able to deal with these winter stream flows that are
different than what we've seen in the past.
You know, in other areas that--we have to look at to really
factor in how--what--a change in climate, and to make sure that
we're not creating some expectations that are not available
anymore, you know, with our ecosystems and with the changing
climate. One of the things we have to factor in, Do we need to,
you know, consider different species from what we've--maybe
have considered in the past? We need to look at our thinning
standards, that there may be some places we actually need to be
thinning to at a much higher level to make sure that we can
maintain the vigor and the resiliency in the stands. But, each
of these situations are going to be unique. As I mentioned in
my opening remarks, you know, climate change is going to have a
variety of effects across the country. Depending where you're
at and the type of ecosystems you're dealing with, we'll have
to factor in that science to help us, you know, make the right
decisions, not only with the plans, but with our project
design.
Senator Johnson. My time is expired.
Senator Barrasso [presiding]. Thank you.
Senator Wyden had to step out for a few moments, and asked
that I call on Senator Risch.
Senator Risch. Tom, you used a statistic, right at the end
of your talk, or your statement, and it went over the top of my
head. What--the offset statistic that you used--what was that?
Mr. Tidwell. That with the terrestrial ecosystems, plus the
wood products and landfills, that together they intake 12
percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in this country each
year.
Senator Risch. Now, is that Forest Service property, or is
that all property, or--what is that?
Mr. Tidwell. That's all.
Senator Risch. All property. What--any idea what percentage
the Federal share would be of that?
Mr. Tidwell. You know, Senator, I don't have that figure
today. I can get back to you with that.
Senator Risch. Where did this figure come from? Who came up
with this?
Mr. Tidwell. You know, I don't have the source in my
testimony, but I can get that source to you.
Senator Risch. I assume it's one you deem accurate, or you
wouldn't----
Mr. Tidwell. Yes.
Senator Risch [continuing]. Quoting it. OK.
This is a question for both of you. You know, when I took
silviculture, years ago, we gave lipservice only to the carbon
containment of forests. Now, we look at it differently today,
obviously, because there's obviously more benefit there than
what was recognized years ago. But, the thing that strikes me
is that a forest will sequester carbon for 100 years and then--
over recent years in Idaho, we've had catastrophic fires, and
they're all released at one time. How does that work? What is
the balance of that? Can you help enlighten me on that, this
taking of it in and then releasing it all? Obviously, if a
forest goes through a natural cycle without burning, it'll tie
the carbon up for some time. That is, it turns into soil and
it--at least for quite a period of time, it'll be held. But, if
it burns, obviously letting it all out at once seems to me
something that is substantially--that is very detrimental, and
you question whether or not there's really an offset there, as
far as sequestering over a period of time and releasing it all
at once.
Have there been studies done on this or--help enlighten me
on that. Tom, do you want to go first?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, Senator. You know, the carbon cycle is
complex. You know, the things that you raised, the questions
that you raised, are the things that we have to factor, you
know, into our decisions. There's no question about the amount
of carbon that's released with catastrophic wildfires. There's
been numerous studies on that to be able to, you know, measure
that.
You know, at the same time that--you know, trees store a
lot of carbon, and generally, you know, larger trees, you know,
store more carbon. They don't--their sequestration rates drop,
but the large trees--you know, generally, they store more
carbon.
So, it's part of looking at the cycle, but then also
looking at what's sustainable. So, you know, our efforts are
going to be focused on what we can do to, you know, increase
the resiliency of our forest stands, and so that there is
potentially less, you know, catastrophic fire, and, when we do
have large fires, maybe able to reduce some of the intensity.
We'll be able to do that, you know, through thinning and also,
you know, through prescribed fire at different times of the
year, when we could have a less intense burn occur.
But, a lot of this--our actions are going to be driven by
just the need to sustain these forests, for all the benefits.
Carbon is just one of those.
Senator Risch. Thank you.
Doctor.
Ms. Batten. I think this is an excellent question. I think
that one of the things we need to do is stop thinking about
forests as a static system. Unfortunately, a lot of our
forestry management in the past has led to this place of being
where we are right now with being at risk for catastrophic
wildfires in a way that, if we had allowed the natural cycle of
some fire in some of these fire-generated systems, or fire--
systems that are healthy when they have occasional fires go
through them with much less intensity than these catastrophic
wildfires--it's not an either/or situation; it's not as if you
plant a forest or a forest naturally grows, and then there's
carbon sequestered, and then it all goes away in a catastrophic
wildfire. It doesn't need to be that way. It can be managed, as
I'm sure my colleague here is working to do, in the Forest--the
Forest Service manage. If you manage these forests in a way
that allows for some fire--controlled burns, et cetera--it
doesn't need to have this dramatic release of all the carbon,
because, you're right, that's one of the main concerns with
out-of-control wildfires.
Senator Risch. Thank you.
Senator Barrasso. Mr. Chairman, Senator Wyden had to step
out. I don't know if you'd like to go into a series of
questions and----
The Chairman. If you had questions, go ahead.
Senator Barrasso. We've completed the first round, and
then----
The Chairman. OK.
Senator Barrasso [continuing]. We were going to go into a
second round after----
The Chairman. I apologize to the witnesses for not being
here to hear their testimony, but I just wanted to be here for
a little bit of the hearing, at least, to indicate my
recognition about the seriousness of this issue. I know we've
all seen it in our States out west, and I certainly have seen
it in New Mexico.
We recently put a bill in to facilitate the natural
resource adaptation across the Federal land management agencies
and States and tribes so that there would be better
coordination and communication among the various land managers
as to the policies that are being followed to deal with the
problem. I think--I assume that's been a subject of some of the
discussion here. If it hasn't been, I hope we can get more
attention to that.
I think that there's a lot we need to know about the
science, as well, about--in trying to adapt to the changes that
we're seeing. I think what I'll do is just hold off, maybe ask
a question or two of the next panel.
Senator Wyden [presiding]. All right. Apologies again. It's
almost like healthcare has sucked all the oxygen out of the
room.
Senator Barrasso. Then there won't be a fire.
Senator Wyden. Yes. Senator Barrasso reminds us, ``Then
there won't be a fire.''
[Laughter.]
Senator Risch. Oh, there's going to be fire, all right, Mr.
Chairman.
[Laughter.]
Senator Wyden. This topic has never been for the
fainthearted, there is no question about that.
Let's move to a couple of other areas, particularly
biomass. Let me start with you, Dr. Batten.
This is an area where, you know, we, in rural Oregon, have
been very exasperated about Federal policy, because we just
think that there are millions and millions of acres essentially
untreated. We could get merchantable timber to the mills,
opportunity to have a very promising source of green energy,
and there's great frustration about Federal policy. Of course,
biomass has the potential to provide a low-carbon, you know,
alternative to fossil fuels, and, as I say, a vehicle for
treating millions and millions of acres of forestland that need
restoration and thinning. But, the fact is, you know, Federal
law still puts up barriers to receiving full renewable fuels
credit for biomass. In fact, there are a host of barriers with
respect to using biomass on Federal lands. I'm very much
committed to fixing this. I think, for purposes of starting,
you know, questions here, what are your agencies doing now to
further biomass development?
Start with you, Dr. Batten.
Ms. Batten. Secretary Salazar, as you know, is committed to
a balanced energy strategy, and that includes looking into
opportunities for biomass, whether it's biomass cofiring or use
of biomass for renewable fuel generation. I--we are, in our
assessment of carbon fluxes and looking at how carbon is stored
across the United States, and in public lands in particular,
we're looking at the carbon balance across the board and
looking at both inputs and outputs, in terms of how we could be
using biomass, moving forward. So, I would like to offer our
assistance, as a department, both in terms of the science that
we're doing on the carbon cycle and in terms of best management
practices that could lead to the sustainable harvest of biomass
and its use for renewable energy purposes.
Senator Wyden. What would you cite today as the most
significant thing the agency is going to promote biomass
development?
Ms. Batten. The--we are working on--in our service
contracts, in enhancing the availability of biomass, where it's
ecologically appropriate.
Senator Wyden. OK.
Mr. Tidwell, same question. Two questions to you. What's
your agency doing now to further biomass while we wait for some
legislation to change the barriers? Tell me, if you would, what
you consider the most significant action that the agency is
taking to promote biomass development.
Mr. Tidwell. We have been promoting utilization of biomass
as part of our restoration work. I like to look at it that,
when we're doing this restoration work, often there's material
that's smaller than sawlog, it's a lot of residual material
that needs to be removed when we're doing our restoration work.
Currently we have the options, in a lot of places in the
country, to, one, pay somebody to pile it and then burn it, or
to find a way that it's economically feasible for someone to
haul it, you know, to a facility so they can make use of it.
So, we've been encouraging that utilization in some places
where, in the past, when we had more favorable markets, we
would require the removal of that material instead of burning
it. But, in the current markets, there's less of an opportunity
to, you know, be able to do that.
So, we've been encouraging that. We also have been up
utilizing our biomass grant program to help, you know, develop
additional infrastructure. Often these have been relatively
small facilities, but we've been very successful in schools and
in a couple of small hospitals and other administrative
facilities and that--you know, as the technology increases with
these facilities, folks are seeing more and more use of that
type of a facility to make use of that material.
Your last question was----
Senator Wyden. What do you consider the most significant
action you've taken to date to promote biomass development?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, I would think with--working with our
grants to develop additional infrastructure so that there's use
of this; also, the work that our forest products lab has been
doing to, you know, help look into other--new technologies that
make the use of this material more efficient. Those are
probably the two things that I would say are probably the most
significant right now.
Senator Wyden. I'll hold the record open. Could the two of
you get to us, say, within the next 2 weeks, a list--a specific
list of what your two agencies are doing to promote biomass
development?
Ms. Batten, that acceptable?
Ms. Batten. Absolutely.
Senator Wyden. Mr. Tidwell.
Mr. Tidwell. Yes.
Ms. Batten. May I offer two more----
Senator Wyden. Sure.
Ms. Batten [continuing]. Bits of information that the BLM
has been working on, and offer my colleagues from BLM for some
additional detail, if you're interested?
BLM, in 2009, offered 100,000 tons of biomass for
cogeneration. In 2010, plus under--using the ARRA funds, this
will include over 250,000 tons of biomass offered for these
purposes. So, we will include those two projects in the list
that we submit to you.
Senator Wyden. Good, thank you.
Senator Barrasso.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Mr. Chairman
Mr. Tidwell, thank you for being here and sharing your
thoughts.
I wanted to visit a little bit about--well, the President
recently signed the executive order that all management will be
undertaken with climate change in mind. I'm just curious if you
could spend a little bit of time giving the committee a couple
of examples of maybe some of the specific changes that your
agency is going to be making to respond to that executive
order.
Mr. Tidwell. Thank you for the question.
You know, I mentioned one, our strategic framework that we
put out last year to help us set our priorities. I also will be
sending out direction to our regions and research stations to
have the regions and the stations work together to develop an
action plan around that strategic framework, to actually lay
out specific actions that those regions are going to be
implementing, you know, through planning or through, you know,
project design. You know, we have, you know, projects
throughout the country in places where we are already
addressing, you know, some of the changes. You know, one of
them is there in the greater Yellowstone area. We're very
concerned about what's happening to white bark pine, and the
infestation of the pine beetles in that white bark pine is
something that we haven't had to deal with in the past. It--in
the past, where the white bark pine is, it's usually high
enough and cold enough that we haven't had to deal with that.
So, we're spending a--you know, some time to look into that and
have our researchers to actually help us to develop some
different options about how to--what should we do with that.
You know, is there an opportunity to get in there and do some
thinning, and should we do some additional planting? Or just
what do we need to do? So, that's one example.
Senator Barrasso. Dr. Batten, along the same lines--it's
interesting, because you're the science advisor to the Deputy
Secretary, and, you know, my background in orthopedics, it's
always a matter of what's sound science, what's junk science. I
know you have to face that, as well, as you're dealing with the
climate change. Along the lines of what Mr. Tidwell was talking
about, you know, how to handle the situation with the trees and
the forests.
You know, all forest science that I'm aware of would
recommend that the lodgepole pines should have been harvested
over the last 50 years to avoid some of the situations that
we're in now, that we are--that our forests are suffering. So,
how do you--tell me a little bit about sound science, junk
science, and how you make some decisions, because there have
been some concerns from the Department, before you arrived,
that--where perhaps it was junk science instead of sound
science.
Ms. Batten. As an ecologist--that's my background--I stand,
in my role at the Department of the Interior, to make sure that
sound science is supporting policymaking at the Department.
This follows both the Secretary--Secretary Salazar's and
President Obama's commitment to science-based policymaking. A
number of our bureaus conduct peer-reviewed, excellent science
that is contributing to our policymaking all along. In fact,
the new secretarial order that we discussed earlier is designed
to ensure that the best available science is being translated
into adaptive management strategies for our land and natural
resource managers so that they can be responding and then
monitoring the effect of their actions over time to truly
adaptively manage. All of this grounded in sound science.
Senator Barrasso. So, if you look at forest science and
lodgepole pines that we should have been harvesting over the
last 50 years to avoid the current situation, so that would
have required some significant timber harvesting, which Federal
land management agencies have resisted over the last several
decades. So, you know, given that science, but seeing no action
from the Department of the Interior's standpoint, you know,
what do we advocate now?
Ms. Batten. Science is an evolving field. As scientists, we
learn more as we continue to explore how natural systems
interrelate to one another in the field of ecology. What we do
is, we use the best available information that we have at the
time to make decisions. As we learn more about the
vulnerability of single-stand forests and older forests and
their susceptibility to infestation, wildfires, then we need to
react as we learn more about that and incorporate that
information into these management strategies.
So, science is--again, it's not a static field, it's an
evolving field, over time. We're always learning more things.
That's what so exciting about science. That's why it's so
important to incorporate this type of evolving knowledge, over
time, into policymaking.
Senator Barrasso. So, what does the science tell you now to
do with those forests?
Ms. Batten. With those forests? As Mr. Tidwell is talking
about earlier, we are in the midst of planning for the fire
season upcoming, and we're doing that in cooperation with the
Forest Service and with USDA. We recognize the severe
consequences that may arise as a result of the dry and dead
timber that we are currently having in our forests. So, again,
it's an evolving process. We're looking at thinning, we're
looking at a number of different alternatives to address this
issue.
Senator Barrasso. One final question, Mr. Chairman, if I
could; it's a yes-or-no answer.
Can you assure me, based on what you earlier said about
climate change as the driving force--can you assure me that no
existing land management agreement for energy development,
recreational use--talking about existing land management
agreement--will be changed because of the Secretary's climate-
change order, which you say makes climate change the driving
force in land management decisions?
Ms. Batten. There is nothing in the secretarial order that
discusses anything to do with altering any existing agreements
or arrangements between the Department of the Interior and any
of our partners as a result of the secretarial order.
Senator Barrasso. So, the answer is ``yes,'' there is
nothing----
Ms. Batten. There is nothing----
Senator Barrasso. You can assure me.
Ms. Batten [continuing]. In that secretarial----
Senator Barrasso. You can assure me.
Ms. Batten [continuing]. Order that says anything about
these existing agreements.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
Senator Bingaman.
The Chairman. I did think of a question I wanted to ask
Chief Tidwell.
The Congress passed, and the President signed, the
Landscape--the Forest Landscape Restoration Act earlier this
year. How do you see that Act and that authority as relating to
your planning to deal with this climate change problem? Is it
providing tools to you that you didn't otherwise have? Or how
do you see that?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, thank you for the question. Also,
thank you for the work to get that legislation passed, because
we do feel that it'll be very beneficial. There's a couple of
key parts of it.
One of them is the requirement for collaboration so that we
bring people together and reach agreement about the kind of
restoration that needs to occur, and also the size.
One of our challenges is that--as I had mentioned earlier
in my remarks, is that these issues, the change that we're
seeing, it's across large landscapes and that we have to find
ways so we can look at our restoration across larger
landscapes. So, that legislation and that authority now will
give us the opportunity to really look at much larger
landscapes, bring people together, reach agreement on the level
of restoration, the type of restoration that occurs. It's been
my experience that, when we take that task, we're able to build
that support, and we're able to implement the projects.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Senator Wyden. Senator Risch.
Senator Risch. Briefly. Tom, I hadn't heard that, about the
pine beetles in the white bark pine. Is that only at the lower
part of its range, or does it go all the way through?
Mr. Tidwell. It's--at least out there in Wyoming and
Montana, really around the greater Yellowstone area is where we
were seeing the effects. We were seeing it, you know, to the
very top of the range. You know, that's definitely unique for
us. It's one of the things we just haven't had to really worry
about in the past, about that level of infestation. We're also
seeing a very high level of mortality in the white bark pine.
Senator Risch. They're a delicate species.
Mr. Tidwell. I'm not sure it had to evolve, you know,
dealing with mountain pine beetle.
Senator Risch. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Wyden. I thank my colleague.
We've got a couple of things you're going to make available
to us for the record, particularly your contributions in
biomass. We're going to be talking about this subject often,
because certainly the--the question of climate change,
forestry, and biomass, this is right at the intersection of
policy for this country that can help us create more good-
paying jobs, green good-paying, you know, jobs, and help us to
deal with this pressing question of climate change. We're
committed to getting this right. We're going to be talking to
both of your agencies often.
Is there anything either of you would like to add before we
excuse you?
[No response.]
Senator Wyden. You're not required to add.
Mr. Tidwell. Just, once again, I want to thank you, not
only for taking the time for today's hearing, but also your
interest in this issue, and really appreciate that and
appreciate your leadership. Thank you.
Senator Wyden. Dr. Batten
Ms. Batten. I also want to thank you for this opportunity.
It's been a real pleasure talking about these very important
issues with the subcommittee.
I just wanted to also say that I really appreciate the
links that you're making between mitigation, taking greenhouse
gases out of the atmosphere, adaptation, helping our natural
systems adapt to the impacts of climate change, and job
creation, all in one fell swoop. We can do all of this at once,
and it really is key to the success of our new economy and
moving forward and combating climate change.
Senator Wyden. For the part of the world that Senator Risch
and I represent, I can tell you, citizens are counting on
getting it done with that kind of focus. So, we'll be working
with you often. We'll excuse you, at this time.
Our next panel, Beverly Law, Ph.D., from Oregon State;
Elaine Oneil, Ph.D., from the University of Washington; Chris
Wood, with Trout Unlimited. If you all will come forward.
Welcome, to all of you. We're going to make your prepared
statements a part of the record; if you could summarize your
principal views, that would be good.
Why don't we begin with you, Dr. Law.
STATEMENT OF BEVERLY LAW, PROFESSOR, GLOBAL CHANGE FOREST
SCIENCE, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY, AND AMERIFLUX NETWORK SCIENCE
CHAIR, CORVALLIS, OR
Ms. Law. OK. Chairman Wyden----
Senator Wyden. From Oregon State.
Ms. Law. From Oregon State University, yes.
Chairman Wyden and members of the subcommittee, thank you
for inviting me here today. I'll focus my talk on forest carbon
sequestration and adaption to climate.
So, first some basics on what we consider to be carbon
sequestration. Forests take up carbon dioxide by
photosynthesis, and then carbon goes into soils in the
vegetation, and both are considered carbon sequestration. But,
carbon is also released from forests by natural processes,
restoration and slow decomposition so that, on balance, a
forest may be a source or a sink or neutral to the atmosphere,
depending on climate, land-use change, and things like
wildfire.
So, when an old forest is harvested, much of the carbon
that it contains is released back to the atmosphere as carbon
dioxide, and it takes, on average, about 15 years for a forest
to become a net-zero emitter of carbon dioxide. So, I'm talking
about the land base and how the land base acts.
Now, in terms of carbon storage, in Oregon and California
it takes about 180 years to over 600 years to attain the same
biomass carbon that was on an old forest before it was cut, so
it's a long time to get to that level of carbon storage.
Many of the mature and old forests are on Federal lands,
and carbon stores are usually higher on public lands, primarily
because of the younger forests on private lands. To manage
Federal lands in the public interest of sequestration, we
should strive to preserve the mature and old forests to avoid
losses of carbon due to harvest. To avoid losses of carbon on
public lands due to fire, fuel reductions may be necessary in
dry regions, where an uncharacteristic amount of fuels have
built up. In moist forests, however, like in the Northwest or
the West, the Cascades, fires were historically infrequent, and
they may be best used for the high sequestration capacity.
Most of the live and deadwood is not consumed in wildfires,
contrary to common belief, in high-severity fires. We've done
measurements before and after fires to determine that. Most of
the live and deadwood--I was going to say, fuel reduction can
be effective in reducing fire severity, however it comes at the
cost of reducing carbon sequestration. So, they're tradeoffs.
Balancing a demand for maximizing carbon storage with a
desire to reduce fire severity will require treatments to be
applied strategically rather than indiscriminately across
landscapes.
Now, the IPCC climate projection for North American shows
increased precipitation at high latitudes, like up in Alaska,
and a sharp decrease across the Southwest. Drought-affected
areas will likely increase in extent. There's also likely to be
an increased risk of extinction if warming continues at the
rate that it continuing.
Changes in seed and in plants include rain shifts in
latitude and elevation and threatened systems include those
with barriers to migration, like mountaintops, simply going
right off the top of the mountains.
To facilitate forest response to climate change, measures
can be taken to conserve species and genetic diversity and
ensure forest landscape connectivity for migration of plants
and animals to a climate where they can survive and thrive.
Federal lands are uniquely valuable for providing the
connectivity and refugia, and they can work with neighbors to
expand these areas. New policies are needed for Federal forests
to focus on ecological function; conserving old forests and old
trees, where they exist; and possibly even expand preserve
areas.
To inform policy decisions, ecosystem function should be
assessed at long-term observationsites to quantify baseline
conditions and track changes in response to climate. The Forest
Inventory Program, FIA, could be modified to address carbon
sequestration. The AmeriFlux Network has 30 sites on Federal
lands, and they are--can be used to inform--to provide
information on responses to both climate and disturbance;
that's what they're designed to do. The two can provide
programs--can be combined with a decision support system to
produce assessments for policy decisions and strategic
management actions.
So, in summary, forests can play a limited yet important
role in carbon sequestration for mitigating climate change. In
evaluating carbon policies, it's important to fully account for
the carbon involved, including the carbon transport. To manage
Federal lands in response to climate change for carbon
sequestration and adaptation, we can increase or maintain
carbon sequestration by replanting forests and avoiding forest
carbon losses. We can facilitate response to climate change by
sustaining genetic and species diversity through forest
preservation and enhancing landscape connectivity for dispersal
of plant and animal species. Then, Federal lands are uniquely
valuable for sequestration and facilitating adaptation to
climate. The overarching goal should be to sustain forest
ecosystem function, and we need adaptive management.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Law follows:]
Prepared Statement of Beverly Law, Professor, Global Change Forest
Science, Oregon State University and Ameriflux Network Science Chair,
Corvallis, OR
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for inviting
me today to discuss managing federal forests in response to climate
change for natural resource adaptation and carbon sequestration. I am a
Professor of Global Change Forest Science at Oregon State University,
and Science Chair of the AmeriFlux network of observation sites that
study the effects of climate and disturbance on ecosystems across the
U.S. I am also a co-author of the U.S. Climate Change Research
Program's Synthesis and Assessment Product 2.2, which addressed the
``North American Carbon Budget and Implications for the Global Carbon
Cycle.'' I will focus my remarks on current knowledge on forest carbon
sequestration and adaptation.
carbon sequestration
Forests take up carbon dioxide by photosynthesis and store it in
biomass and soils, which are both forms of carbon sequestration. Some
of the carbon rapidly returns to the atmosphere from respiration by
live plants and soil microbes or more slowly through the decomposition
of dead material. Fire and harvesting activities also result in carbon
emissions to the atmosphere. On balance, forests may be a positive,
negative, or neutral contributor of carbon to the atmosphere, depending
on variation in climate, land use, wildfires, and harvest activities.
When a mature forest is harvested, much of the carbon that it
contains is released back to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. The
disturbance involved in harvesting a forest creates conditions that
speed up decomposition; it takes, on average 15 years for a new forest
to become a zero net emitter of carbon dioxide (Luyssaert et al. 2008).
Harvesting wood increases carbon stores in wood products, but it also
decreases live and dead stores in the forest. Thus, it is important to
consider changes in all carbon stores (Law et al. 2004).
Today, carbon is accumulating in U.S. forests, offsetting about 16%
of the nation's fossil fuel emissions (CCSP 2007). Without forests,
atmospheric CO2 levels would be rising even faster. Over
this century, net carbon uptake by terrestrial ecosystems at the global
scale is likely to peak before mid-century and then weaken or even
reverse, thus amplifying losses associated with predicted climate
change (IPCC 2007b). Part of the reason is increasing loss of soil
carbon with increasing temperature and disturbances. Disturbances that
release even a small percentage of the soil carbon content could have a
large effect on atmospheric CO2 levels, particularly if the
soils contain high concentrations of organic matter, like those in high
latitude ecosystems (Schuur et al. 2009).
To manage federal lands in the public interest of carbon
sequestration, we should strive to preserve mature and old forests to
avoid losses of carbon associated with harvest. Many of the mature and
old forests are on public lands, so they are uniquely positioned to act
as carbon reserves. For example, in the Pacific Northwest, biomass
carbon is usually higher on public lands, primarily because of the
younger forests on private lands (Hudiburg et al. 2009). Activities
that can contribute to increasing carbon sequestration include:
planting forests in areas previously harvested (reforestation), and on
lands suitable for growing forests (afforestation). Such forests can be
expected to accumulate carbon for many decades.
carbon sequestration vs thinning to reduce fire potential
Variation in climate, and surface fuel supply and continuity are
factors that contribute to increased fire potential. Recent studies
(Campbell et al. 2007&2009, Hudiburg et al. 2009, Donato et al. 2009,
Mitchell et al. 2009) suggest that efforts to reduce fuels in many
types of forests will be counterproductive to sequestering carbon to
help offset climate change. Fuel reductions may be necessary in dry
regions where uncharacteristic amounts of fuel have accumulated. In
moist forests, however, fires were historically infrequent. Findings:
Most of the forest biomass (live and dead wood) is not
consumed by wildfires, even in high severity fires
Some fuel reduction techniques, especially those that remove
half or more of the larger trees, could lead to an increase in
fire severity because of additions of logging debris
Fuel reduction can be effective in reducing fire severity,
however, fuel reduction results in decreased long-term carbon
storage
Balancing a public interest in maximizing landscape carbon storage
with a desire to reduce wildfire severity will likely require thinning
treatments to be applied strategically rather than indiscriminately
treating all forest stands across the landscape.
One suggested method of compensating for losses in carbon storage
due to thinning to reduce fire hazard is to use carbon harvested in
fuel reduction treatments as biofuels. Timing is an important factor to
consider, for example, how long it took to grow the trees, how quickly
the biomass will be used, and how long it will take to replace the
removed carbon. Other considerations are fuel efficiency and carbon
cost of removal, so there needs to be full carbon accounting. A recent
study indicated that using the thinned trees for biofuels will not be
an effective strategy over the next 100 years (Mitchell et al. 2009),
and 50-100 years is probably the relevant timeframe of forest carbon
policy. The analysis on forests with high biomass production and
storage capacity showed it would take 170 years for biomass production
to offset carbon emitted from fossil fuels, and over 300 years for
ethanol production. This assumed all of the possible energy in these
fuels would be utilized, which isn't likely to be the case.
climate change projections and adaptation
The IPCC (Field et al. 2007) climate projection for North America
is characterized by a variety of different patterns of precipitation,
with increasing precipitation at high latitudes and a sharp decrease in
precipitation across the Southwest. Drought-affected areas will likely
increase in extent. Warming in western mountains of the U.S. is
projected to cause decreased snowpack, more winter flooding and reduced
summer flows.
The IPCC (2007b) also states that (1) about 20-30% of known plant
and animal species are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if
increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5-2.5C; (2) types of
changes seen in plants include range shifts (latitude, elevation) and
changes in growing season length, and threatened systems include those
with physical barriers to migration (e.g. montane ecosystems); (3) non-
climate stresses can increase vulnerability to climate change by
reducing resilience and adaptive capacity; and (4) unmitigated climate
change would, in the long term, be likely to exceed the capacity of
natural and managed systems to adapt (IPCC 2007c).
To facilitate forest response to climate change, measures can be
taken to conserve plant and animal species and genetic diversity, and
ensure forest landscape connectivity for migration of species to
climate in which they can survive and thrive (e.g. corridors, roadless
areas). Genetic diversity allows selection for traits that may be more
suited to a new climate. There will be winners and losers in a new
climate, and species diversity improves the odds of formation of
sustainable ecosystems. Federal lands have many of the mature and old
forests that can serve as sources of genetic and species diversity
needed for dispersal.
In semi-arid to arid regions like the Southwest U.S., prolonged
drought pushes species to the limits of survival, and this is often
followed by mortality from insects and diseases. If climate becomes
more severe in these regions, the idea of sustaining a particular plant
association in a particular location could be futile because a tipping
point may be reached where climate is outside the historical range for
survival of some species within a forest type. If prolonged drought
impacts dry forests, thinning may be effective to alleviate drought
stress in the remaining trees, but if there is no water available
within the rooting depth, mortality will occur even if the forests are
thinned (independent of density). Thinning could be counterproductive
to adaptation goals if removed trees or seedlings damaged from harvest
activities are those best suited to survive and thrive in a new
climate.
new policies
New policies are needed for federal forests to focus on sustaining
ecological function. Policies should accommodate the variation that
exists in forest ecosystems in terms of their diversity and disturbance
histories. For example, in the Pacific Northwest, there are distinct
differences between moist forests and dry forests that require
different policies and adaptation approaches (Johnson & Franklin 2009).
The moist forests have evolved with very infrequent high severity
disturbance regimes (e.g. wind, fire) where mosaics of stand
replacement have occurred. Old-growth moist forests have had little
human impact and management treatments are generally not needed to
maintain them in the foreseeable future. Younger forests that exist in
this moist region could be manipulated to increase ecological
diversity. The dry forests have evolved with more frequent low and
mixed severity wildfire as the primary disturbance regime, and the
structure and function of old forests has been altered by ingrowth of
less drought-and fire tolerant species.
Historically, these forests had relatively low densities and with
scattered older trees of highly drought-and fire-resistant species. In
dry forests, focus should be on sustaining the old trees, modifying
fuel loads, and reducing trees that crowd the older trees and make them
susceptible to mortality from fire, insects and disease. Such careful
applications are needed to maintain ecological function of forests.
Long-term observation networks and a decision support framework
will be required to assess the vulnerability of forests to climate
change, and to refine management of forests for carbon sequestration.
Critical elements of decision support for regional to local actions
include integrated long-term observations, an accessible data and
information system populated in a timely manner, forest process studies
to improve regional prediction, and regional climate modeling
appropriate for societal decisions. This would allow management for
goals of carbon sequestration and ensuring species and genetic
diversity for a future climate. The existing Forest Service Forest
Inventory & Analysis program (FIA) has observation sites where
measurements could be modified for producing carbon budgets of soil and
vegetation and for detecting shifts in productivity and species. The
AmeriFlux network that examines responses to climate and disturbance
has 30 sites on federal lands and can be used to detect
vulnerabilities and improve model predictions of forest response. For
example, over 10-15 years, sites in the network have seen increases in
growing season length and the effects on the carbon balance of the
ecosystems. The two observation systems can be combined with a decision
support system that is needed to produce assessments for aiding policy
and management decisions.
concerns about carbon policy
It is important for carbon credits to prove a concept called
additionality, whereby additional carbon is stored due to new actions,
going beyond business-as-usual. The concept of `additionality'
addresses the question of whether the project would have happened
anyway, even in the absence of revenue from carbon credits. In the case
of federal lands, it seems it would be difficult to be considered for
additionality because they are mandated to be managed for the public
interest of carbon sequestration (the project would have happened
anyway). Federal lands should be managed for the public interest of
carbon sequestration, not revenue from carbon credits. If federal lands
are managed for revenue from carbon credits, it will likely impact
ecosystem functioning and other ecosystem services.
A potential unintended consequence of carbon policy would be a
reduction in carbon sequestration prior to implementation of the policy
so that revenue could be obtained for new actions to increase carbon
storage.
If credit is given for choosing not to cut existing forests,
monitoring and audits of carbon sequestration will be necessary to
determine status of carbon uptake, insurance will be necessary to
protect past carbon sequestration from destruction by fire or
windstorms, and penalty payments will be necessary if the forest is
eventually cut. Such efforts will be costly to administer, diminishing
the value of the rather modest carbon credits expected from forestry
(Schlesinger 2006).
The IPCC (2007) suggests net carbon uptake by the land is going to
decrease in the future. The risk with ecosystem impacts and feedbacks
to climate is that once climate reaches a certain point, the problem
will become more difficult to address because of less capacity of
forests to store carbon. Forests have an important but limited
potential to offset climate change. The critical issue is that we need
to slow GHG emissions growth rapidly to quickly enter into a period of
decreased emissions.
summary
As climate change accelerates, the capacity of forests to store
carbon will decline, and unmitigated climate change could exceed the
capacity of natural and managed systems to adapt. Forests can play an
important but limited role in carbon sequestration for mitigating
climate change. In evaluating carbon sequestration policy and
management options, it is important to fully account for the carbon
involved. To manage federal forests in response to climate change for
carbon sequestration and adaptation, we can (1) increase or maintain
carbon sequestration by avoiding forest removal, replanting forests,
and restoring ecosystem function; and (2) facilitate response to
climate change by sustaining genetic and species diversity through
forest preservation (e.g. for seed sources), enhancing landscape
connectivity for migration/dispersal of plant and animal species, and
by aiding dispersal to favorable climates. To avoid carbon losses due
to drought or fire, it may be necessary to thin some dry forests that
have accumulated uncharacteristic amounts of fuels. Thinning could be
counterproductive to adaptation goals if removed trees are those best
suited to survive and thrive in a new climate. Federal lands have an
important role to play in both carbon sequestration and ecosystem
adaptation to climate change. The overarching goal should be to sustain
forest ecosystem function.
To inform policy decisions, ecosystem function should be assessed
at long-term observation sites to quantify baseline conditions in
ecosystem function and carbon sequestration, and to track changes in
response to climate. The existing FIA and AmeriFlux observation sites
on federal lands could serve this need. Critical elements of decision
support for regional to local actions include integrated long-term
observations, an accessible data and information system, process
studies to improve regional prediction, regional climate modeling, and
integration of research to produce assessments for aiding policy and
management decisions.
Senator Wyden. Dr. Law, thank you. Oregon State is renowned
for its forestry school, and you have accounted well for them
today. I knew it was--there was a reason why we campaigned to
have you make the long trek back. I was especially glad that
you also brought into your comments the focus on the older
forests, because that's an important part of this debate, and
we're going to make sure that's not going to get short shrift,
either. So, thank you very much for a very good presentation.
Dr. Oneil, also from the Pacific Northwest, we thank you
for making the trip, as well. Welcome, and please proceed with
your remarks.
STATEMENT OF ELAINE ONEIL, PH.D., M.S., BSF, RPF, RESEARCH
SCIENTIST, SCHOOL OF FORESTRY, COLLEGE OF FOREST RESOURCES,
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF CORRIM
(CONSORTIUM FOR RESEARCH ON RENEWABLE INDUSTRIAL MATERIALS),
SEATTLE, WA
Ms. Oneil. Thank you, Senator Wyden. Thank you for inviting
me to provide my testimony.
Let's start by looking at some climate change impacts that
are now occurring on our national forests. They've all been
discussed here today.
I provided some corroborating documents, and in them are 11
pictures in this folder that highlight two specific impacts on
national forests that I want to talk about. We're talking about
areas in the Intermountain region from eastern Washington to
the Black Hills, from the Canadian border to New Mexico.
Across the land--the West, what we're seeing is landscapes
with almost complete tree mortality, whether from mountain pine
beetle or from stand-replacing fires. That means fires where
old trees--or mostly all trees are killed.
Now, under climate change scenarios, these impacts are
expected to only get worse; in some cases, a doubling of the
area burn per year, and in some regions the loss of the entire
mature pine forest.
So, what does this means in terms of climate change
adaptation and carbon storage? Obviously when trees are dead,
they're no longer sequestering carbon. They're releasing it;
some slowly, through decay, or rapidly, through wildfire.
Under normal circumstances, the forest would regenerate,
the carbon would be taken up again, and the carbon neutrality
of the forest would be assured. Currently, we're seeing
something quite different in western forests. In the Fremont-
Winema in Oregon, there's a 300,000-acre dead zone that used to
have lodgepole pine on it, and which is now slowly releasing
carbon. What's happening in that forest is that, even though
lodgepole typically regenerates after there's some sort of a
disturbance, they're not getting the regeneration there,
usually because they're having--they have difficulty
regenerating in that forest anyhow, because of the extreme
climatic conditions. Similarly, in some areas of Washington
State, we're expected to lose one or two pine species, with no
equivalent species to take their place, because of ongoing
changes to summer drought.
Once these forests die and dry out, they become especially
good candidates for uncontrollable fire and its attendant
greenhouse gas emissions. On page 6 of the document, it shows
that a NOAA satellite image of the 2006 tripod complex fire on
the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest in Washington. That
forest used to contain 100 permanent sample plots within the
fire perimeter. In the years prior to that--I had done some
analysis--60 out of 100 of those plots had severe mountain pine
beetle infestations in the prior 4 years. That exacerbated the
ability to control the fire, and it also led to some of the
more damaging impacts in that particular region.
You know, definitely because we had that big fire, we
managed to control--or, slow down the bark beetle epidemic; we
knocked out a lot of the bugs. But, the carbon emissions
profile from that one fire was estimated to be equivalent to a
million sport utility vehicles running on Washington's roads
for a single year.
Senator Wyden. What? Say that again? One million sport
utility vehicles?
Ms. Oneil. Running on Washington's roads for a year. That
one fire. That's the estimate. Now, that doesn't say that every
single tree was completed toasted.
Senator Wyden. Right.
Ms. Oneil. That's just looking at about 15 percent of the
aboveground biomass being lost. It did not account for any
losses in soil carbon.
So, we can have--in situations like this, where you have a
pretty severe wildfire, you can have difficulty--the same
difficulty with regeneration that they're seeing on their
Fremont-Winema. Work done in California has found that upward
of 85 percent of the area does not regenerate after these
catastrophic wildfires. As the pictures show for the--Arizona's
Rodeo-Chediski, in areas of complete mortality the soil was
essentially cooked, and there's no seed source left. So, the
question that we have to look at is--we once had forest there;
we don't have them now--Will they be able to regenerate? Will
we have this carbon-neutral situation, where we have extreme
wildfire?
So, those are the impacts. What can we do about it?
Building resilience into these forests by thinning them to
some--down to some level where the trees can look after
themselves is important. We need to get realistic about
increasing forest resilience through targeted treatments that
are driven by underlying ecological carrying capacity, not by a
premandated, negotiated definition of tree size or density or
spacing. The top-down will not work in a situation where we
have this much complexity across our landscape.
If we thin, we can reduce fire impacts. If you look at
slides 11 and 12, you'll see the contrast between the fire
impacts from the Rodeo-Chediski on national forests versus
adjacent tribal lands. That will increase tree vigor, it'll
improve forest health. You're still going to maintain some
carbon storage on these remaining trees, and maintaining a seed
source, as well.
We can't just thin the forests and leave the material
there; we have to find a way to remove it, because if you just
cut it and leave it, you're not actually reducing fire risk,
you're increasing it. You, in some instances, can make insect
outbreaks worse. In order to remove it, we need to make it
financially viable to address these biomass removals.
Now, policies to address carbon storage would ideally
include some local collaborative efforts, decisionmaking, and
augmenting it by applying the kinds of research that we've done
and that have been done in multiple ecosystems on climate
change, on carbon storage, and on best options for biomass
recovery and uses, and using lifecycle inventories to actually
measure real inputs and outputs from the system that are based
on known uses, processes, and recovery potentials. What that
means is that you have to tie the kinds of removal and the kind
of biomass use to the available feedstock, and that's something
that we're looking at now in some of our research.
I think anything less than this is going to result in--more
in ongoing massive carbon debt. In these particular forests, as
they die, they decay, they burn, and release carbon at a rate
that probably exceeds current uptake in these lands, if it has
not already done so.
Each forest has a unique carrying capacity. With 50 years
of fire suppression, coupled with hotter and drier summers,
warmer winters, the hallmarks, really, of predicted future
change--I think we're already seeing it--we are at a threshold
where carrying capacity is exceeded, the results of these
massive bark beetle outbreaks and the attendant fire. We really
already have the tools. We don't have to invent additional
tools to--for biomass removal, considering that current harvest
removal is also--or biomass--and we have plenty of rules to
address those removals.
We seem to be caught up with arguing about definitions of
biomass and old growth, while the old forests around us are
killed, while these forests around us are killed by bark
beetles, and then they burn, adding additional carbon to our
atmosphere.
I'll just give you a few numbers here, in the time
remaining. In 2007, there was 6.8 million acres of mortality in
the entire U.S. Sixty-one percent of that was from mountain
pine beetle, so that's 4.1 million acres. Those are Federal
statistics from the U.S. Forest Service. They also say that
there's a total of 22 million acres at risk to bark beetle
mortality, but in a single year, we lost 20 percent of it.
That's a lot of carbon sequestration potential loss. That's a
lot of potential carbon emissions.
In addition, there are about 28 million acres that could
use some help in reducing fire risk. Those--there may be some
overlap between the 22 and the 28 million; those were two
different studies. So, you see that, in effect, what we have
here is a situation where we're at a tipping point, and we can
address the situation through some fairly aggressive management
that looks at site-specific outcomes, or we can address it--we
can address it at some--with some dedicated resources to look
at these problems in a site-specific way, or we can continue to
do research on how we could look at storage in a different way.
I talked way faster than I thought I would, so I could ad
lib here or I could open it up for questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Oneil follows:]
Prepared Statement of Elaine Oneil Ph.D., M.S., BSF, RPF, Research
Scientist, School of Forestry, College of Forest Resources, University
of Washington and Executive Director of CORRIM (Consortium For Research
on Renewable Industrial Materials), Seattle, WA
I am a research scientist at the University of Washington with a
specialization in forest health and climate change. I am also the
Executive Director of CORRIM, the Consortium for Research on Renewable
Industrial Materials. CORRIM is a consortium that was created in 1996
between fifteen universities to conduct research on the environmental
performance of every stage of forest products manufacture from cradle
(planting the tree seed) to grave (landfill of solid wood products at
the end of their first use). The research conducted by CORRIM uses life
cycle inventory (LCI) and life cycle analysis (LCA) techniques which
take into consideration the energy balance and carbon emissions
inherent in the growth, procurement, manufacture, and eventual use of
wood products.
Effective policy for integrating forest ecology, climate, forest
management options, and the potential use of products derived from
management must account for interactions both inside and outside the
forest boundaries. My goal is to provide you with an understanding of
how these interactions can be used to develop optimal strategies for
natural resource adaptation and carbon sequestration on national forest
lands in the face of climate change. My particular emphasis will be on
the forests of the western USA.
The factors central to determining optimal carbon management under
climate change are:
1. Each forest site has a carrying capacity which dictates
the maximum amount of fiber, wood, or carbon that can be stored
in that forest. Carrying capacity is determined by site
quality, climate, and to a lesser degree the current species
mix.
2. Once forests reach their site's carrying capacity there is
enormous stress on the living trees which manifests itself in
insect outbreaks and disease, culminating in the death of some
or all of the trees on site. The mountain pine beetle (MPB)
epidemic in western North America epitomizes how existing
stressors (forests at or above site carrying capacity) interact
with subtle shifts in climate to create unprecedented mortality
on our National Forest Lands. The spruce bark beetle epidemic
in Alaska is another example of the same impact in a different
ecosystem. Climate change is impacting our western forests now.
It is not a future possibility or probability.
3. Wildfire ignition is random, but the consequences of
wildfires are driven by climate, and prevailing weather and
forest conditions. Forests that have reached maximum carrying
capacity, and which contain large amounts of dead trees,
produce conditions for wildfires that are uncontrollable, with
devastating consequences to the forest, the adjacent
communities, and the budgets of land management agencies.
4. Wildfires generate enormous releases of carbon dioxide and
other greenhouse gases. From 2002-2006 wildfires across the
entire US, including Alaska, released the equivalent of 4-6% of
the US anthropogenic emissions for that same period. The
average yearly emissions from the California wildfires alone
were equivalent to the emissions of 7 million cars/year for
each year from 2001-2007. Extreme fire conditions can render
sites infertile or incapable of regenerating future forests,
which effectively leads to deforestation.
5. If we apply the precautionary principle, the most risk
adverse option we have at the present time is to thin forests
that are at risk to reduce wildfire impacts, reduce insect
mortality, and build health and resilience against extreme
climate conditions that these forests are expected to face in
the near future. The cut material can be used as biofuel
feedstocks to support energy independence goals and meet
renewable fuel and electricity standards. Even greater carbon
benefits are possible if the cut wood is used in green building
construction. Using life cycle analysis we can identify optimal
carbon sequestration and storage options that include forests
as part of the broader matrix of national carbon accounts;
failure to account for the carbon interactions beyond the
forest can lead to counterproductive policies.
6. Grassroots initiatives aimed at addressing forest health,
wildfires, insect outbreaks, and sustainability on federal
lands have begun. The goals of removing excess fuels and dead
trees for use in bioenergy projects, while generating
economically viable and sustainable jobs in rural communities
and maintaining sustainable ecosystems are laudable. Policies
are needed that integrate the knowledge and trust built by
local initiatives, support national renewable energy goals, and
recognize the inherent ecological carrying capacity of the land
and how it might alter under changing climatic conditions.
Each forest site has a carrying capacity which dictates the maximum
amount of fiber, wood, or carbon that can be stored in the forest.
Carrying capacity is determined by site quality, climate, and to a
lesser degree the current species mix.
Tree growth, competition, and death are governed by known ``laws''
that have withstood the rigors of scientific investigation for the past
66 years. For example, we have the -3/2 power law (Reineke 1933) which
identifies how trees compete, when competition will begin, and when
mortality will occur as trees grow, age, and fill the site. Using that
law we can characterize each forest site's carrying capacity, or
maximum site occupancy, which is largely a function of soil quality and
climate in addition to some interaction with species physiology. Once
forests mature, without major disturbances like wind, fire, or insect
outbreaks, they fully occupy the site and competition between trees
begins. As the forest gets older, eventually growth and mortality reach
equilibrium as the trees respond to the resource limits inherent in
their site. In effect when a forest stand is mature, it occupies the
site at or near maximum carrying capacity. Carrying capacity has
historically been measured in tree volume which can easily be converted
to biomass and to carbon equivalents. Thus we can estimate the carbon
carrying capacity of any forest by understanding the limits of any
particular regions soils and climate.
Once forests reach their site's carrying capacity there is enormous
stress on the living trees which manifests itself in insect outbreaks
and disease, culminating in the death of some or all of the trees on
site. The mountain pine beetle (MPB) epidemic in western North America
epitomizes how existing stressors (forests at or above site carrying
capacity) interact with subtle shifts in climate to create
unprecedented mortality on our National Forest Lands. The spruce bark
beetle epidemic in Alaska is another example of the same impact in a
different ecosystem. Climate change is impacting our western forests
now. It is not a future possibility or probability.
So what happens when forests are old, the site is fully occupied--
at or near carrying capacity--and the climate changes? When we get less
precipitation, the soils dry out sooner. These dry soils combined with
the hotter and drier summers we have experienced for most of the past
nine years in the Inland West have effectively reduced carrying
capacity. This generates enormous stress on the trees and you get a
pulse of mortality. The mortality agent that is causing the greatest
impact is the mountain pine beetle (MPB)--a native insect that kills
all pine species found in the western US. The MPB prefers to attack old
and stressed trees, and our National Forests are full of old trees.
When summers are sufficiently hot and dry enough for these old trees to
become stressed, it is a precursor to a population build-up of MPB
which eventually manifests as an epidemic outbreak. Since 2000, we have
experienced a massive West-wide epidemic that has affected a large
percentage of the native pines in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana,
Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and California and as far
east as South Dakota. A relative of the mountain pine beetle, the
spruce beetle, has wrought similar impacts on spruce forests in Alaska.
There are pictures in your packet that show the extent of mortality
from MPB epidemics across several states where the dead and dying trees
are releasing rather than sequestering carbon. Recent research has
identified the tipping point that lead to these mountain pine beetle
and spruce beetle outbreaks as a shift in climate (Carroll et al 2003,
Oneil 2006, Berg et al 2006) but that shift in climate acts in concert
with current stand conditions to create the outbreaks that are
devastating our forests at the present time. In short, climate change
impacts in our western forests are a very serious current reality not a
future probability.
In the mid-1990's I was a field forester dealing with MPB and
spruce bark beetle (SBB) outbreaks on a regular basis. We did not know
it was a climate impact until much later when research scientists,
including myself, began to analyze the data and realize that the
predictors for these huge mortality events were not necessarily found
in the beetle/tree dynamics as had been studied for the prior 30 years,
but in the climate. Only in hindsight were we able to see how subtle
shifts in average temperature and precipitation masked critical
thresholds in winter temperatures in northern latitudes, and extreme
summer moisture deficits in more southerly latitudes that tipped the
balance in favor of the insect over the trees that were its host.
Crossing those threshold values for temperature has led to massive MPB
outbreaks in the Inland West at a scale unprecedented in our
experience.
Wildfire ignition is random, but the consequences of wildfires are
driven by climate, and prevailing weather and forest conditions.
Forests that have reached maximum carrying capacity, and which contain
large amounts of dead trees, produce conditions for wildfires that are
uncontrollable, with devastating consequences to the forest, the
adjacent communities, and the budgets of land management agencies.
One consequence of large mortality events associated with MPB
outbreaks are devastating and unnatural wildfires that are next to
impossible to control. While lightening ignites wildfires more or less
randomly, the likelihood of those ignitions producing large
uncontrollable fires that kill most or all trees in their path is
highly correlated with the underlying forest condition. High levels of
prior mortality from MPB were found to increase the likelihood of stand
replacing fires during the 1988 Yellowstone wildfire event (Lynch et
al. 2006); a result that is also supported by anecdotal evidence from
the 2006 Tripod Complex fire that burned over 350,000 acres of National
Forests in Washington State's East Cascades within a fire perimeter of
approximately 400,000 acres. The fire perimeter for the Tripod Complex
had approximately 100 forest inventory and analysis (FIA) plots that
comprise the national forest census of which 70% had substantial MPB
impact in the prior 5 years (Oneil unpublished data). This fire was
estimated to emit 2.1 million tons of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere or the equivalent to the emissions of 1 million Sport
Utility Vehicles (SUV's) for 1 year (Mason 2006).
High levels of insect attack are not the only precursor to the
largely uncontrollable wildfire events of recent years. Dense forests
with multi-layered canopies, large amounts of dead wood, and thick
understory vegetation make fire control difficult or impossible under
all but the most benign weather conditions. The federal forests of the
Inland West are dominated by forests with extensive mortality from MPB
and SBB and/or have these dense forest canopies as a result of 50 years
of fire suppression making them highly susceptible to uncontrollable
wildfires.
Wildfires generate enormous releases of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases. From 2002-2006 wildfires across the entire US,
including Alaska, released the equivalent of 4-6% of the US
anthropogenic emissions for that same period. The average yearly
emissions from the California wildfires alone were equivalent to the
emissions of 7 million cars/year for each year from 2001-2007. Extreme
fire conditions can render sites infertile or incapable of regenerating
future forests, which effectively leads to deforestation.
The carbon released to the atmosphere from increasingly large,
uncontrollable wildfire events exceeds our efforts to mitigate
emissions. Widenmeyer and Neff (2007) found that the average
CO2 emissions from wildfire from 2002-2006 were 213 Tg/yr
for the lower 48 states with an additional 80 Tg CO2/yr
emitted from Alaska's wildfires which is the equivalent to 4-6% of
anthropogenic emissions for those years. In Alaska there are double the
CO2 emissions from wildfires than there are from human
fossil fuel emissions; in Idaho the CO2 emissions from
wildfires are 93% of those from fossil fuels; and in Montana wildfire
emissions are 43% of the emissions from human fossil fuel use based on
2002-2006 fire occurrence.
Analysis of California wildfires from 2001-2007 calculates that 277
million tons of CO2 were released by fires and the ultimate
decay of the dead trees (Bonnicksen 2009). This is equivalent to the
emissions from 7 million cars each year over those 7 years or about
half of the registered cars in the state. The figures highlight how the
cost of wildfires are much more than just the direct cost of fighting
fires, the impacts on communities, human health, and loss of
infrastructure. There is an immediate CO2 emissions cost to
wildfire with subsequent CO2 emissions from decay that are
larger than the fire emissions. Of the 882,759 acres of land where all
trees were killed during the California wildfires, an estimate of 86%
of the land affected (762,000 acres) will not be reforested with any
substantial tree cover within the next century because of regeneration
failures (Bonnicksen 2009). This means that the CO2
emissions from fires are compounded by the loss of CO2
sequestration capacity from regenerating forests. The burnt forests are
not being replanted and there is little chance for re-establishment of
sufficient future forests to offset these emissions without substantial
investment in replanting, stand tending, and management. In short,
wildfire in these harsh dry environments is creating deforestation just
when we most need that tree growth to offset carbon emissions from
other sources. As with the MPB climate thresholds that have only been
identified within the past decade, there may well be a threshold value
that we have not identified yet wherein large areas of current forest
become shrub land with much diminished capacity for carbon
sequestration because of regeneration difficulties.
As a consequence of successful fire prevention for the 50 years
prior to 2000, national census data (FIA) indicate that at present we
are storing about double the carbon per acre on federal lands than on
actively managed private forests in the Inland West (Oneil et al in
review). But we are also burning more acres of federal land than non-
federal land. For example 89% of the acres burned in Washington State
since 1995 have been on federal lands which make up 53% of total
forested acreage. These comparisons are for eastern Washington where
over 90% of our wildfires occur.
We know that growing trees is the best carbon mitigation tool we
have to transfer atmospheric carbon into sequestered carbon that
reduces greenhouse gas concentrations. Trees are the most efficient
plants for carbon capture with low demand for water and nutrients
relative to the carbon uptake they perform. They also actively
sequester enormous amounts of carbon relative to other kinds of crops
because of the large amount of above ground biomass. Pacala et al.
(2001) estimated that 20-40% of all terrestrial carbon sequestration in
the United States occurred in western forests. Because of the
significant role of trees in forest carbon sequestration, broad scale
tree mortality can turn the forest from a net carbon sink to a net
carbon source. Increases in wildfire frequency and intensity that
release stored forest carbon could result in western forests becoming a
source of carbon rather than a sink (Westerling et al. 2006). In
British Columbia, Canada, which is experiencing perhaps the largest
mortality event from MPB in all of western North America, the forests
are now net carbon sources because of the level of mortality (Kurz et
al. 2008). While we think the western US forests are still acting as
net carbon sinks, the cumulative impacts of MPB outbreaks and wildfires
on the carbon budget are substantial and growing every single year.
If we apply the precautionary principle, the most risk adverse
option we have at the present time is to thin at risk forests to reduce
wildfire impacts, reduce insect mortality, and build health and
resilience against extreme climate conditions that these forests are
expected to face in the near future. The cut material can be used as
biofuel feedstocks to support energy independence goals and meet
renewable fuel and electricity standards. Even greater carbon benefits
are possible if the cut wood is used in green building construction.
Using life cycle analysis we can identify optimal carbon sequestration
and storage options that include forests as part of the broader matrix
of national carbon accounts; failure to account for the carbon
interactions beyond the forest can lead to counterproductive policies.
Fire impacts can be substantially reduced by thinning treatments
that restore densities more like those observed before fire suppression
was introduced. Multiple studies have shown that thinning reduces fire
severity, sufficient for firefighters to gain control and maintain
forest structure, tree seed source, and other values (e.g. Agee and
Skinner 2005, Moghaddas 2006, Skinner et al. 2004). After the 2002 fire
year, which in hindsight was relatively mild, Dr. Jerry Franklin
(ecologist) and Dr. Jim Agee (fire scientist) from the University of
Washington offered their perspective on the need for a rationale
national forest policy that incorporated ecology, fire science, known
benefits of treatment and social benefits. Their perspective is that
``Letting nature take its course in the current landscape is certain to
result in losses of native biodiversity and ecosystem functions and
other social benefits. . .'' (Franklin and Agee 2003).
Coupled with the impacts of current wildfire extent and severity is
the very real risk of dramatically increased wildfire extent in the
near future as a result of further summer warming and drought. Climate
impact studies across the west have identified that future climate will
likely double wildfire extent in most areas (McKenzie et al 2004,
Littell et al 2009) with some areas experiencing a tripling of the
current acres burned which will interact with current forest conditions
to increase CO2 emissions from wildfire in the near future.
The projected climate impacts, including hotter drier summers, earlier
snowmelt with subsequent reduced summer moisture (Westerling et al.
2006), and increasing summer moisture deficits which portend
substantial changes in regeneration success at the current forest
margins (Littell et al 2009).
Managing federal forests to address the need for increased carbon
sequestration and storage, reduced carbon emissions, and adaptation
requires an integrated approach that considers the inherent carrying
capacity of the land, the fire regime for a specific region and forest
type, and societal benefits at local, regional, and national scales.
Reducing forest carbon inventories to bring them in line with new
estimates of carrying capacity is necessary to increase resilience in
the surviving trees, and reduce risks of further mortality from the MPB
and other insects. If designed with multiple goals in mind, thinning
treatments can also provide better options for wildfire control,
restore forest structure, maintain critical habitat, and adjust for the
overstocking that has occurred because of 50 years of fire suppression.
Optimal thinning strategies will vary by region, forest type, and fire
and insect risk. In ecology, one size does not fit all: the kinds of
treatments needed in the dry interior west to address climate change
and carbon storage are quite different than what is needed at high
elevations or in coastal forests. Using local expertise coupled with
grass roots input from concerned citizens can ensure that the
activities are sustainable over the long term. The result can be at
least a triple win scenario with improved habitat, reduced carbon
emissions and avoided future wildfire fighting costs.
Paying for these management interventions to reduce fire severity
and risk, and to reduce forest densities so as to reduce stress on
remaining trees, is a challenge during our current budgetary crisis.
There is a huge opportunity to use the material that must be removed
from Inland West federal forests to allow them to adapt to climate
change. That excess material is a carbon dense renewable feedstock that
can be used for meeting energy independence goals under EISA (2007),
the renewable fuels standard (RFS) and/or the renewable electricity
standard (RES).
Thinning forests can offset carbon emissions from fossil sources if
used for energy production either by producing liquid transportation
fuels or electricity generation. Based on life cycle analysis conducted
to ISO 14044 standards, CORRIM has found that an even better choice
from a carbon perspective is to produce products that store carbon and
substitute for fossil energy intensive products made of steel or
concrete (Perez-Garcia 2005, Milota et al 2005). For example, a ton of
wood in engineered wood floor joists displaces 7 tonnes of
CO2 emissions when substituted for a steel floor joist. This
is approximately 7 times more beneficial from a carbon accounting
perspective than burning the wood for energy. CORRIM is currently
conducting additional life cycle analysis of woody biomass for an array
of bio-fuels, processing technologies, and material inputs to determine
the optimal uses of these renewable fuel feedstocks from a carbon
perspective.
As climate change and carbon sequestration are global issues,
accounting for only the carbon interactions in the forest without
consideration for the wildfire impacts, the ultimate use of potential
forest products that can be removed to reduce fire and insect impacts,
and current and future societal needs for energy and building products
is like a bank measuring only debits without consideration for credits.
Losing the carbon that trees sequester to insect epidemics and wildfire
under the guise of naturalness or the precautionary principle, not only
emits carbon, particulates, and other greenhouse gases to the
atmosphere, it is a lost opportunity to store that forest carbon in
buildings where the risks of wildfires are largely absent. It is also
occurring at a time and on a scale where the increasing rate of
CO2 emissions portends a threshold, or tipping point, that
may exacerbate current disturbance trends and subsequent opportunities
for management, sequestration, and fire control. In essence, forest
thinning operations that reduce fire severity and risk are the most
risk adverse option we have at our disposal at this time.
Grassroots initiatives aimed at addressing forest health, wildfire,
insect outbreaks, and sustainability on federal lands have begun. The
goals of removing excess fuels and dead trees for use in bioenergy
projects while generating economically viable and sustainable jobs in
rural communities and maintaining sustainable ecosystems are laudable.
Policies are needed that integrate the knowledge and trust built by
local initiatives, support national renewable energy goals, and
recognize the inherent ecological carrying capacity of the land and how
it might alter under changing climatic conditions.
As a forester, there is nothing worse than losing your stands to
insect attack or fire and in the process losing all the values
cherished by your local rural community. If the nearby federal forests,
under the guise of naturalness, are not managed, except to suppress
fires when they threaten structures, private and other public
landowners have no control in preventing the insect invasions and
wildfires that start on federal lands but then spread to nearby private
and state lands with equally costly and devastating impacts. The degree
of interest in the topic of federal land management to reduce these
impacts and risks along with the potential to provide resources for
bioenergy initiatives is substantial. Recently a large constituency
spent three days discussing the issues around biomass utilization in
their communities and their region at the Plum Creek Conference on
Forests and Energy at the University of Montana. As a speaker at that
conference I was thrilled to see the level of interest, integrity,
care, and sincere appreciation for the complexity of the task ahead. No
one wants to see another `timber war' or extractive industry with
little thought to long term sustainability of the federal lands in
their region. But neither do they want to see their backyard go up in
flames as the forests around them succumb to MPB and then burn as they
were during the conference in September. This fire was particularly
notable as it burned vigorously despite record breaking rainfall during
the prior month.
Many members of the audience at that conference were already
working diligently with local USFS managers to devise plans that would
produce not only sustainable forests, but sustainable livelihoods for
local people. In the process they are building trust, crafting
community, and with the appropriate top down policies that recognize
the need to manage these forests and make a living, they will also be
able to provide renewable energy that will help to meet the energy
needs and greenhouse gas reduction goals outlined in federal policy.
summary
We have experienced a decade of unprecedented mortality in our
western forests, and much of that mortality is concentrated on federal
lands. Broad scale mortality means that forests are emitting carbon
rather than sequestering it, thus exacerbating our current greenhouse
gas emissions profile. The current rate of mortality is unsustainable
and may well lead to a tipping point wherein additional uncontrolled
damage can be expected. It is doubtful that any one scientist or group
of scientists has any idea where that tipping point is and what
reaching it might cause. With policies and management approaches that
pull us back from that brink by reducing risk and building resilience
we can ensure that these forests remain a part of our heritage and
serve a vital role as carbon sinks into the future.
Senator Wyden. We will have some questions----
Senator Risch. Mr. Chairman, I have to go to an Ethics
Committee meeting----
Senator Wyden. Would you like----
Senator Risch [continuing]. Because we have a vote at 4
o'clock. I have a question for Dr. Law and Dr. Oneil. I'm going
to state it, but they can answer it after Mr. Wood's testimony,
and I'll get it from the record.
But, they both touched on the question of the balance of
uptake versus production of carbon, and I was wondering if they
agreed with Chief Tidwell's assessment, or his statement, of
the fact that the lands were--we were in a 12-percent-positive
situation, as far as taking up carbon that is produced. I'd
like your comments on that, or any other statistical
information you can give me in that regard.
Senator Wyden. Why don't we--if Mr. Wood doesn't have any
objection, why don't--Senator, I think it's a very important
question. Dr. Law, Dr. Oneil, what--if you could, can you give
a response to the Senate now, and perhaps furnish anything
extra in writing?
Dr. Law.
Senator Risch. Mr. Chairman, I really apologize, but I've
got to----
Senator Wyden. Oh.
Senator Risch [continuing]. Vote right at 4 o'clock.
Senator Wyden. Oh, I see.
Senator Risch. So, I'm going to have to run.
Senator Wyden. OK. We'll get it in writing.
Senator Risch. I apologize for that, and I'll pick up Mr.
Wood's statement out of the record. I would just note, for the
record, that Mr. Wood is here, purporting to be a
conservationist, but I know for a fact that he's been
attempting to make the elk extinct in my State, one animal at a
time, for a number of years.
[Laughter.]
Senator Risch. So, in any event, thank you, Mr. Chairman,
and I will pick this up out of the record.
Senator Wyden. Thank----
Senator Risch. Thank you very much.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Risch. Thank you. I apologize, Chris; I've got to
run.
Senator Wyden. Mr. Wood.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER A. WOOD, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER,
TROUT UNLIMITED, ARLINGTON, VA
Mr. Wood. Thank you, Chairman Wyden. Good to see you,
Senator Risch.
I appreciate the opportunity to provide Trout Unlimited's
views on managing public forests in response to climate change.
Public lands are crucial sources of drinking water for more
than 60 million Americans. They provide vital habitat for fish
and wildlife, and a host of other social and economic benefits.
These lands can play a key role in preparing natural resources
and human communities for the impacts of climate change.
Others here today, and my written testimony, cover how
climate change is likely to impact our national forests, with
an emphasis on coldwater fisheries, which is our bias at Trout
Unlimited. I'd like to spend my time describing a policy
framework within which these problems can be solved if we act
quickly.
A healthy watershed performs three basic functions. It
catches, stores, and releases water over time. Healthy
watersheds are better equipped to withstand the predicted
effects of climate change--the more intense fires, the
prolonged drought, the more intense floods that we're
anticipating. The problem is that many of our lands and waters
are already under stress. Climate change adaptation may be most
simply defined as repairing the damage and helping the land to
recover its natural resiliency.
Former Forest Service employee Alda Leopold once described
the oldest challenge in human history as to live on a piece of
land without spoiling it. Leopold's challenge became a
motivation for the wilderness movement and a host of other
environmental activity over the past 25 years. The effects of
climate change challenge traditional methods of land
protection, as fires, floods, and droughts won't stop at
wilderness borders.
The Forest Service and the BLM should develop integrated
landscape-level strategies to protect, reconnect, and restore
resilient watersheds for the benefit of human communities and
natural resources.
First, we must protect the highest quality lands and
waters. In a warming climate, national forests, particularly
roadless areas, are thermal refuges. Protecting these lands
protects fish and wildlife, maintains groundwater recharge, and
reduces the costs of filtering and treating water for
communities downstream.
Second, we must reconnect landscapes. Because it is not
enough to manage protected lands as museum pieces, we must
reconnect them, both upstream and downstream. Protecting
instream flows in important wildlife corridors and allowing
rivers to access their flood plains will recharge aquifers,
minimize the potential for downstream flooding, and improve
soil productivity for farmers and ranchers.
Third, we must engage communities in restoration. Restoring
the ability of watersheds to withstand the effects of climate
change is essential. Thinning bug-killed forests near
communities, for example, has been mentioned, can generate
biomass and protect communities from fire, while also securing
high-paying family wage jobs.
This model of protecting, reconnecting, and restoring
landscape and watershed health should be used to guide
development of the Forest Service's proposed planning rules. It
should provide the rationale for protection of roadless areas.
It should drive the thoughtful siting of transmission lines for
renewable energy, and reform of outdated oil and gas
regulations. It should influence implementation of farm-bill
conservation programs on privately owned forests.
I'd like to close with an example of how this approach can
work. In 2009, thanks to your leadership, Mr. Chairman, 15,000
acres of the headwaters of the Elk River in southwestern
Oregon, with some of the finest salmon and steelhead runs in
the Lower 48, was designated as wilderness. However, more than
a mile of outstanding habitat in Blackberry Creek, a tributary
to the Elk, is blocked by an impassable culvert. Inadequate
funding has prevented the Forest Service from replacing that
culvert. Plugged culverts are a ticking timebomb across the
national forest system right now. They must be repaired.
Funding this type of work is vital. Dedicating 5 percent of
the total allowance values of revenues under climate change
legislation to the type of natural resource adaptation work I
just described is essential. The actions described above are
not inexpensive, but they also create jobs and have a very high
likelihood of success. The time to act is now. Public forests
are national treasures that are irreplaceable in our lifetime.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wood follows:]
Prepared Statement of Christopher A. Wood, Chief Operating Officer,
Trout Unlimited, Arlington, VA
Chairman Wyden and members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before you today to provide my views as Chief
Operating Officer for Trout Unlimited (TU) on managing public lands in
response to climate change. Prior to working for TU, I served as the
senior policy and communications advisor to the Chief of the US Forest
Service, and on the fish and wildlife and ecosystem management staffs
for the Bureau of Land Management.
Public lands are crucial sources of drinking water for well more
than 60 million Americans. They provide habitat for fish and wildlife
species of substantial economic, ecological, and spiritual value.
Public lands also provide wood fiber, energy resources, and other
commodities that help to fuel our nation. These lands can also play a
key role in preparing natural resources and human communities for the
impacts of climate change. I appreciate your concern in addressing this
issue in a timely manner.
Trout Unlimited is dedicated to the protection and restoration of
our nation's trout and salmon resources and the watersheds that sustain
them. TU has more than 140,000 members in 400 chapters across the
United States. Our members generally are trout and salmon anglers who
give back to the waters they love by contributing substantial amounts
of their personal time and resources to fisheries habitat protection
and restoration. The average TU chapter, for example, donates 1,300
hours of volunteer time on an annual basis.
In my testimony today, I would like to focus on three major points.
First, I will briefly describe how climate change is likely to
impact our National Forests and public lands. These impacts already are
being felt across the country and will become more pronounced and
severe in coming years.
Second, I will describe how these impacts are likely to affect
natural resources and the people and nearby communities that use these
resources. It is important to recognize that a broad spectrum of user
groups will be impacted and that the risks are not just restricted to
fish, wildlife, rivers, and forests.
Third, I will describe a policy framework within which these
problems can be solved--if we act quickly, and in concert. I will
provide specific examples of what needs to be done and how to do it. If
we fail to act, costs will be considerable and our National Forests and
other public lands will be irreparably harmed.
impacts of climate change on national forests and public lands
The effects of a changing climate are already being felt on public
lands in the form of intense wildfires, drought, proliferation of
invasive species, and earlier spring runoff. As climate change
continues, it is likely to alter weather patterns and storm events
across the United States dramatically with significant negative
consequences for National Forests and other public lands. A general
warming pattern will result in increased evaporation rates and drying
of forest and grassland vegetation. These effects will increase
wildfire intensity and frequency, especially at mid-elevations. In
turn, as we are now seeing throughout the Rocky Mountain West, these
changes will spark surges in forest pest species and invasive weeds,
triggering a cascade of further alterations in natural ecosystems.
River flows and hydrologic regimes also will be altered, with
consequences not only to fisheries but also to water supplies in
general. More winter precipitation will fall in the form of rain than
snow, especially at lower and mid-elevations. This will reduce snowpack
and increase the probability of rain-on-snow events, likely resulting
in increased winter flooding. With more rain during winter and reduced
snowpack, peak stream flows will occur earlier in the spring and low or
base flows during summer and autumn will be reduced. Stream flows will
be less consistent from year to year.
Overall, storm intensities will be greater. Floods, drought, and
wildfires are all likely to increase. The increased variability and
longer duration of wet cycles and dry cycles will cause considerable
additional stress to natural ecosystems.
In all cases, impacts of climate change on federal lands must be
viewed within the existing management context and conditions of natural
systems. Watersheds, riparian systems, and streams that are in better
condition will be more resistant to disturbance and more likely to
rebound quickly. On the other hand, habitats that are degraded and
fragmented will be less able to adapt to climate change risks.
natural resources, user groups, and communities will be substantially
impacted
Trout Unlimited and our members are especially concerned about the
impacts of climate change on coldwater fishes and the habitats that
support them. We also are concerned about impacts to the recreational
pursuits, such as fishing, hunting, camping, and nature watching, for
which our public lands are well known. However, we also realize that
the impacts from climate change will be felt far more broadly.
The affects of climate change on federal lands is likely to
negatively impact many natural resources, user groups, and communities,
creating problems for:
Drinking water supplies--both quantity and quality
Fisheries
Wildlife
Overall biological diversity
Outdoor recreational opportunities
Livestock grazing, timber harvest, and other resource
extraction
Agriculture
The safety and economic well-being of nearby communities
In short, a very broad range of species, people, and communities
will be under increasing risk unless we take immediate proactive
management actions to prepare. The costs of failing to adequately plan
and prepare will be high, and will be measured in substantial economic
costs to fight large wildfires, deal with multi-year droughts, and
repair damage from broad scale floods, and possibly in increased injury
and loss of life.
While it is critically important that we reduce carbon emissions in
order to stave off the worst future affects of climate change, we must
also realize that climate-driven disturbances will be felt on our
national forests and public lands for decades to come. It equally is
important to realize that we can moderate the impacts of these changes
and reduce stress on our natural resources and adjacent human
communities.
responding to climate change
Federal climate change legislation that takes five percent of the
total allowance value from a cap and trade program and dedicates it for
climate change adaptation work is vital.
It is, however, well within the existing mandates of agencies such
as the Forest Service and the BLM to develop climate change adaptation
strategies to protect, reconnect, and restore resilient landscapes for
the benefit of human communities and natural resources. The statutory
authority to protect watersheds, flows, and water resources is well
spelled out in the Organic Act of 1897, the Multiple Use Sustained
Yield Act, the National Forest Management Act, the Federal Lands Policy
and Management Act, and other federal land statutes. In fact, one could
argue that not making the recovery of healthier, more productive, and
more resilient landscapes a central focus of federal land management
would place federal agencies in violation of their organic or governing
federal statutes.
Federal land management agencies should not wait for the passage of
climate change legislation to implement strategies to recover the
resilience of lands and waters. Here's what the Forest Service, and
other federal land managers, can do to lead on climate change
adaptation (see graphic below).*
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* Graphic has been retained in subcommittee files.
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First, protect the highest quality lands and waters. In a warming
climate, national forests, and particularly roadless areas, are thermal
refuges. Protecting these lands protects fish and wildlife, maintains
groundwater recharge, removes carbon dioxide from our atmosphere, and
also reduces the costs of filtering and treating water for downstream
communities. Private ranch-lands also harbor important big game
habitats, many of which are threatened by development. The departments
of Agriculture and Interior should work with landowners and provide
incentives to those who help conserve highvalue lands.
Second, reconnect landscapes. If fish and wildlife habitats are
fragmented, the species they support they won't survive floods, fire
and drought predicted to increase with climate change. Identifying and
protecting important wildlife corridors on public lands and allowing
rivers to access floodplains are not only good for fish and wildlife;
it's good for human communities. A healthy landscape will recharge and
replenish underground aquifers that supply municipal drinking water,
minimize the potential for downstream flooding, filter pollutants and
improve soil productivity for farmers and ranchers.
Third, engage communities in restoration. Recovering the ability of
our lands to withstand the effects of climate change is essential.
Reconnecting people, children and communities to the landscapes that
provide their food, energy resources, and recreation opportunities is
important to our nation's well being. Restoration activities such as
tree planting, trail maintenance, and river clean-ups improve
ecological resiliency and bind us to the lands and waters that sustain
us.
This model of protecting, reconnecting, and restoring landscape
health should be applied through the Forest Service's proposed new
planning rules. They should, for example, 1) protect the highest
quality habitats and highest quality sources of water; 2) ensure that
land management activities do not impede wildlife migration corridors,
degrade streamside areas, and disrupt natural processes; and 3)
emphasize the restoration of degraded landscapes where restoration
activities will yield the highest return.
Protecting, reconnecting, and restoring landscapes describe the
biological imperative of climate change adaptation. The social
imperative is to sustain these efforts over time. The greatest threat
to National Forests and other public lands may lie in public ignorance
of their extraordinary values and a generation of children more
connected to video games and computers than they are to the lands and
waters that sustain them. Investing in youth education and getting kids
out of doors is vital to building tomorrow's constituency for
conservation.
Watersheds that are in better condition are more able to withstand
disturbances, or if disturbed, are more resilient to damage from the
disturbances. Areas that may be especially important to protect include
roadless areas, and other unroaded lands, habitat currently acting as
native population strongholds, and areas of watersheds that produce
high quality supplies of cold water.
The economic benefits to our communities of a Forest Service and
other federal agency agenda that stresses climate change adaptation
cannot be overstated. Benefits include high-wage jobs in rural areas
that most need them. Reducing hazardous fuels within our forests will
also reduce the cost of fire fighting and make communities safer. Cut
trees and brush also could be utilized as biomass, offsetting demand
for oil and gas.
Coordination is important. The White House should issue guidance to
provide the federal agencies with a policy framework that defines how
protecting, reconnecting, and restoring landscapes will be coordinated
with state and federal agencies and interested private partners. Such
an integrated and landscape scale approach to conservation will ensure
that fish and wildlife resources and human communities can cope with a
changing climate. Connecting public land efforts with associated
private lands will also be essential. For example, incentives should be
given to private landowners participating in Farm Bill conservation
programs with projects that protect, reconnect, or restore watershed
health and function.
Below are specific areas that the Forest Service and other federal
agencies should emphasize in managing for healthier, more resilient
lands and waters.
Water resources and water quantity.--To help protect water
supplies and maintain stream flows, the Forest Service and BLM
should emphasize the restoration of high elevation wet meadows,
wetlands, riparian areas, and floodplains. These habitats act
as natural hydrologic sponges that slow water discharge and
recharge groundwater aquifers, which in turn increases dry-
season stream flows. The proper function of these habitats will
be increasingly important as snowpacks diminish.
Water quality.--To protect water quality, agencies should
designate adequately sized streamside--riparian--buffer zones
and adopt management standards that emphasize aquatic system
protection. These riparian zones should be large enough not
only to provide shade to streams, but also to buffer from
upslope erosion and allow fallen trees to enter the stream
channel providing the complex stream habitat critical to
aquatic species. As stated earlier, protecting water quality in
headwater streams such as roadless areas serves to diminish
downstream drinking water filtration and treatment costs.
Agencies also should protect landslide prone areas. Inadequate
protection of these areas will increase siltation and erosion,
which will degrade stream systems, water supplies, and
fisheries.
Flooding.--To help guard against flood damage, agencies
should reconnect rivers to their floodplains. That is, rivers
should not be confined into narrow channels but rather allowed
access to broader floodplains. We also should seek to restore
floodplains and streamside vegetation. These measures transfer
flood energies into well-vegetated floodplain zones while
dissipating flows and protecting soils from erosion. In
addition, federal agencies should improve culverts and other
stream/road crossings, and decommission poorly maintained or
poorly designed roads. Inadequately sized or designed culverts
and poorly maintained road/stream crossings act like time bombs
that will plug up then blow out during intense storms causing
massive landslides and debris flows. Severe flooding has
substantial consequences not only to fisheries and wildlife,
but also to downstream communities and recreation
opportunities.
Invasive species.--Weedy and invasive species are more likely
to flourish in degraded habitats and to be favored during
highly fluctuating environmental conditions. Some invasive
species will spread more quickly during warming trends and will
cause greater harm and be more expensive to control if left
untreated. To better manage invasive species, we should become
more aggressive in programs to detect new species invasions and
in programs to control established exotic species--both
terrestrial invasive weeds and aquatic non-native species.
Biodiversity.--To prevent the loss of plant and animal
diversity, lands and waters should be managed to provide
adequate habitat to support native species. Agencies should
manage to protect genetic diversity, including weak stocks and
peripheral populations. High levels of genetic, life history,
and ecological diversity will be necessary for species to adapt
to rapid environmental change.
Wildfire.--Wildfires are increasing in western forests
because of reduced snowpack and earlier vegetative drying
during summer. To deal with more frequent and intense
wildfires, agencies should selectively thin forests, primarily
in wildland-urban interface zones and plantations. To prepare
aquatic systems, we also should improve road networks and
stream crossings, restore up-and downstream connectivity, and
recover degraded riparian areas. Finally, we should adopt
strong post-fire logging standards that protect soils and
stream systems while providing for adequate recruitment of
large wood to streams. These actions will result in less
wildfire damage and decreased erosion and stream sedimentation.
Riparian habitats, old growth and mature forests, and unroaded
areas should be protected as well because these are the most
fire resistant habitats.
The Elk River watershed along the Oregon coast offers an example of
how protection of intact habitat and reconnection of migration routes
can help improve the resiliency of a watershed in the face of climate
change. In 2009, thanks to your leadership, Mr. Chairman, the 15,000
acre Copper-Salmon area in the Elk River headwaters was designated as
wilderness. This will help maintain water quality and intact spawning
habitat for one of the healthiest salmon, trout and steelhead rivers in
the lower 48.
Intact headwaters help moderate streamflow, maintain water quality,
and keep water temperatures cool, which is particularly important to
coldwater species such as trout and salmon. Downstream of the Copper-
Salmon area, trout and salmon access to Elk River tributaries is
limited by impassible culverts. One such culvert is on Blackberry
Creek. It restricts access to more than a mile of upstream spawning and
rearing habitat for steelhead and Chinook and coho salmon. Furthermore,
the headwaters of Blackberry Creek, like most streams, are cooler in
the summer than the downstream reaches. The ability of trout and salmon
to access these cooler upstream waters can be of critical importance
during the summer. To date, the Forest Service has not been able to
replace the Blackberry Creek culvert due to inadequate funding. Similar
barriers to fish passage exist across the National Forest system and
must be addressed in order to improve the resilience of coldwater fish
populations in the face of climate change.
Implementing the actions needed to enable fish, wildlife and human
communities to adapt to changes in climate will require a substantial
and reliable stream of funding. Dedicating a portion of allowance
revenue under climate change legislation to natural resources
adaptation can provide funding for the type of work described above. It
is our hope that five percent of the total allowance value will be
dedicated to natural resources adaptation through climate legislation.
Furthermore, funding must be dedicated and not subject to annual
appropriations in order to enable long-term planning. Both S. 1733 and
S. 1933 include dedicated funding.
conclusion
The actions described herein have a considerable price, but they
also have broad benefits not only to maintaining biological diversity,
but to sustaining the ecological services critical to meeting the needs
of recreationists, ranchers, and other user groups, and to ensuring the
well-being of nearby communities. The actions described are very low
risk steps that have a very high likelihood of substantial benefit to
multiple parties. Many create jobs as well.
In the end it is important that we ask ourselves: What is the cost
of inaction? What will it cost to repair damage to our National Forests
and public lands? What will it cost in private property loss and public
safety? It is less costly and more beneficial to address these concerns
in the near-term than it would be to wait until increased climate
change driven disasters befall our lands and nearby communities. The
time to act is now. Our National Forests, National Grasslands, and BLM
public lands are national treasures that are irreplaceable in our
lifetimes.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Wood. That was very helpful.
All 3 of you gave excellent testimony.
Let me start with the topic of thinning. The committee has
had a lot of hearings on the role of thinning for fuels
reduction and ecological restoration, so we have talked at
considerable length about where and when thinning makes sense
from the standpoint of reducing wildfire, dealing with
ecosystem protection. But, I think it would be helpful to get
on the record what you think about thinning as it relates to
carbon sequestration. This is an area that we haven't spent a
lot of time on. Why don't we just kind of go down the row, ask
each one of you when you think thinning makes sense, from a
carbon sequestration standpoint, and also, as part of the
question, your idea of how big a role carbon sequestration can
play as part of the solution.
Begin with you, Dr. Law.
Ms. Law. OK. Thinning--the fuels that carry fire are the
fuels that are--there's the continuity in the amount on the
ground and it's the fuel ladders that get the fires up into the
crowns. So, it has to be strategic within an area. Dry areas
are more prone to wildfire. They were, historically burned
infrequently--well, frequently, maybe every 12 to 20 or 30
years, and they had less fuel buildup.
When you're talking about carbon sequestration, it's--that
kind of removal, if you don't know really know where the fires
might occur, you're going to be removing more wood than will
actually burn, because you're trying to guess where that's
going to occur. So, you're definitely removing wood. If it goes
up to merchantable wood, that's definitely reducing carbon
sequestration.
So, it would be--when I talked about being strategic, it
behooves us to be very strategic on knowing what areas are
going to go up in smoke.
Again, the--what burns is primarily the small materials.
We've found, on several fires that we've worked on, less than 1
to 5 percent of the bold mass is actually burned, is charred,
and that char is long-term carbon sequestration.
Senator Wyden. How big a role? How big a role can carbon
sequestration, in your view, play as part of a solution to the
climate change challenge?
Ms. Law. I think it's one of the many tools out there that
makes sense to use. We're talking about, in the short term,
while we change to different energy sources and carbon--less
carbon-based energy. So, while we have carbon sequestration in
the places that are doing a good job of storing carbon, it
makes sense to keep that up.
This is, again, a short-term bridge until we get things in
place to change our fossil fuel emissions, the amount of carbon
that's going into the atmosphere.
The number that was asked about earlier--the U.S. Carbon-
Cycle Science Program wrote a report on the state of the carbon
cycle for North America, and I was a coauthor on that report.
Our estimates were around 16 percent for the total land-based
sink as being about 16 percent of the equivalent of fossil fuel
emissions for the country.
Senator Wyden. You were one of the authors, so you stand
beside that, 16----
Ms. Law. That's the best we can do right now.
Senator Wyden. That's a significant role.
Ms. Law. Yes.
Senator Wyden. OK.
Dr. Oneil, same question. What do you think about when you
believe thinning will make sense, from a carbon sequestration
standpoint, and your, kind of, ballpark estimate of how big a
role carbon sequestration can play in climate change solutions.
Ms. Oneil. My perception of this is a little bit more
expansive that Dr. Law's, in that I think, on these dry
forests, we should--we could actually be expanding our thinning
between four to five times what we're currently doing on
national forests.
I recently worked on a project for one of my--one of the
organizations I work for, Coram, and we looked at the Inland
West--portions of the Inland West, where we still had active
harvesting operations going on, and we had active mills going
on in that region. So, we looked at how much the current
harvest--of the current harvest came from public lands and how
much came from private lands under a base case. Then, we also
looked at how much could potentially come off of national
forestlands if we thinned the forests that were considered--
historically, would have considered low-and moderate-severity
fire regime. That just means the forests that would have
typically burned every 10 to 15 years, or perhaps burned in a
mosaic in a--maybe, a 30-year--over every 30 years. So, these
are the forests that are currently at the highest risk of being
burned in some kind of a wildfire. So, we looked at that and
said, on these forests, given the amount of area and the
current amount of volume, based on FIA data--so, national
census data--we could increase the removals from four to five
times what we're currently doing now.
Now, those estimates were based on essentially thinning
from below to a target density, which was--which is currently
accepted in most national forest plans. So, that's a fairly
substantial increase in the amount of volume we could be--that
could be removed.
Then, when we think about carbon sequestration potential
and carbon storage potential, you have to look at your
landscape, in terms of, Where is your high risk for storage? I
mean, all forests will sequester the forests in the west side.
Wet forests, they sequester a lot more than the dry forests.
They also can store it a lot longer, because they don't have to
deal with these kinds of disturbance events.
So, in terms of broadening the perspective or--broadening
the boundary conditions, as it were, our work suggests that if
you remove these products and turn them into long-lived wood
products, augmenting the manufacturing emissions with carbon-
neutral biofuel, you can actually do almost as good or better
than if you leave that stuff in the forest, where it has a high
risk of burning.
Senator Wyden. All right. Anything else, in terms of the
potential ballpark question, that we ought to know?
Ms. Oneil. The potential ball--I don't have a number, as
Dr. Law did, but one of the things that--one of the numbers
that is tossed around is that we have 20 billion board feet of
growth in the national forests, and about 8 billion board feet
of mortality, and 2 billion board feet of removals in a
particular year. So, that means that, on average, if we're--if
our growth is twice--or, basically half of it is lost to
mortality and removals, that would suggest that it looks like a
carbon--it's still a carbon sink, we're still doing a good job
there. But, those numbers, if you look at specific regions--
like, we looked at Washington State--eastern Washington--as
part of a 2007 timber supply analysis, and the FIA numbers
there said that, well, half of the material in national
forestlands--half of the growth was offset by mortality in
other regions. That was before we had these big mountain pine
beetle outbreaks starting, in 2000, where between 2000 and 2004
we lost 9 million trees just on national forestlands.
So, the question there, in my mind, is a little bit fuzzier
as to whether or not we're still being a carbon source or a
carbon sink in that particular region. But, that's specific to
that region.
Senator Wyden. OK.
Mr. Wood, let's hear your thoughts on carbon sequestration,
from the--excuse me--thinning, from the standpoint of carbon
sequestration, and then your estimates, in terms of the
ballpark.
Mr. Wood. I'm afraid I'm a little bit outgunned, in terms
of the estimates for the ballpark, so I probably won't----
Senator Wyden. All right.
Mr. Wood [continuing]. Won't go there, with your leave.
I think, as Tom Tidwell--as Chief Tidwell was suggesting,
it's difficult to segregate out what the--approaches that the
Forest Service might employ, climate change mitigation
strategies, and climate change adaptation strategies, because
they can have complementary benefits. You might thin directly
adjacent to a community, specifically to protect that
community, which has an adaptation benefit, but you can then
utilize the biomass, as you were suggesting, sir, and offset
your oil and gas demand, which would have a mitigation benefit.
I will say, though, that, as a matter of priority, the
strong emphasis for thinning likely should be around human
communities, what people sometimes refer to as the wildland/
urban interface, because our first priority has to keep
people--has to be to keep people safe.
As a general statement, I clearly think, and Trout
Unlimited supports, the thinning of overdense, overgrown stands
that have missed fire-return intervals, where thinning can be
used to help recover forest vigor.
Two other points that are far less technical than my
colleagues, here, referred to. I think, one, it's a question of
funding, the Forest Service having the necessary resources to
do the kind of thinning they need to do.
Then, second--and this is perhaps a softer, more of a
social science issue--and I wanted to commend Senator Risch,
when he was here earlier--getting people to the table, a
diversity of interests to the table to talk about appropriate
kinds of thinning, recognizing that everyone wants forests to
remain healthy, makes a big difference in the completion of
successful projects. Senator Risch was intimately involved in
the development of the Idaho roadless rule, which I think was
heavily influenced by a diversity of interests that was brought
together by the previous administration that helped guide and
inform that rule. I think that--there's probably some lessons
there for the Forest Service, in terms of if they're going to
take a more expansive approach to thinning.
Senator Wyden. OK.
Let's go to the question of offsets, beginning with you,
Dr. Law. What's your assessment about including Federal lands
in a cap-and-trade offsets program? What are some of the policy
questions that have to be looked at?
Ms. Law. I suppose that--I mean, it's up to you what you
decide to do on this, but there--I guess the only concern I
might have is if there is so much emphasis on revenue that it
takes us away from the ultimate goal of sustaining ecosystem
function. So, I think that's my main concern about that idea.
I think the idea of additionalities was based on, Would you
do things--are you doing things differently than you had been
before, on business as usual? If the Federal lands are to be
managed in the public interest of carbon sequestration, and
that's saying we are managing for the way we would have
managed--in other words, we might not qualify for
additionality. That would need to be sorted out, too.
Senator Wyden. What would be some examples? Because this
question of an additional contribution--I've always try to
explain it in English, and every time I've used the word
``additionality,'' everybody just kind of falls asleep, because
I'm trying to get a sense of what is really going--what would
be some examples, in your view, of an additional contribution
that would warrant it?
Ms. Law. I suppose it would be those who have managed lands
before very actively--say, having a harvest cycle of 40, 50
years for a forest that could live to 600 years, and they've
been doing that for a long time, and then they change their
practices to allow carbon to accumulate there. That's a form of
additionality.
Senator Wyden. That's too logical for government.
[Laughter.]
Senator Wyden. But, I mean, that's what we're going to be
looking for, and I'm sure that's going to be the test, so I'm
going to want to have some further discussions with you on it.
Same point, Dr. Oneil, the question of including Federal
lands in cap-and-trade offset program. What are some of the
policy issues for this committee and the Senate?
Ms. Oneil. I think if we're looking at baselands
additionality, we also have to think about permanence and
leakage. Right now national forests, at least the--for the
areas that I've looked at--are carrying a lot of volume and,
therefore, a lot of carbon. They look really good, in terms of
their baseline. So, how do you improve on that while you're
facing these catastrophic fires and these mountain pine beetle
epidemics would suggest that your baseline is going to be
higher than you might actually be able to accomplish in--when
you're addressing permanence.
So, that is--that's going to be a difficult thing to work
around, in terms of a cap-and-trade. But, I think, in the
broader context, Should we treat national forestlands
differently than we do other lands, in terms of accounting for
the carbon benefit that can accrue for them?--I think we should
treat them similarly. Obviously, with different--you're going
to have to apply different kinds of standards, but you're still
going to have to meet your baseline, your--define your
baseline. Do you define your baseline net of all the expected
mortality? Do you define your baseline as what's currently
occurring, and then, if you increase your treatments to reduce
fire risk, is that counted as a--additional to the baseline, or
is it counted as a reduction from the baseline?
So, it's very complicated when you're looking at these
Inland West forests. I'll have to think about it a little bit
more, in terms of what else I could offer there.
Senator Wyden. OK.
Mr. Wood.
Mr. Wood. I would only offer that the overriding objective,
the goal, has to be to restore healthy, diverse, and more
resilient forests. If you can manage carbon as a byproduct of
achieving that ultimate goal, I think, as the Forest Service
testimony suggested, that's a good and logical thing. I think
we should be, given the enormous backlog, due to bugkill, due
to fires, due to hurricanes and other natural disasters, that
we have on replanting on the national forest system, you know,
we should be open to good, creative ideas for incentivizing
that work. I think the way the National Forest Foundation,
which had a little--I think it was a pilot program, started in
2007--handled this question of additionality, which, honestly,
was not a term I had heard of until the other day--was that,
they defined that as work that wouldn't otherwise be done by
appropriated dollars.
Senator Wyden. Said. If I wasn't having to chase healthcare
and a couple of other crises this afternoon, I would ask,
particularly you, Dr. Oneil and Dr. Law, about full carbon
accounting, because I know you both have written on this. We'll
save that for the next time.
I will give you all the last word. Anything you'd like to
add, Dr. Law, Dr. Oneil, Mr. Wood?
Ms. Law. I can't think of anything.
Senator Wyden. Very good.
Ms. Oneil. On this topic of full carbon accounting, what we
have found is that when you start to account for the forest and
the ability to maintain the productivity of the forest through
time, whether or not you're harvesting it, you're--basically,
your resource is your soil. You want to maintain your soil
productivity. You can remove the crop and grow another one, and
you're still continuing to sequester carbon at a relatively
high rate. You're not storing it there, you're--in this case,
you're using the forest as a carbon pump, and, instead, you're
taking your products and you're storing it as solid wood
products, like you see in this room. You're using the biomass--
the pieces of the log that are not used for solid wood
products, you're using as biomass to offset fossil fuels. There
is the opportunity to remove some of the material--not all the
material, but some of the material that is currently left
behind because it doesn't have a market--to supplement or to
try to reach some of our goals, in order to renewable fuels and
renewable energy.
What you find, if you consider those benefits in addition
to comparisons between using wood as a building product, as
opposed to some other fossil-intensive material, that you can
actually have a substantial carbon benefit, above and beyond
the forest, by using it as a carbon pump, as opposed to a
carbon storage unit.
Now, that's an opportunity--the Inland West forests--we
could take advantage of in the inland west forests, because
they are at such high risk when you have very large amounts of
wood left in the woods.
Senator Wyden. Mr. Wood, you're not compelled to say
anything, but you're welcome to have the last word.
Mr. Wood. All I'll say is, thank you, Senator, for holding
this hearing. It's particularly important to TU and its
members, as research has demonstrated or indicated that up to
40 percent of salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest could
be lost by 2050 due to climate change.
I also want to take a moment just to thank you for your
leadership on the--and your staff's leadership--for the--for
passing that copper salmon wilderness bill.
Senator Wyden. Thanks, to all three of you. We're going to
be calling on you often.
With that, the subcommittee's adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIXES
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Appendix I
Responses to Additional Questions
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Responses of Kit Batten to Questions From Senator Wyden
Question 1. My understanding is that both the Forest Service and
Department of the Interior have explored marketing tree-planting
projects to generate funds from private sources based on the trees'
ability to sequester carbon. Do you have any regulations or formal
policies on those projects or on participating in existing carbon
markets in general? If so, please cite them.
Answer. There has been discussion within the Department of the
Interior about the ability of our land managing bureaus to sequester
carbon on the lands managed under their jurisdiction. However, much of
the discussion has taken place within the context of existing
authorities. For example, National Park Service laws and policies
require NPS to maintain naturally functioning ecosystems, which often
provide a range of services, including but not limited to biological
carbon sequestration. The Southeast Region of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service has for the past 12 years been building a program of
carbon sequestration projects funded through partnerships with energy
companies, land trusts, and conservation organizations, to bolster the
bureau's conservation goals.
Question 2. Across the country, there are countless examples of
fish and wildlife adaptation projects that have benefitted both the
ecosystem and the surrounding community. For example, when headwaters
are protected, drinking water filtration costs are reduced and rivers
get reconnected to floodplains. Do you prioritize adaptation projects
based on the ecosystem services they render or have the potential to
render?
Answer. Among the Department's land managing bureaus,
prioritization of adaptation projects is carried out based on the
specific authorities that the bureaus operate under. Ecosystem services
are one of many determinants of habitat conservation, restoration, and/
or adaptation priorities. Likewise, adaptation, restoration, and
conservation projects provide both direct and indirect benefits for a
multitude of ecosystem services, including, but not limited to: fish
and wildlife habitat, clean water, pollinator services, biodiversity,
biological carbon sequestration, recreation, and many more.
For example, the FWS undertakes specific adaptation actions through
a variety of programs, including land acquisition through the National
Wildlife Refuge System, habitat restoration through the Partners for
Fish and Wildlife Program, and stream restoration through the National
Fish Passage Program. Within each of these programs, conservations
actions are prioritized based on the significance of their contribution
to the conservation of target species or habitats, cost-effectiveness,
and other considerations that are outlined in program guidance
documents and strategic plans, which can include important ecosystem
services including, but not necessarily limited to, the provision of
fish and wildlife habitat and/or biodiversity. Habitat conservation
priorities are increasingly being developed in a landscape context,
through application of our Strategic Habitat Conservation framework.
The Bureau of Land Management has a long history of prioritizing
projects that improve land health and ecosystem resilience and
contribute to achieving multiple beneficial ecosystem objectives across
all land ownerships. In addition, BLM has initiated a process for
conducting eco-regional assessments to identify and develop adaptation
projects and strategies. Finally, NPS policies guide the determination
of what sorts of resource intervention actions are undertaken in parks
and most adaptation projects to date have been for ecosystem
restoration.
Responses of Kit Batten to Questions From Senator Bingaman
Question 1. Your testimony mentioned that USGS expects to complete
the methodology for conducting the carbon sequestration assessments
required by the 2007 Energy Bill next year. Can you clarify whether
both the geologic sequestration methodology under section 711 and the
ecosystem methodology under section 712 are expected to be completed
next year? When do you expect the assessments themselves to be
completed under both sections?
Answer. The process of developing a methodology for a national
assessment of biologic carbon dioxide sequestration resources was begun
in FY 2009 and should be completed in 2010. The methodology to assess
geologic resources for geological carbon dioxide sequestration was
completed in March 2009 and the U.S. Geological Survey is planning to
carry out the assessment during this fiscal year (2010).
Question 2. Managing forests for adaptation and carbon
sequestration can be complimentary--for example, through forests
ecosystem restoration projects. But, in other cases, managing to
maximize sequestration may be counterproductive from an adaptation
standpoint, and vice versa. Can you explain what your current policies
are for addressing the latter situation--where managing to maximize
adaptation and sequestration are competing goals?
Answer. In those instances where this tension exists--competition
between managing to maximize for adaptation or sequestration
activities--it is important to note that the Department and its bureaus
must carry out those mission-related functions that are required by
statute. For example, the National Park Service is required to manage
our national parks to prevent impairment of park resources and values.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is required to manage our national
wildlife refuges to fulfill the mission of the Refuge System, the
purposes for which the individual refuges were established, and for any
wildlife dependent recreational uses that are compatible with that
mission and those purposes.
Response of Kit Batten to Question From Senator Murkowski
Question 1. In early 2001, it was reported that several Fish and
Wildlife Service and Forest Service employees planted the hair of a
Lynx from a game park on scratch posts in Washington State that were
designed to check for the presence of Lynx in the area. As a result
both the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior were forced to
develop a code of professional ethics for their employees. Was this the
type of sound science that the Secretary is suggesting be used?
Answer. Secretary Salazar has made clear his expectation that
science-based decision-making will to be conducted with scientific
integrity, in an atmosphere of openness and under the highest ethical
standards, and without political interference. Science should be used
as a tool for crafting smart natural resources policies, and tampering
with science will not be tolerated.
Responses of Kit Batten to Questions From Senator Barrasso
Question 1. Dr. Batten, at the hearing, I raised my concerns about
Secretarial Order 3289, which injects climate change into Department of
the Interior decision-making. In response, you highlighted Secretary
Salazar's responsibilities for land and resources management, and
stated that ``as a result, all of those land management decisions,
resource management decisions, we need to considering climate change as
the driving force in making decisions as how best to protect those
resources and those lands for our communities.'' How can the Secretary
of Interior make climate change the driving force in land management
decisions above all others through a Secretarial Order, without any
Congressional approval or authorization?
Answer. The Department and its bureaus must carry out those
mission-related functions that are required by statute, and such
required statutory obligations cannot be waived by Secretarial Order.
To the contrary, Secretarial Order 3289 establishes, working within the
context of existing bureau and Departmental authority, a framework
through which Interior bureaus will coordinate climate change science
and resource management strategies. Section 6 of the Order specifically
notes that the document does not alter or effect any existing duty or
authority of individual bureaus. Given the unprecedented scope of
climate change impacts, Secretary Salazar believes it is simply good
management for scientists, land managers, and policy makers at all
levels of government to work together with landowners to understand
climate change impacts and develop landscape-level strategies for
responding to those impacts.
Question 2. Dr. Batten, I asked if Secretarial Order 3289 would
affect existing land management agreements. You stated ``there is
nothing in the Secretarial Order that discusses anything to do with
altering existing agreements or arrangements between the Department of
Interior and any of our partners as a result of this Secretarial
Order.'' When I asked you again, can you assure me no existing land
management agreement will be changed because of the Secretarial climate
change order, you stated ``there is nothing in this Secretarial Order
that addresses any existing agreements.'' Would the Secretarial Order
affect the renewal of any permit for any existing land management
agreement or activity on public lands? Would the Secretarial Order lead
to the changing of any existing land management agreement or activity
through the updating of resource management plans? What current
authorized public land management activities, whether energy extraction
or recreational use, would be impacted by rules or policies promulgated
as a result of Secretarial Order 3289?
Answer. As noted in the response to the previous question,
Secretarial Order 3289 establishes within the context of existing
bureau and Departmental authority a framework through which Interior
bureaus will coordinate climate change science and resource management
strategies. As I noted at the hearing, the Secretarial Order does not
address any existing agreements. While the Order lists several general
examples of actions that the impacts of changing climate could require,
it is premature at this point to speculate results at the very specific
level of detail addressed in this question.
Question 3. Dr. Batten, you are aware that I am concerned about
Secretarial Order 3289, as well as Secretary Salazar's October 30th
response to our letter. In that reply Secretary Salazar indicated that
DOI only wanted to ensure that all bureaus and agencies have access to
sound science and are in a position to respond to climate changes in a
coordinated way. Given the history of some decisions that relied on
questionable science, could you help me better understand who's sound
science the Secretary wants to rely upon?
Answer. Secretary Salazar has made clear his expectation that
science-based decision-making will to be conducted with scientific
integrity, in an atmosphere of openness and under the highest ethical
standards, and without political interference. Science should be used
as a tool for crafting smart natural resources policies, and tampering
with science will not be tolerated.
Question 4. Over the last decade the National Park Service has
worked to close an oyster farm at Point Reyes National Seashore.
Superintendent Don Neubacher and one of his scientists were accused of
relying on science that was unrelated to Point Reyes when justifying
the closure of the Drake's Bay facility. In fact, both the National
Academy of Science and your own department Office of Inspector General
reported on this. Was that the type of sound science that the Secretary
is suggesting be used?
Answer. As noted in response to the previous question, Secretary
Salazar has made clear his expectation that science-based decision-
making will be conducted with scientific integrity, in an atmosphere of
openness and under the highest ethical standards, and without political
interference.
Question 5. In early 2001, it was reported that several Fish and
Wildlife Service and Forest Service employees planted the hair of a
Lynx from a game park on scratch posts in Washington State that were
designed to check for the presence of Lynx in the area. As a result
both the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior were forced to
develop a code of professional ethics for their employees. Was this the
type of sound science that the Secretary is suggesting be used?
Answer. As noted in response to the previous question, Secretary
Salazar has made clear his expectation that science-based decision-
making will to be conducted with scientific integrity, in an atmosphere
of openness and under the highest ethical standards, and without
political interference.
Question 6. I see from your title that you are the Science Advisor
to the Deputy Secretary. Can you help me better understand what
criteria the Department will use to assess just what sound science is
on climate change vs. what is junk science?
Answer. President Obama addressed this issue in his March 2009
memorandum on scientific integrity, which states that ``[w]hen
scientific or technological information is considered in policy
decisions, the information should be subject to well-established
scientific processes, including peer review where appropriate, and each
agency should appropriately and accurately reflect that information in
complying with and applying relevant statutory standards. . . .''
Secretary Salazar has stated that decisions in the Department will be
based on sound science and the public interest.
Question 7. As you well know we currently have hundreds of
thousands of forested acres that have been killed by the Mountain Bark
Beetle in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. I suspect you also know part
of the reason is that the age class distribution of our Lodgepole Pine
stands is completely out of whack. All forest science that I am aware
of would recommend that the Lodgepole Pine should have been harvested
over the last 50 years to have avoided the situation we now are
suffering. But that would have required heavy timber harvesting which
the federal land management agencies have resisted. Given that science
and seeing the result of no action, does the Department of the Interior
now advocate for more clear-cutting of the Lodgepole Pine that has not
yet been killed by the insects?
Answer. Current science recognizes that a combination of warmer
winters over the past decade, drought stress, and a loss of demographic
diversity at the landscape scale have created conditions that are ideal
for a proliferation of bark beetles. As the Department has noted in the
past, no effective treatment for suppression of large-scale pine beetle
outbreaks currently exists, and the Department's two largest land
managing bureaus in the west are approaching this problem in a variety
of ways based upon their missions, policies, laws, and the management
mandates under which they operate. Selective removal of trees is being
carried out in our national parks in order to protect visitor safety,
dependent wildlife, and habitat. However, because commercial timber
sales are not authorized on park service lands much of the beetle-
killed trees will remain standing and, in accordance with the Organic
Act and National Park Service Management Policies, natural recovery of
these areas will be allowed.
The Bureau of Land Management has management jurisdiction over
approximately 800,000 acres of lodgepole pine and has approached this
epidemic by treating, in fiscal year 2009, 9,500 acres to mitigate
impacts of the mountain pine beetle outbreak. The treatments are
focused on protecting high-value areas, such as around communities and
in and near established recreation sites, through placement of
pheromone traps to prevent tree mortality, and reducing the risk of
catastrophic wildfire events by reducing fuels through salvage of dead
and dying trees.
______
Response of Elaine Oneil to Question From Senator Wyden
Question 1. If I understood your testimony, you both agree that a
``full-carbon accounting'' should be employed when considering the
effects of forest management on carbon. But I have the sense that just
about everybody has a different view of what exactly that means in
practice. Is my sense on this accurate and, if so, where does that
leave this Committee in crafting Federal forest management policy? To
give one example, I wonder if the amount of credit to give wood
products for carbon sequestration is widely accepted and how that would
be quantified? Do you have any suggestions for how to standardize full-
carbon accounting?
Answer. There should not be a significant difference in opinion on
what is meant by full carbon accounting but there will be differences
on what the implications are to policy.
Life Cycle Analysis has been accepted for some time as the best way
to characterize full accounting which in this case requires tracking
the carbon in the forest, into product uses (if any), and including how
the uses may displace other uses such as the use of wood materials to
displace steel and concrete or the use of biofuel to displace other
fuels. It also includes issues of changes in land use. International
Standards (ISO 14040 etc) have been designed specifically to provide a
protocol for acceptable use of life cycle inventory and assessment
methods (LCI/LCA).
Most of what might be considered different views are actually
deviations and failed transparency in meeting the standards. But the
standards do leave some room for variation while still requiring full
disclosure. The EISA 2007 passed by Congress requires Life Cycle
Analysis of synthetic fuels to compare the emissions of products like
corn ethanol to common fossil fuels. This LCA requirement exposes the
minimal carbon benefit that comes from corn-ethanol compared to
sugarcane-ethanol or other sources and will help place the use of
biofuels in a full carbon accounting perspective. You can expect that
the carbon benefits for cellulosic ethanol to be much better as
research is underway. This LCA requirement was not extended to the
emissions from construction materials, which have a substantially
larger leverage for reducing carbon emissions than using wood as a
biofuel. Certified green buildings could easily be producing more
emissions than non-certified buildings since there is no science based
protocol for rating them.
The science basis for wood's impact on emissions has been studied
for 15 years by a consortium of 15 research institutions, The
Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials (CORRIM) and
there is peer reviewed life cycle inventory data available on all the
main structural and non-structural wood products (lumber, plywood, OSB,
glulams, LVL, particleboard, MDF, trusses). Oregon State University
provided much of the oversight for the development of these product
LCIs and University of Idaho and the University of Washington were
directly involved in harvesting and forest management impacts. CORRIM
is currently working on LCIs for biofuel collection and processing
which will be available soon. Comparable data for steel, concrete and
other materials have also been collected such that all the inputs and
emission outputs for all commonly used primary products are now
available in the DOE NREL managed US LCI database for primary products.
However differences of opinion can easily arise when applying this
information to policy. For example the tax credit for ethanol
essentially results in the processor being able to steal the feedstock
from other processors to make ethanol even though the other alternative
will likely be reducing carbon emissions more effectively. This is a
counter-productive policy result. The USDA Biomass Crop Assistance
Program (BCAP) makes sawdust and other materials that are used to make
particleboard and MDF eligible for fuel subsidies, which will redirect
the feedstock away from its highest and best use thereby increasing
carbon emissions by requiring other substitute products. If the subsidy
only supported using currently unused feedstock the impact might be
positive, but if so why not use it for its best use, which may or may
not be fuel? There are many such counterproductive policies exposed by
Life Cycle Analysis. The example you use on how much credit to give
wood products cannot be answered and is probably the wrong question.
The carbon mitigation objective is to drive out the use of high carbon
emitting products and processes, which can be done directly by a tax on
fossil emissions. That way the incentive is highest for those uses of
wood that drive out the most fossil emissions. Using wood as a fuel
will get the smallest incentive compared to other uses of wood like
wood I-Joists which displace 9 times as much carbon as burning the wood
for fuel. The market could determine the best efficiency by passing on
the cost of carbon emissions.
Neither cap and trade, which involves millions of different
products that cannot be treated separately, or incentives, which can't
be properly designed for multiple uses, will be as effective as a
carbon tax on emission that can easily be designed for income
neutrality. Many proposed policies appear to be counterproductive but
it is easier to find the flaws than to design a system to avoid them
all. Perhaps the worst forest carbon policy is carbon exchanges that
pay tree farmers to not harvest and save the wood in the forest as this
assures the substitution of other materials, which produce higher
emissions than any savings in forest carbon.
There is a wealth of additional information on full carbon
accounting at the CORRIM website, www.corrim.org.
Responses of Elaine Oneil to Questions From Senator Murkowski
Question 1. Ms. Oneil, in your testimony you said: ``No one wants
to see another `timber war' or extractive industry with little thought
to long term sustainability of the federal lands in their region.''
If you look at the clear cuts that occurred over the last 50 years
and compare that to the amount of dead trees in the Medicine Bow and
Big Horn National Forests that are the result of the Mountain Pine
Beetles, The old clear cuts remain green and I have to ask myself if
harvesting was really that bad.
I know that it seems to be politically incorrect for anyone in
academia to admit that management of our federal forests has been a
good idea. However, what has brought more damage to our forests over
the last two decades in your mind--timber harvesting or the fires and
insect epidemics we are currently suffering?
Answer. It appears that a few clarifying statements about `timber
wars' are in order. In the statement you quoted from my testimony, I am
specifically referring to the discussions we had at the Plum Creek
Conference on Forests and Energy in Missoula Montana in September 2009.
At that conference participants were discussing the opportunities to
create their own economic stimulus by biomass removal to reduce fire
risks and address the mountain pine beetle epidemic. These were people
working at the grassroots level that were sufficiently savvy to want it
all: living wage jobs in the location they called home, but also a
vibrant, healthy forest ecosystem to live near and recreate in. The
fact that they live surrounded by National Forests that are dying and
burning because they can't be cut is seen as a travesty but so is the
idea that we could swing all the way in the opposite direction to
wholesale biomass utilization without regard for other values on the
forests. These concerns highlight how sustainability and management
really have to be approached in the context of scale which is what
dominated the discussions at the forum on biomass utilization. While
there is a sense of urgency to get going on biomass removal operations
before the forests all die and burn around them, there is a need to
evaluate and determine not only how much can we take, but also how much
should we leave. The core theme is the idea that the pendulum had swung
from all out exploitation to essentially complete protection and that
in this new opportunity for biomass to energy we needed to find a
middle ground.
So what is more damaging: timber harvest or insects and disease
infestations? It depends on two things--the scale of the disturbance
and the effort made to ensure long term sustainability of forest
attributes that are hard to replace if lost. If we can harvest in a way
that leaves behind some big logs, snags, and trees as legacies in the
regenerating stand, and most importantly soil conditions conducive to
tree regeneration, then harvest is preferable to losing most of the
soil horizon in a wildfire. While wildfires produce a lot of big logs
and snags as legacies, but they also release tremendous amounts of
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and we have very little control
over their eventual outcome. If maintaining forests as carbon sinks as
well as for other values such as clean water, wildlife habitat and
scenery is important then using harvesting offers much more control
over the process of regeneration and renewal than we can ever expect
from uncontrolled wildfire and insect infestations.
Question 2. Is forestry carbon neutral? In other words, how does
sustainable harvest compare to some hot, destructive wildfires we've
seen recently?
Answer. Forestry is better than carbon neutral. The Consortium for
Research on Renewable Industrial Materials (CORRIM) has conducted life
cycle inventory (LCI) and life cycle analysis (LCA) across 4 US timber
supply regions and BC Canada which links what is happening in the
forest through the milling process, to the use of the product and its
eventual end of life. Results from CORRIM research show that harvesting
wood for long term wood products generates a carbon benefit to the
atmosphere that is better than if the forest is just left to grow, even
if we assume the forest doesn't burn or die from insect infestations.
In effect, using the forest as a carbon pump rather than a carbon
storage site generates the maximum carbon storage gain. As part of the
record I have submitted a 4 page factsheet* that summarizes 13 years
worth of LCI work on this subject of whether forestry is carbon
neutral.
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* CORRIM Fact Sheet has been retained in subcommittee files.
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These carbon neutral results are predicated on management that
protects the resource and the resource is the soil. We cannot expect to
see any kind of sustainability when the soils are losing over \1/
2\their carbon and a large percentage of their nitrogen as well during
a hot wildfire. The sites are compromised as the pictures I showed you
demonstrate and it may take centuries for them to return to their
former carbon storage potential. In other cases it may take very little
time for forest regeneration and soil carbon storage to return to pre-
fire levels if there is limited impact on the soils. For example, after
the Biscuit fire in Oregon, researchers found that 23 metric tons of
carbon/hectare (62.5 US tons/acre) were lost from the soil which is
almost double the estimate of carbon loss for the above ground
vegetation of the 1 million SUV example I provided in the testimony.
That means that the carbon emissions from that single wildfire with the
million SUV impact may have been equivalent to the impact of 3 million
SUV's driven over a 1 year period when we take into account the losses
from below ground as well. That is a substantial impact on our forest
recovery potential, on air quality and atmospheric carbon dioxide, and
on our ability to meet future greenhouse gas targets.
Question 3. Will climate change affect National Forests differently
in different regions of the country and if so, how should we structure
policy to deal with those differences?
Answer. Climate change will definitely impact different regions of
the country differently, and even different areas within a given region
differently. For example in Washington State we looked at climate
impacts for the forest sector as part of the Washington State Climate
Impacts Assessment. Early on we decided to focus on eastern Washington
as that is where all the action is in terms of climate impacts. While
climate impacts may occur in coastal regions, they aren't something we
can model at this time; the corollary is that it is difficult to
recommend any mitigation actions for those regions either. The opposite
case is true in the Inland West (Intermountain, Front Range, Southwest
and eastern Washington) where climate impacts abound including
increased wildfire activity, the 22 million acre mountain pine beetle
outbreak across the west, and forest dieback from drought in the
Southwest. We are anticipating the loss of 1 or more species at the
lower forest margins in Washington State and when you realize that
there are often only 1 or 2 species present, that is the same as saying
we expect a forest dieback there also.
My experience as a field forester is that prescriptive policies
that dictate how many trees to leave, how big a harvest unit should be,
whether a clearcut is permissible or not, and what age, size, or
species can be cut or must be left behind simply do not work. Policies
that lead to these kinds of requirements or specifications in lower
level plans are equally likely to fail. Here is an example to
illustrate this point. Each site is different so the result of
implementing the same prescription on two sites that are separated by
less than a mile can be quite different and neither may meet the
objective set out in the prescription. Say we have a forest with mostly
pine that is susceptible to mountain pine beetle outbreaks. Research
from the 1970's conducted in the Black Hills of South Dakota suggests
that to increase stand vigor so that the trees are more likely to be
able to resist attack we need to lower the stocking to less than 150
square feet of basal area per acre. Overlay on this scenario a
requirement to maintain the largest 50 trees in the stand that needs to
be thinned to meet this requirement. Only if the 50 largest trees in
the stand have an average diameter less than 24 inches per tree and
they are well distributed across the acre can have meet both criteria;
if the stand has all those trees clustered in once corner of the acre
we may be able to meet both policy criteria but would not reduce the
competitive stress on the trees to improve their ability to resist
insect attack. In addition we relying on results taken from a single
study in one region and applying them to the entirety of the west where
different climates, climate impacts, and site productivities may
dictate lower stocking levels (or permit higher ones) in order to
achieve the reduced mountain pine beetle impact.
Just as important is the fact that there just aren't the physical
or financial resources, or personnel, to tackle a problem of this
magnitude by measuring every tree to ensure it is young enough or small
enough to be removed. Rather than a prescriptive policy, we need a
results based policy that highlights what we want to see as an outcome,
not how to get there. The outcomes should be grounded in ecology and
forest science so the basis of the policy should be ecology and forest
science. The policy should direct land managers to evaluate the
carrying capacity of their land base, whether trees, shrubs, soil, or
animals, and assess how it might change with climate change. Using
those predictions they should develop plans that describe how they plan
to accomplish the result of creating (or maintaining) a forest
ecosystem that has the necessary attributes to be resilient in the face
of an uncertain climate future specific to their particular land base.
That plan should be specific, but not prescriptive. The policy should
direct land managers to describe contingency plans should particular
aspects of the plan fail to meet its goals and objectives, and
safeguards to minimize failures. While the plans should be open to
public scrutiny and input, once they are approved, the mechanics of
operations should no longer be open for discussion. We can expect to
fail at least some of the time since we are dealing with many unknowns
with climate change and land management, so if we want to accomplish
something on the ground, it will be critical to provide a culture of
support for managers and operational personnel that are willing to try
new things to ensure the resilience of their forests.
Question 4. With all the money we are spending on fighting fires
and all the news about mountain pine beetle are our national forests a
carbon sink or a caron source at the present time?
Answer. The latest available Forest Service reports indicate that
there is 20 billion board feet (BBF) of growth, 8 BBF mortality and 2
BBF of harvest on National Forests across all regions. These numbers
suggest that nationally the forest is still a carbon sink, not a
source. The questions to ask are whether this latest estimate
incorporates current mortality events or not and whether substantial
growth in one region is subsidizing substantial mortality in another.
For example the most current complete dataset available when we started
the Washington State timber supply analysis that was finished in 2007
was from prior to 2000. Using that data we calculated that mortality in
eastern Washington National Forests was 49% of gross growth (so if
applied nationally that would be 9.8 BBF of mortality instead of 8 BBF)
but that did not include the massive spike in mountain pine beetle
(MPB) mortality culminating in 9 million trees killed across 770,000
acres by 2004 as well as the wildfires in 2006 that affected over
400,000 acres of National Forest land. Since 1995 we have lost almost a
million acres of National Forest land in Washington State to wildfire.
If we continue at this rate it is equivalent to losing 1.7% of the
forest area/year to wildfire. Other states will show greater or lesser
impacts than this example, but the impacts are growing during each
wildfire season. To highlight this growth rate consider this example. A
recent study that looked at the relationship between wildfire extent
and climate (Littell et al 2009b) found that for a region including
Idaho, Montana, and eastern Washington we had experienced a fire rate
of approximately 24% during the 20th century (meaning 24% of the
National Forest lands would have experienced a wildfire during a 100
year period) or approximately 132,000 acres per year. National
Interagency Fire Control (NIFC) statistics from 2002-2009 for this same
area show almost 1 million acres/year of National Forest affected by
wildfire which is equivalent to a 7.5x increase from the 20th century
average. Add to these fire impacts, the mountain pine beetle outbreaks
in all western states that literally dwarf the impact discussed for
eastern Washington. In these regions with massive MPB outbreaks and
extremely large wildfires, I would suspect that since 2000 these
National Forests are carbon sources, not sinks; however, to my
knowledge no one has done the math on this question because the data in
their entirety aren't available yet to do so.
Question 5. You state that ``we should strive to prreserve mature
and old growth forests to avoid losses of carbon associated with
harvest''. Mature forests are managed for a variety of reasons and
objectives, including preventing catastrophic wildfire and improving
habitat for T&E species. Doesn't stating that we should strive to
preserve mature forests to avoid losses of carbon associated with
harvest ignore the carbon sequestration that could be lost through
other means, such as catastrophic wildfire, insects and disease, etc.?
Answer. Any loss of carbon associated with harvest can be more than
offset with carbon storage in products and by using residual material
not suited for products to replace fossil fuel use as an energy source.
The Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials (CORRIM)
has conducted life cycle inventory (LCI) and life cycle analysis (LCA)
across 4 US timber supply regions and BC Canada which links what is
happening in the forest through the milling process, to the use of the
product and its eventual end of life. Results from CORRIM research show
that harvesting wood for long term wood products generates a carbon
benefit to the atmosphere that is better than if the forest is just
left to grow, even if we assume the forest doesn't burn or die from
insect infestations. In effect, using the forest as a carbon pump
rather than a carbon storage site generates the maximum carbon storage
gain.
Question 6. You state that most forest biomass is not consumed by
fire, but isn't the larger issue whether there will be a loss of forest
cover, loss of sequestration (because trees are dead unless the site is
replanted), rehabilitation costs and watershed and stream problems?
Should we consider all of these and other factors when managing forests
or should we just look at carbon sequestration? Should we also consider
the short versus long term impact of management?
Answer. Placing carbon sequestration potential into the context of
disturbance rate is critical in maximizing carbon storage and offsets
in both the near and long term. In areas with frequent fires, high fire
risk, or on sites with high fuel loadings that are likely to burn under
an altered fire regime brought on by climate change, harvesting can
reduce the risk of leaving biomass in the forest with the co-benefit of
using the harvested biomass to offset some other fossil fuel use that
would have produced source emissions that still impact the atmosphere.
If the choice is to opt for maintaining the forests as carbon
storage units, according to analysis by Weidinmyer et al (2006) for
Inland Northwest forests we can calculate that about 30% of the tree
biomass and about 90% of the shrubbery and duff layers (duff = decaying
vegetation on top of the soil) are consumed during the actual fires.
That which is not consumed by fire immediately begins to decay so
emissions are either rapid during the fire or slow after the fire.
Recent research on soil carbon suggests that there is always some
component of the charred wood that remains for 100's if not 1000's of
years but it is a small fraction compared to the total biomass on site
prior to the fire. So fires do generate substantial greenhouse gas
emissions at the outset and continue to do so as the vegetation
continues to decay. As long as there is minimal soil damage and a seed
source for regeneration the emissions can be offset in a relatively
short period of time with new growth in both the shrub and canopy
layers. The problem arises when the fire impacts on soil are severe,
when there is no seed source, or where there is some other condition
such as invasive weeds that prevent tree regeneration as is the case
for a large portion of the Federal lands in California according to the
latest fire analysis by Bonnicksen (2009). These factors should be
taken into consideration when evaluating options for managing forests
for carbon sequestration.
Question 7. You state that`` fuel reduction techniques, especially
those that remove half or more of the larger trees, could lead to
increases in fire severity because of additional logging debris.''
Science shows that leaving the larger trees is best from a fire/fuel
perspective and most fuels reduction work is needed on federal and
public lands. What fuels reduction techniques recommend removing half
or more of the larger trees?--this statement seems to be inconsistent
with federal land management efforts to reduce hazardous fuels.
Further, most hazardous fuels projects also include a prescribed fire
component to reduce fire risk. Is your statement consistent with most
hazardous fuels reduction projects?
Answer. Hazardous fuels reduction projects that remove over half
the large trees are possible if the site was severely overstocked and/
or if the largest diameter trees on site were not well suited to meet
restoration goals. For example, some sites that were historically
ponderosa pine forests may now have an overstory of white fir or grand
fir that is fire intolerant. These overstory trees are sometimes the
largest ones in the forest but they will not survive the re-
introduction of fire and are often experiencing substantial stress as
the sites are too dry for optimal growth. In these cases, harvest could
include removal of these large diameter specimens for processing along
with concomitant fuels management of the residual material using either
burning, grinding, or removal as a biomass feedstock. If logging debris
is managed as part of the fuels reduction project, the risk of
increasing fire severity is minimized or eliminated altogether.
Question 8. You also state that ``fuel reduction can be effective
to reduce fire severity but it results in decreased long-term carbon
storage''. If thinning helps prevent tree losses (and carbon) to bark
beetles and fire, which will help the carbon-sequestration potential
for the long term, should we not thin because of the short-term carbon
loss?
Answer. If we only measure carbon stored on the forest without
considering the carbon storage in wood products and carbon offsets by
using wood to replace fossil fuel energy sources, there are probably
some instances where this scenario of decreased long term storage might
be true. For example in old growth PNW coastal forests with very long
fire return intervals (over 250 years) it has been shown that fire risk
reduction treatments that take only understory vegetation decrease long
term carbon storage because the baseline of fire risk is so minimal and
the product pools do not include solid wood products and their carbon
offset values (Mitchell et al 2009). However examination of the full
suite of stands from fire prone forests of the Inland Northwest shows
that thinning these forests to reduce fire risks is both appropriate
and it will not result in the loss of long term carbon storage (Oneil
and Lippke, publish date 2010). If anything we need to be more
aggressive in reducing forest stocking below carrying capacity when
conducting forest thinnings. If we do so, the remaining trees will be
able to regain vigor and resilience quickly, and then respond by
growing up to that land carrying capacity which will sequester more
carbon per tree while reducing the mortality risk.
Question 9. Should we manage forests with an ecosystem focus, to
meet a multitude of objectives, including carbon sequestration, but by
not maximizing one at the expense of another?
Answer. Given the multiple mandates that National Forests are
expected to fill it only makes sense to manage them with an ecosystem
focus that is designed to meet as many objectives simultaneously as
possible while keeping in mind the constraints of the land base. It is
important to recognize that while we can have it all, we can't have it
all at the same place and at the same time and perhaps not at all on
any given acre or forest. For example we can't have maximum forest
stocking and low fire risk unless we are in areas that are too cold or
wet to burn during fire season. The idea that we can force a particular
outcome such as old forest habitat in a landscape with frequent stand
altering (or now stand replacing) fires using aggressive wildfire
suppression tactics has been demonstrated as an unworkable and
expensive solution in recent years. Returning to an ecosystem focus
would suggest that we do not insist on maintaining any particular
forest condition where the incremental costs of keeping it as it is in
the face of ecological processes escalate each and every year with
concomitant diminishing returns.
Question 10. You mention that federal lands should be managed for
the public interest of carbon sequestration and that `if federal lands
are managed for revenue from carbon credits, it will likely impact
ecosystem functioning and other ecosystem services'--how? Are there any
published papers on this topic?
Answer. Carbon credits are a double edged sword that should be
approached very carefully, if at all. Credits in their current form
rely on the concepts of baselines, additionality, permanence, and
leakage. Currently they do not consider what happens to the products
that leave the forest at harvest and they do not consider how those
products might be better used to maximize the carbon benefit to the
atmosphere. Perhaps the greatest difficulty with carbon credits is when
they form part of a carbon exchange that pays the forest owner to not
harvest and save the wood in the forest. This approach raises the
demand of wood relative to supply, raises wood product price, and
promotes the substitution of other materials for wood products which
produce higher emissions than any savings in forest carbon. And if
there isn't material substitution the demand for wood products that
could have been met by that forest is met from some other wood
producing region which means that the atmosphere experiences the
perceived carbon consequences of harvesting anyway. In this case the
landowner loses twice--first because they have limited their management
options for a perceived benefit that doesn't actually provide a benefit
to the atmosphere, and second because the incremental gain in carbon
storage from a mature forest is small and therefore unless huge tracts
are involved and the credit value is high, the costs of maintaining the
forest in the face of disturbance may well outweigh the carbon credit
value. A more viable approach to carbon mitigation objective that would
promote the use of carbon efficient products and processes would be to
directly tax fossil fuel emissions. That way the incentive is highest
for those uses of wood that drive out the most fossil emissions.
Difficulties in establishing baselines in the face of climate
change, identifying how additionality and permanence would incorporate
the huge uncertainties surrounding wildfire and insect outbreaks, and
accounting for leakage from the system suggest that while carbon credit
systems might be a way to obtain payment for ecosystem services, they
need a lot of improvements before they can be implemented in a way that
doesn't create perverse incentives.
Question 11. Currently, Germany exports 20% of its wood to the
United States. Does it make sense to import wood products from other
nations or would it be preferable to produce wood products sustainably
in the United States? Considering the light carbon footprint of wood as
compared to other non-renewable building materials and the abundance of
heavily stocked (stocked beyond carrying capacity) federal and public
lands in the west, should we sustainably harvest wood from public
lands?
Answer. We could sustainably harvest wood from public lands, but a
bigger question is how to do so within the current framework. Our
analysis of Inland Northwest Forests, including Idaho, Montana and
Eastern Washington state suggests that even if we only treated the
forests with low and mixed severity fire regime and the dead and dying
lodgepole forests, we would have to harvest 4 times more acres that we
currently harvest in Eastern Washington and 5 times more than we
currently harvest in Idaho and Montana (Oneil and Lippke, publish date
2010). Even increasing the harvest rate to this level would just treat
the at risk forests on National Forest lands by remove only those trees
less than 12 inches in diameter. In many cases these trees are too
small to make into wood products used as building materials. This
particular approach would reduce fire risk, but to implement such a
strategy without economic return from marketable products would be
economically prohibitive. In order to address the wood import issue it
would be necessary to remove some larger diameter trees that can be
processed into long-lived products which would have the co-benefit of
subsidizing the removal of more non-merchantable material. Addressing
wood imports and fire risk reduction requires re-thinking of our
current focus of only taking young or small diameter material.
Technologies are available to produce smaller dimension building
products from smaller diameter wood (4-12 inches), but those
technologies require substantial private investment that is only likely
with a guaranteed wood supply. In many regions of the interior west we
are losing mills, not gaining them because there is no guaranteed wood
supply and the wood supply from federal lands is not considered as a
viable guaranteed source. This suggests that it would be necessary to
provide long term supply agreements to support the development of small
diameter milling infrastructure. This option would serve a dual purpose
of producing more wood products and removing the material that is
currently placing these forests at high risk of loss to wildfire and
insect and disease outbreaks.
Question 12. Is biomass harvest sustainable and renewable? What
kinds of rules would we have to invoke to make it sustainable and/or
renewable?
Answer. The same rules that apply to current harvesting could also
apply to biomass-to-energy harvesting as in essence we are doing the
same thing: entering a forest stand to remove some products while
leaving others intact. It is important to realize the economics of
biomass production can have an impact on the production of other wood
products. As long as the price renewable fuel producers are willing to
pay for biomass feedstocks is less than the market price for other wood
products there is no competition between the sectors and in fact the
wood harvesting can help offset some costs of the biomass feedstock
acquisition. If the cost of bioenergy feedstock increases beyond the
price for say wood chips for making pulp and paper then there is a
direct competition which bids feedstocks away from a sector that is
more efficient at turning wood into carbon offsets. At that point
biomass harvest for energy becomes a counterproductive activity from a
carbon emissions standpoint.
This suggests that biomass harvest is sustainable and renewable
with certain caveats. First, we need to be intelligent about connecting
feedstock availability to the scale of facility. If a facility requires
600,000 BDT/year (BDT = bone dry tons) and the forests within 50 miles
can only provide 300,000 BDT without compromising existing
manufacturing operations and ecological function, then we need the
rethink the scale of the facility or the kind of facility to integrate
the ecological and energy needs. The travel distance (i.e. 50 miles) is
critical because economic viability is contingent on obtaining a
feedstock at a reasonable price and haul distance is the most critical
factor in feedstock price for most studies that have been done on this
topic. Probably more critical is the need to offer long term supply
agreements if we expect to attract sufficient private investment for
implementing biomass production from woody residues. In the west this
is particularly critical because in many instances any logical
processing location has to include a substantial percentage of federal
lands within the 50 mile radius in order to obtain sufficient feedstock
supply for economically viable operations. There has been a tremendous
amount of research on this question of sustainable biomass harvesting.
A thorough synthesis of this research has recently been conducted by
University of Washington researchers (Mason et al 2009). It is
available at http://www.ruraltech.org/pubs/reports/2009/wood_to_energy/
index.asp
______
Response of Christopher A. Wood to Question From Senator Wyden
Question 1. Mr. Wood, you highlight the Elk River watershed along
the Oregon coast as an example of how the protection of intact habitat
and reconnection of migration routes can help improve the resiliency of
a watershed. Do you believe the Federal agencies are prepared to do the
scale and level of protection across the country that you discuss in
this example? If not, what more is needed? Do you see opportunities for
public/private partnership and/or coordination with states?
Answer. In the Elk River watershed, a culvert on Blackberry Creek
(an Elk River tributary) impedes fish passage. The Forest Service
identified the need to replace the culvert and completed the
Environmental Assessment years ago, yet has been unable to do so
because of inadequate funding. Such examples abound across the nation's
forests and grasslands. Climate change legislation such as S. 1733 and
S. 1933, which would provide revenue from the carbon market to fund
natural resources adaptation, and could enable federal agencies to
complete adaptation projects at the scale and level needed to safeguard
fish and wildlife. Furthermore, these climate change bills call for the
development of adaptation strategies that can help prioritize actions
and focus state and federal agencies and private partners on high
priority projects in a coordinated fashion. Trout Unlimited has long
worked with state and federal agencies and private partners such as
timber companies to replace culverts and improve fish passage, from New
Hampshire to the coast of California. We believe that partnerships to
capitalize on the strengths and resources of public and private
entities will be essential to completing adaptation projects on the
scale necessary to enable fish and wildlife to cope with changes in
climate.
Responses of Christopher A. Wood to Questions From Senator Murkowski
(and Senator Barrasso)
Question 1. Your suggestions generally fall into the categories of
protecting or rehabilitating terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems on
public lands from the impacts of climate change. I am interested in
exploring ideas about how the management of public lands can be used to
reduce greenhouse gasses and abate climate change.
Should public lands have a role in the growth of wind and solar
power? If so, how should this be done, and how should any public land
impacts be mitigated?
Answer. Trout Unlimited supports the responsible development of
energy resources on public lands. In order to ensure that development
is done right, we must learn from our experiences in developing
traditional energy resources on public lands. Mistakes in the
management of traditional energy development, such as the extensive use
of categorical exclusions, failure to adhere to protective
stipulations, and inadequate monitoring and mitigation to name a few,
should not be repeated in developing renewable energy.
Among the policy changes needed to ensure that fish and wildlife
are not unduly harmed by renewable energy development are changing
renewable energy permitting from a system of special use permits and
rights-of-way to a leasing program. This would enable the generation of
a revenue stream that could be used for fish and wildlife habitat
mitigation and enhancement, monitoring, and restoration. In addition,
the agencies should delineate important migration routes, streamside
corridors, and other areas where development should and should not
occur, and where transmission should be sited.
The useful life of a solar or wind facility is likely to be much
more than 30 years. With this in mind, renewable energy lessees and
operators should be required to complete interim reclamation. We also
believe that no onsite mitigation alone will be adequate to sustain the
ecological function of public lands on which many renewable energy
facilities are located. Unlike oil, gas, and coal, the wind and sun are
renewable sources of energy which will not be exhausted. The landscapes
impacted by renewable energy facilities will not be restored to their
current condition for the foreseeable future. Therefore, the only way
to mitigate the impact of these facilities is to require the
restoration or acquisition and preservation of comparable ecological
resources elsewhere along with on-site actions to minimize the severity
of impacts to natural resources.
It is vital that state and federal agencies have the resources
necessary to properly manage energy development. Thousands of miles of
transmission lines may be needed to move renewable energy to market.
Funding must be made available to avoid fish and wildlife damage and
for mitigation and restoration.
The federal government should collect royalties for renewable
energy development and establish a Renewables Mitigation Fund. The fund
could include federal and state accounts to support mitigation,
monitoring, inventory, and management associated with conserving fish,
wildlife, and water resources affected by renewable energy development;
help local communities to mitigate the effects of renewable energy
development; and enable non-profit entities to mitigate and restore
areas affected by renewable energy development.
Question 2. What role should public lands play in the creation of
carbon credits and in the functioning of carbon markets?
Question 3. Could carbon credits generated by planting to reduce
the reforestation backlog on public lands be used to insure private
carbon credits generated by planting trees on private lands?
Question 4. Could the insurance premium (which allows the private
credits to be sold at full value) be used to help reduce the public
land reforestation backlog?
Answer. The challenge in allowing public lands to play a role in
the carbon markets is one of additionality. That is, how can you credit
sequestration that is already occurring? Similarly, care should be
given so that public land sequestration activities should occur in the
context of managing for healthy, diverse, and productive landscapes so
as to be consistent with the agency's underlying legal mandates. Using
carbon credits generated by planting to reduce the reforestation
backlog on public lands as a hedge or to insure private carbon credits
generated by planting trees on private lands is an idea that Congress,
industry, the agency, and conservationists should carefully explore. We
should be open to trying a diversity of approaches and ideas in
managing for healthy, diverse, and productive forest landscapes.
Question 5. In your testimony you indicate that fiber from fuels
reduction on public lands should be used to generate biomass. Does this
mean that you would oppose any definition of biomass that would exclude
all fiber from public lands?
Answer. Fiber from fuels reduction on public lands should be used
to generate biomass where it is generated in an ecologically
sustainable fashion. We must avoid creating incentives to generate
biomass from federal forests in ways that may be ecologically unsound.
With that in mind, the proper definition of biomass will be influenced
by the context in which it is placed.
Mr. Wood in your testimony you mention protecting the Copper-Salmon
area in wilderness. In 2002, the Biscuit fire raged in the Kalmiopsis
Wilderness for over two months burning almost every acre in that
wilderness along with another 350,000 plus other acres. I believe that
occurred during your time at the Forest Service.
Efforts to fight that fire were hampered by a lack of access and
initial indecision on whether or not to fight the fire, since it was
close to the Wilderness.
Question 6. In hindsight, did the Wilderness designation help
maintain and improve the conditions of those watersheds when the
Biscuit fire ravaged them?
Answer. The 500,000 acre Biscuit Fire burned at varying
intensities. The Forest Service estimated that 63 percent burned at low
or very low intensity; 23 percent at moderate intensity; and 14 percent
at high intensity. Although nearly all of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness was
within the Biscuit Fire Boundary, much of the wilderness itself
actually did not burn, and much of what did burn burned at low
intensity. As a result, the impacts to watersheds within the wilderness
were varied. The areas that did burn at higher intensities were mostly
very minor long-term impacts because of the good condition of the
watershed. Other impacts occurred later as a result of salvage logging.
The remoteness of the area, including wilderness designation,
influenced the early decision by the Forest Service not to suppress the
fire, but the major rationale not to attack the fire immediately
stemmed from the large number of other high priority fires burning
across the West at the time. In its early stages, the fires that were
to combine to form the Biscuit fire simply were very low priority
compared to other big fires that were immediately threatening
communities in other parts of Oregon and elsewhere in the West.
Question 7. When fire or insects and disease kill most of the trees
in a National Forest have we improved the headwaters of the streams
that flow from those lands?
Answer. No. Impacts such as fire, insects and disease are expected
to intensify as the climate changes. In order to enable trout and
salmon to cope with changes in climate, we must protect, reconnect and
restore habitat. This comprehensive approach helps ensure that there
are intact habitats to serve as strongholds for fish and enough
connectivity that fish can move about a watershed to escape localized
impacts or recolonize impacted habitat after a catastrophic event.
Question 8. Understanding your strong desire to improve the
watersheds and the streams as well as fishing in the forest, why is it
acceptable to stand by and refuse to mechanically thin these forests
when the potential for wildfire carries such risk to these lands and
waters?
Answer. ``Standing by'' is not acceptable. Neither should we
approach these problems with a willy-nilly, drop the blades and let the
chain-saws rip approach. Thinning overly dense forest stands in order
to reintroduce fire and rebalance fire return intervals is logical, and
sorely needed across many national forests. The first priority for such
treatments should be where forests and human communities intersect.
You also pushed for protecting roadless areas.
Question 9. When a roadless area burns and the A and B horizons of
the soil are destroyed is that better or worse than building roads into
an area so the fire fighters can access the area when fires start?
Answer. Native trout and salmon across the West, and the ecosystems
of which they are part, have evolved with fire. Trout and salmon
thrived for thousands of years in these natural ecosystems without the
intervening hand of man. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that
roadless areas comprise a disproportionately high percentage of native
trout habitat. On many western landscapes, native trout have been
eliminated from most roaded areas and persist only in roadless
headwater areas. These lands harbor sensitive native species precisely
because they are free of roads and the attendant impacts such as
habitat degredation and non-native species introduction. The protection
of roadless areas is an important component in a comprehensive approach
to conserving trout and salmon.
Question 10. After an area burns and then the area is hit by a rain
storm that washes thousands of cubic yards of soil and rock into the
streams is that better or worse for the streams and fish than those
plugged culverts that you discussed at the hearing?
Answer. Events such as those described in the question above
underscore the importance of restoring fish passage at blocked
culverts. By restoring connectivity, we enable fish to move when faced
with such habitat impairments. Watersheds with adequate habitat
connectivity are more resilient to the effects of fire and flood.
______
Response of Beverly Law to Question From Senator Wyden
Question 1. If I understood your testimony, you both agree that a
``full carbon accounting'' should be employed when considering the
effects of forest management on carbon. But I have the sense that just
about everybody has a different view of what exactly that means in
practice. Is my sense on this accurate and, if so, where does that
leave this Committee in crafting Federal forest management policy? To
give one example, I wonder if the amount of credit to give wood
products for C sequestration is widely accepted and how that would be
quantified? Do you have any suggestions for how to standardize full
carbon accounting?
Answer. I am involved in methods development and providing
recommendations for improving national and international estimates of
forest carbon sources and sinks (NRC committee report on Verifying
Greenhouse Gas Emissions for a Climate Treaty (in review), Group on
Earth Observations (GEO) Carbon Report, Law et al. 2008 Terrestrial
Carbon Observations: Protocols for Vegetation Sampling and Data
Submission). Forest carbon accounting includes the land-based net of
carbon uptake by photosynthesis and losses from respiration by plants
and microbes, and decomposition. This portion of the budget is best
measured by the eddy covariance method (an atmospheric measurement
representing an area of <1 square kilometer), but it is attempted
partially through summing up inventory data on changes in carbon stocks
in soil and in live and dead biomass above and belowground between two
measurement periods (e.g. 5 years, which needs to be reduced to annual;
Law et al. 2008). Other carbon losses must be accounted for, including
that from land use (thinning, complete harvest) and emissions from
fire. When a forest is thinned, more debris is typically added to the
surface (decomposition ensues) or an underburn treatment is applied and
most of the small dead material on the surface is emitted to the
atmosphere (pulse emission loss). When a forest is harvested, about 25-
50% of the harvested amount of carbon is released to the atmosphere
during the manufacturing process (the value within this range depends
on the type of wood product). Long-lived harvested wood products are a
potential CO2 sink, although the average lifetime of wood
products is relatively short (20 years) and the UNFCCC accounting rules
for them have not yet been agreed upon. In addition, there are carbon
costs of burning fossil fuel to harvest material, transport it to mills
and in manufacturing. This must be included in evaluating the merits of
biofuels harvesting (Jaeger et al. 2009. Biofuels in Oregon from an
Economic and Policy Perspective). In addition, there is a time factor--
it takes about 20-50 years to grow the wood that is harvested for
biofuels, and it may take only a few years for that carbon to be
released to the atmosphere. So, the net of both biological processes on
site, and transport and manufacturing carbon costs should be included
in the analysis. Again, these accounting methods are being recommended
internationally (see citations).
International assessments should include reporting of emissions and
sinks should include all lands, not just managed lands, which would
allow credit for maintaining carbon in mature and old forests (NRC
2009).
Response of Beverly Law to Question From Senator Bingaman
Question 1. Dr. Oneil's testimony discussesd the C emissions
produced by wildfires, specifically articles published by Mason (2006),
Wiedinmyer & Neff (2007), and Bonnicksen (2009). It is my understanding
that you have studied and published on this issue.
Can you briefly discuss the best available science on carbon
emissions produced by wildfires?
Answer. The best available science on carbon emissions from
wildfires is field observations of changes in live and dead pools,
surface litter and soil after wildfires of different severities (low to
high). We conducted such a study and quantified combustion of the pools
in the different severities. These data are desperately needed for the
calibration of remote sensing data and models that are used to produce
estimates for landscapes, states, regions, the U.S., and globally.
Unfortunately, our data were not published or used by the references
cited by Dr Oneil. Those references have large uncertainties associated
with them, and I had contacted one of the authors to let them know
their estimates were large overestimates. Our emissions estimates from
measurements before and after fire showed that emissions from litter
and duff ranged from 70-100% depending on fire severity (the high value
is for high severity), whereas Wiedeinmyer & Neff (2007) used values of
80-90% over N America. Our emissions estimates for tree stems were <1%
to 3% for stems less than 7.6cm in diameter (3 inches), depending on
fire severity. Our measured values are somewhat lower than those used
by modelers. Wiedinmyer & Neff (2007) used 30% for tree stems (compared
to our measured 3% for high severity fire) when modelling high severity
combustion across N America (Campbell et al. 2007). If we applied those
percentages to one of the fires on which we made these measurements, it
would lead to a large overestimation of pyrogenic emissions, in part
because a significant portion of the biomass in large trees experience
very little wood combustion. On the Biscuit Fire, we found that 57% of
the total pyrogenic emissions were from the litter layer plus duff and
mineral soils. The next largest source was dead wood (19% of total
emissions). For Oregon, our estimate of fire emissions based on our
observations were used to calibrate a carbon cycle model and we used
Landsat remote sensing date that identified fire area and severity
annually over the state. Our estimate of wildfire emissions averaged
1.07 Tg carbon per year over 10 years, which averaged 7% of the
equivalent of Oregon's fossil fuel emissions.
We are currently working on an analysis and publication that
provides new estimates of fire emissions and the effects of fire on the
North American carbon budget. This is a synthesis activity that is part
of the North American Carbon Program, and it will be submitted to a
peer reviewed journal and likely will be included in the next State of
the Carbon cycle report.
______
Responses of Tom Tidwell to Questions From Senator Wyden
Question 1. What is the Forest Service doing to promote biomass
utilization?
Answer. Our Nation's forests are a sustainable, strategic asset in
achieving and enhancing U.S. energy security, economic opportunity,
environmental quality, and global competitiveness. A sustainable
renewable bioenergy and biobased products sector is a growing source of
jobs in the U.S. economy that contributes to energy security and
greenhouse gas emissions reduction. Biomass has the potential to supply
an increasing proportion of U.S. liquid transportation fuels,
chemicals, and substitutes for fossil fuel-intensive products.
One of the greatest challenges facing forest landowners and
managers in the United States is restoring, maintaining, and enhancing
the health and productivity of forest systems. Restoring forests to
increase resiliency and reduce the risk of loss from fire, insect or
disease, often entails the use of thinning and prescribe fire which
involves the removal of large quantities of small-diameter and low-
quality wood that currently has little or no commercial value. This
woody biomass is a potential feedstock for bioenergy and biobased
products.
The Forest Service has developed a strategy to promote woody
biomass utilization. The strategy was developed in 2006 and 2007 with
national effort to look at how to utilize woody biomass at all levels
of the agency. We gathered employees from all levels of the agency to
ensure this was a grass roots effort to provide a realistic strategy on
the key components field units needed:
This strategy is focused on:
--Ensuring a reliable and sustainable biomass supply;
--Helping develop new and expanded markets for bioenergy and
biobased products; and
--Providing the science and technology for: sustainable and
economical forest biomass management and production
systems, competitive biofuels and biopower conversion
technologies and high-value bioproducts, and information
and tools for decision-making and policy analysis.
Forest Service accomplishments in wood-based bioenergy and
biobased products include:
--A Woody Biomass Utilization grants program targeted toward small
businesses to help build capacity for biomass utilization
in support of fuel reduction and restoration. Since its
inception in 2005, the program has provided over $26.3
million (110 grants) towards projects ranging from biomass
boilers for schools and prisons, to helping businesses
acquire equipment that improves processing efficiencies.
These grants have been awarded to small businesses, non-
profits, tribes and local state agencies to improve forest
health, while creating jobs, green energy and healthy
communities.
--A system of Coordinated Resource Offering Protocol (CROP)
studies, including 10 sites across the US, which makes
biomass supply information available to potential
investors. (http://forestsandrangelands.com)
--A multi-partner consortium (Consortium for Research on Renewable
Industrial Materials) conducting life cycle analysis of
wood products and forest biomass-based fuel products
(http://www.corrim.org/).
--Proposed innovation platform for multi-feedstock bioenergy pilot
plant to investigate biorefinery concept at the Forest
Products Laboratory (FPL). This facility would be the
central source for the building's heating and electrical
system along with producing a liquied bio-fuel as a
byproduct. Excess power produced by the facility could be
sold back to the community's power grid. This is currently
in the planning stages.
--Cooperation with DOE on BioMax, a small scale combined heat and
power system for supplying heat and electricity from wood
for localized applications and sole source supply in remote
areas.
--Report: Increasing Feedstock Production for Biofuels: Economic
Drivers, Environmental Implications, and the Role of
Research, an economic assessment encompassing feedstock
production from agriculture and forestry sources. (http://
www.usbiomassboard.gov/pdfs/
8_Increasing_Biofuels_Feedstock_Production.pdf).
--Report: Economics of Biomass Feedstocks in the US: Review of the
Literature. (http://www.usbiomassboard.gov/pdfs/
7_Feedstocks_Literature_Review.pdf)
--Fuel Reduction Cost Simulator, a tool that simulates the cost of
forest operations that are undertaken to reduce fuel loads
by cutting and removing trees for solid wood products or
chips (http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/data/frcs/frcs_home.htm)
--Life cycle analysis of woody biomass to energy systems as part of
a wildfire and climate mitigation strategy (``Biomass to
Energy: Forest management for wildfire reduction, energy
production and other benefits,'' http://www.energy.ca.gov/
2009publications/CEC-500-2009-080/CEC-500-2009-080.PDF)
Examples of turning biomass into energy include:
--Fuels for Schools (Montana, Vermont, Pennsylvania)
--Use of wood fuel at power generating plants of 10 MW to >50 MW
capacity (California, New Hampshire, Vermont, Michigan,
South Carolina)
--Historical and continuing use of surplus wood, bark, and black
liquor for heat and electricity at primary wood
manufacturing plants (Nationwide)
MOU between ARS and FS R&D to cooperate on research and
development that focuses on synergistic applied research,
development, and deployment of forest and agricultural biomass-
to-bioenergy technologies.
Biofacilities Initiative: An interagency working partnership
between DOI, DOE, and FS to complete feasibility studies on 113
potential sites on Federal, State and Tribal facilities. The
Biomass technology included in the potential sites range from
thermal applications, combined heat and power to large scale
power projects. Each site analysis will include a resource
assessment, market evaluation, environmental planning steps
required, technology evaluation, and financing options. This
project is scheduled for completed by October, 2010.
Question 2. My understanding is that both the Forest Service and
Department of the Interior have explored marketing tree-planting
projects to generate funds from private sources based on the trees'
ability to sequester carbon. Do you have any regulations or formal
policies on those projects or on participating in existing carbon
markets in general? If so, please cite them.
Answer. We currently do not have regulations or formal policies
specific to participation in carbon markets for tree-planting carbon
sequestration projects. In May of 2008 the Chief of the Forest Service
sent a letter to the regional foresters stating that at this time, the
Forest Service is not engaging in partnerships that involve the selling
and trading of carbon credits in the market. The letter also discusses
the Memorandum of Understanding between the Forest Service and the
National Forest Foundation to work together to develop demonstration
projects that quantify biological carbon sequestration through targeted
reforestation projects. Donations to the NFF's Carbon Capital Fund are
used to replant areas on National Forests that have been so severely
altered by wildfire that these formerly forested areas will be
difficult to regenerate naturally. These reforestation demonstration
projects are projected over the next decades to sequester a measurable
and verifiable amount of carbon beyond what would occur without the
planting. Donors may voluntarily report the expected carbon uptake and
storage associated with the specific reforestation project.
Question 3. Across the country, there are countless examples of
fish and wildlife adaptation projects that have benefited both the
ecosystem and the surrounding community. For example, when headwaters
are protected, drinking water filtration costs are reduced and rivers
get reconnected to floodplains. Do you prioritize adaptation projects
based on the ecosystem services they render or have the potential to
render?
Answer. The Forest Service has a long history of implementing
watershed and ecosystem restoration projects. Adaptation projects are
prioritized through a variety of modeling and valuations. They
generally consider the ecosystem services/ecological values in a given
area, the existing condition of those resources, the scale of threats
to them, and the technical, legal, political, social, and institutional
opportunities and limitations for addressing those threats. We are
currently assessing methods to prioritize watershed restoration in a
more consistent way across the Nation. This Watershed Condition
Framework Assessment has been tested and reviewed. Each Forest will
complete these assessments this fiscal year. Region Five (California
and Pacific Islands) is currently developing an ecosystem services
framework that will inform program design, national forest plan
revisions and cooperative forestry activities.
Question 4. America's forests, farms and ranches provide a
significant supply of drinking water for our country. I understand that
protecting water resources is a top priority for the Forest Service,
especially in light of climate change and the need to manage natural
resources so that they can withstand the ongoing and expected impacts.
Given the already existing stresses on our water resources, how do you
plan to prioritize the protection of clean sources of water on National
Forest lands in the face of climate change?
Answer. Climate change and its effects on water are expected to
intensify freshwater scarcity. The Forest Service developed is a
Watershed Condition Assessment. This identifies vulnerable watersheds
at risk from hydrologic changes due primarily to climate change and
will provide a method of prioritization for restoration.
In addition, we have a variety of prioritization models for our
watershed restoration program and we have efforts underway to do that
in a more consistent manner across the country. Some administrative
units have begun efforts to evaluate their existing strategies to
incorporate metrics for climate change risk. For example, the Pacific
Northwest (PNW) Region is working with scientists at PNW Station and
University of Washington to conduct a regional-scale vulnerability
assessment for water and aquatic resources. Other vulnerability
assessments have been initiated on the Shasta Trinity, Ouachita, White
River, and Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests.
Our more recent Land Management Plans include ecosystem restoration
as a key outcome. As we continue to implement those plans we will make
strides toward ecosystem health and resiliency that will be more
adaptable to changing climate. The National Forest Management Act
requires the Forest Service to revise its management plans for each
national forest on a regular basis, using the Planning Rule as a
consistent guide. We are currently working on a new Planning Rule that
will allow National Forest and Grasslands to produce updated Plans that
address today's demands and conditions, as well as anticipate future
conditions due to climate and other changes. Ecosystem services will
play an important role in helping the national forests to set
priorities, strengthen their stewardship relationships with adjacent
communities and ensure the sustainable provision of environmental
benefits.
The Forest Legacy Program, in State and Private Forestry, uses
conservation easements to prevent the development of high value forests
that are critical for watershed and wildlife habitat protection and is
a prime tool for climate change adaptation through connectivity of
protected lands for species movement across the landscape. Tracts of
land are selected based on a State Assessment of Need that evaluates
important ecosystem services and critical habitats. Since 1991, Forest
Legacy has protected almost 1.6 million acres in 46 states and
territories.
Question 5. In a Forest Service Environmental Analysis from 2001,
the agency stated that it could potentially decommission as many as
120,000 to 186,000 miles of unneeded roads and unauthorized routes. Has
the Forest Service ever studied how much carbon could potentially be
sequestered if these unneeded roads and unauthorized routes were re-
vegetated?
Answer. This issue has not been studied.
Question 6. Congress has appropriated $90 million in FY 2010 for
the Forest Service Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Program. Can the
road decommissioning and storm-proofing work accomplished under this
program help to ameliorate flooding and other impacts of climate change
on national forest watersheds and on downstream communities?
Answer. The Legacy Roads and Trails Program is playing an essential
role in achieving the Secretary's vision of managing our forests to
protect and restore the Nation's water resources and make them more
resilient to climate change. This program is funding many critical
activities, including road decommissioning, stormproofing, relocation,
critical maintenance, and restoration of fish passage at road-stream
crossings. Strategic and large-scale implementation of these activities
can, over time, provide numerous benefits.
Perhaps the greatest benefits of road restoration will result from
reducing the consequences of floods, fire, and other disturbances
likely to be exacerbated by climate change.1 2 For example,
relocating roads away from floodplains and improving road drainage
systems can reduce damage to infrastructure.\3\ Road treatments can
also reduce storm-driven delivery of fine sediment to streams, which
can lower treatment costs and improve the reliability of some water
supplies. Road restoration can also improve the health and resiliency
of aquatic habitats, which are already stressed and will be adversely
impacted by climate change.4 5 For example, reconnecting
aquatic habitats at road-stream crossings and reducing existing
sediment and temperature impacts, are perhaps among the most important
things we can do to protect our fisheries in light of climate change.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Gucinski, H., M.H. Brookes, M.J. Furniss and R.R. Ziemer. 2001.
Forest Roads: A synthesis of scientific information. PNW-GTR-509.
Portland, OR: USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station.
120 p.
\2\ Rhee, J., W. Chung, J.A. Efta, W.J. Elliot and R.B. Foltz.
Under Review. Assessing the Impacts of Future Climate Changes on Forest
Road Erosion using the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) Model:
Case Studies in Lake Tahoe, NV and Mica Creek, ID. Pullman, WA:
Washington State University.
\3\ Elliot, W. J. and L. M. Tysdal: 1999. Understanding and
reducing erosion from insloping roads. Journal of Forestry. 97(8): 30-
34.
\4\ Gucinski, H., M.H. Brookes, M.J. Furniss and R.R. Ziemer. 2001.
Forest Roads: A synthesis of scientific information. PNW-GTR-509.
Portland, OR: USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station.
120 p.
\5\ Foltz, R.B., K.A. Yanosek, and T.M. Brown. 2008. Sediment
concnetration and turbidity changes during culvert removals. Jour. of
Environmental Mgt 87:329-340.
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Response of Tom Tidwell to Question From Senator Bingaman
Question 1. Managing forests for adaptation and carbon
sequestration can be complimentary-for example, through forest
ecosystem restoration projects. But, in other cases, managing to
maximize sequestration may be counterproductive from an adaptation
standpoint, and vice versa.
Can you explain what your current policies are for addressing the
latter situation-where managing to maximize adaptation and
sequestration are competing goals?
Answer. Carbon management is a complex issue and the amount of
carbon stored on a given site is only part of the picture. A ``one-
size-fits-all'' approach cannot be successful in this increasingly
complex and dynamic management environment. Instead, our strategy for
the National Forest System focuses on sustaining ecosystem processes
and functions, which are the foundation of ecosystems. This involves
restoring and maintaining the resilience and adaptive capacity of
terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Thinning overly dense stands and
reintroducing controlled use of fires are examples of tools to restore
ecosystem processes and functions.6 7 8 This strategy
requires actively managing resources and infrastructure so that
stressors, threats, and vulnerabilities are reduced or eliminated.
Examples of stressors and vulnerabilities include non-native invasive
species, lack of disturbance or management causing overly dense
forests, and undersized road culverts and bridges too small to handle
increasing storm flows caused by winter precipitation falling as rain
rather than snow.
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\6\ Fettig, Christopher J.; Klepzig, Kier D.; Billings, Ronald F.;
Munson, A. Steven; Nebeker, T. Evan; Negron, Jose F.; Nowak, John T.
2007. The effectiveness of vegetation management practices for
prevention and control of bark beetle infestations in coniferous
forests of the western and southern United States. Forest Ecology and
Management, Vol. 238: 24-53.
\7\ Johnson, Morris C.; Peterson, David L.; Raymond, Crystal L.
2007. Guide to fuel treatments in dry forests of the Western United
States: assessing forest structure and fire hazard. Gen. Tech. Rep.
PNW-GTR-686. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest
Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 322 p.
\8\ Graham, Russell T.; McCaffrey, Sarah; Jain, Theresa B. 2004.
Science basis for changing forest structure to modify wildfire behavior
and severity. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-120. Fort Collins, CO: U.S.
Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research
Station. 43 p.
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Responses of Tom Tidwell to Questions From Senator Barrasso
Question 1. Chief Tidwell, welcome to our Committee and
congratulations on being selected to serve as the Chief of the Forest
Service. We welcome you and thank you for your service.
Do you agree that higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in our
atmosphere will likely increase plant growth, provided the soil and
water conditions are right?
Answer. Some studies suggest that rising CO2 increases
net primary productivity by 12-23% over all species studied, but it is
uncertain whether this is a lasting effect\9\. Studies also suggest
that rising CO2 will very likely increase photosynthesis for
forests, but this increase will likely only enhance wood production in
young forests on fertile soils.\10\ The response of forest ecosystems
to elevated CO2 is complex with variation across systems,
and it is an active area of research.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Birdsey, R. A.; Jenkins, J. C.; Johnston, M.; Huber-Sannwald,
E.; Amiro, B.; de Jong, B.; Etchevers Barra, J. D.; French, Na.;
Garcia-Oliva, F.; Harmon, M.; Heath, L. S.; Jaramillo, V. J.; Johnsen,
K.t; Law, B. E.; Marin-Spiotta, E.; Masera, O.; Neilson, R.; Pan, Y.;
Pregitzer, K. S. 2007. North American forests. In: King, A.W.; Dilling,
L.; Zimmerman, G.P.; Fairman, D.M.; Houghton, R.A.; Marland, G.; Rose,
A.Z.; Wilbanks, T.J., eds. The First State of the Carbon Cycle Report
(SOCCR): The North American Carbon Budget and Implications for the
Global Carbon Cycle. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, NC: 117-126, 173-176.
\10\ CCSP. May 2008. Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.3 (SAP
4.3): The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources,
Water Resources, and Biodiversity in the United States, P. Backlund, A.
Janetos, and D. Schimel, lead authors. A report by the U.S. Climate
Change Science Program (CCSP). Executive Summary.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question 2. Do you agree that for some shorter lived species like
Lodgepole Pine and Aspen that there needs to be some management to
avoid catastrophic collapse of those species in some areas?
Answer. In some specific cases, active vegetation management
programs are important not only for species such as lodgepole pine and
aspen, but for a vast array other species found in forest ecosystems on
the national forests. We need to manage these stands to aid in
adaptation. We have had extensive research and practical application of
knowledge regarding this type of active management. However, even as we
apply what we know, we still encounter areas of uncertainty and will
continue our efforts to address ecosystem complexities. Below is a
summary of our knowledge regarding management in lodgepole and aspen
forests:
lodgepole pine research
Forest Service Research and Development on has been putting
research emphasis on developing and evaluating ecosystem-based
treatments for sustaining productivity and biodiversity of lodgepole
pine forests and watersheds since 1961. The research topics covered
are:
1. Evaluate and quantify the ecological and biological
effects of alternative silvicultural treatments and prescribed
fire in lodgepole pine forests by creating reserve stand
structures that emulate those created by natural disturbances.
2. Evaluate damage to reserve trees relative to alternative
stand densities and structures and examine regeneration and
understory vegetation changes associated with alternative
silvicultural treatments.
3. Develop linkages between vegetation management activities
and hydrologic responses at the sub-watershed level.
4. Manage and integrate the knowledge gained from the variety
of studies to improve ecosystem-based management in lodgepole
pine forests.
5. Develop demonstration sites for education of the general
public, students, professional, and researchers.
6. Test and verify hydrologic and vegetation models and
evaluate harvest costs and product recovery values associated
with alternative silvicultural prescriptions and harvest
systems.
7. Contribute to the scientific knowledge through publication
of results in appropriate outlets.
8. Integrate knowledge gained from these studies into
ecosystem management guidelines that enhance the function and
sustainability of lodgepole pine forests in the Northern
Rockies through a variety of technology transfer products.
aspen research
The development of aspen forests is closely linked to fire or
disturbance. After a stand-replacing disturbance by fire, the root
systems of aspen usually survive and send up new stems to regenerate
the forest. One of the restoration strategies forest researchers and
managers have pursued is modifying the fire cycles, such as determining
the frequency of fire required to sustain aspen in areas where fire has
been suppressed in the past.
Aside from regeneration following fire events, aspen stands
sometimes regenerate following a massive die-off of mature trees. But
in some cases the root system is completely dead, which results in a
complete die-off of the aspen stands, a phenomenon called Sudden Aspen
Decline (SAD) that is currently pronounced in western Colorado,
southern Utah, and southwest Wyoming. Researchers are looking at the
impact that insects and diseases have on regeneration associated with
SAD as well as the effect of drought. Researchers and managers are
focused on finding ways to restore aspen throughout the West.
Question 3. The President recently signed an executive order that
all management will be undertaken with climate change in mind. Can you
give me a couple of examples of the specific changes your agency will
make to respond to that Executive Order?
Answer. President Obama recently issued Executive Order 13514,
Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy and Economic Performance.
This executive order focuses on improving energy efficiency, water use,
waste streams and related environmental footprint parameters associated
with federal buildings, motor vehicle fleets and federal contractors/
permit holders. Section nine of the executive order also requires
agencies that manage federal lands to ``consider and account for
sequestration and emissions of greenhouse gases resulting from Federal
land management practices.'' The executive order tasks the Department
of Energy with recommending the reporting and accounting procedures
under Section Nine. The Forest Service is currently working with the
Department of Energy and other land management agencies on implementing
the executive order.
Question 4. In January Chief Gail Kimbell released direction on how
to deal with climate change in forest planning and project NEPA
documentation development. Within that direction I found a table that
says:
Forest stands are at stand densities and of species
composition such that they wille resilient under a variety of
potential future climates. Lower densities are moreikely to
survive future drought stress, fire, and insect and disease
problems.he following residual stand densities should be used
for thinning stands ofifferent forest types and seral stages.
These residual densities are based onossible annual
precipitation reductions of 10-20 percent and possible
increasesn evapotranspiration during peak periods of 5-10
percent.
Residual Density Ranges (TPA) by Forest Type and Seral Stage
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forest Type Young Stage Mid-Stage Old Stage
Ponderosa Pine 100-200 70-90 30-50
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Douglas-fir 150-250 100-125 50-80
Lodgepole Pine 200-300 60-150 20-60
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I want to focus on the two predominant species in my State,
Ponderosa Pine and Lodgepole Pine.
Understanding that the guidelines reflect a desired future
condition, of having 20 to 60 old Lodgepole Pines per acre can you give
me a ballpark figure of how many Lodgepole Pines there currently are
per acre on the Routt and Medicine Bow National Forests?
Answer. This hypothetical table was included in the document for
illustrative purposes only to assist planners in visualizing how this
information could be presented in plan revisions. To actually construct
this table for use in forest planning would require data collection and
careful analysis to ascertain appropriate levels of residual stand
density for a given species under specified conditions. The number of
live lodgepole pine per acre presently found on the two forests varies
from zero to in excess of one thousand trees per acre depending on
location and stand age.
Question 5. Can you tell me how much mature timber would have to be
removed, if those trees were still alive to meet that guideline?
Question 6. Can you tell me if the projected funding for FY 2010 in
the Region Two timber program will allow your Regional Forester to meet
that goal and if so on how many acres of treatments have you tasked him
with?
Question 7. How about Nationally? How much funding would you need
to reduce stand stocking to the levels called for in the January
direction?
a) And, How much combined timber, vegetation management and
hazardous fuels funding do you have in FY 2010 to implement
these guidelines?
b) Can you provide us with a table that displays the
approximate number of acres in the National Forests that do not
meet these guidelines and how much funding it will take to
bring those acres into compliance with the guidelines?
Question 8. Could you provide me the same information (in Wyoming)
for all species listed in the table and respond to each of the
questions I asked on Lodgepole Pine?
Question 9. Could you provide me the same information for all
National Forests (collectively)?
Answer. Question 5 through 9 all reference implementation of the
example data intended for illustration only. The residual stand
densities shown in the example table were not intended to be used as
guidelines and doing so would lead to erroneous information and
conclusions.
Question 10. In your testimony you expressed the need to undertake
all landownership restoration. Given the conditions on the federal land
and the apparent difficulty the agency is having even putting out fires
on the federal land, can you explain why you would think most rational
private land owners would be willing to listen to the Forest Service or
the federal government about how to best manage their forest lands?
Answer. The Forest Service respects the diverse range of objectives
and values for which private forest lands are managed. Threats to those
objectives and loss of values from wildfires, insect and disease
epidemics, invasive species, and climate change are being experienced
by all landowners.
To make measurable and effective progress in addressing the
vulnerability of forests and water resources to these threats,
Secretary Vilsack's ``all-lands'' approach to restoration requires the
involvement and support of many partners, including States, tribes, and
willing private forest land owners. Examples of this approach already
in place are the many Community Wildfire Protection Plans
collaboratively developed and implemented across all ownerships
throughout the country.
The Forest Service leadership is developing a response to implement
Secretary Vilsack's all-lands approach to restoring priority
landscapes. The Forest Service's State and Private Forestry and
Research and Development programs have been providing valuable support
to private landowners since the 1920s. Both programs offer to
landowners the best available science and technology in silviculture,
forest pest management, fire and fuels management, wood technology and
marketing, and other key information and support services, including
funding of land management activities through the States.
Many of the issues related to wildland restoration, like climate
change, are not bounded by who owns the land. We engage our partners to
address common conservation goals. There are numerous ongoing efforts
at both national and local levels:
The Congress has provided the Forest Service with many
tools, like the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration
Program and the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, that will help
us work more effectively across boundaries to achieve common
objectives. The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008
(Farm Bill) also provides programs like the Forest Stewardship
Program which helps private landowners achieve their objectives
to sustain the health of private forested lands.
Through our State and Private Forestry programs, and new
authorities provided in the Farm Bill we are currently working
with state partners to assess the condition and health of
forest lands. These assessments will help the Forest Service
and our partners identify landscapes that have priority
restoration and conservation needs. These State Forest Resource
Assessment and Strategies will be completed and submitted to
the Secretary of Agriculture by June, 2010 We also engage in
active partnerships to offer technical and financial assistance
to rural forest landowners and private conservation groups, and
to communities concerned about forests and open space in urban
areas.
The Forest Service is developing a strategic framework to
guide the integration of climate change into the programs,
policies, processes, and partnerships of the agency. I have
asked our field leadership to apply this guidance in
development of broad level, integrated landscape conservation
strategies that focus on water and water-related services in
light of climate change. Concurrently, we will work with state
and local partners to assure that our approach is effective in
achieving partner objectives on landscapes that cross multiple
ownerships.
The cross-boundary coalitions that we build through these efforts
will help us restore our wildlands in ways that achieve national broad-
scale restoration objectives.
Appendix II
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
----------
Statement of H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, National Center
for Policy Analysis
Chairman Wyden, Ranking Member Barrasso, and other members of the
subcommittee thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify
today. I represent the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) a
nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization dedicated to
developing and promoting private alternatives to government regulation
and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of a
competitive, entrepreneurial private sector.
Global warming is a reality. But whether it is a serious problem--
and whether emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other
greenhouse gases from human fossil fuel use are the principal cause--
are uncertain. The current debate over the U. S. response to climate
change centers around greenhouse gas emissions reduction policies,
which are likely to impose substantially higher costs to society than
global warming might.
The question remains; what should be done about the threat of
global warming? Unfortunately, many proposals--including mandatory
limits on CO2 emissions--would be much more costly to
society than the danger it seeks to avert. Fortunately, there are
policies that could be adopted that are desirable in their own right
and are commendable, even if there were no threat of global warming. I
outlined several of these policies in a report called 10 Cool Global
Warming Policies that was published by the NCPA this past June. These
policies would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase energy
efficiency, reduce harms associated with global warming or increase the
world's capabilities to deal with climate-change-associated problems.
One of these policies is an alternative forest management strategy
that, among other things, can reduce wildfires and increase forest
health.
Forests are carbon sinks: As trees grow they remove carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere and store it in their trunks, limbs and roots. In
addition, forest soils, made up of dead organic matter built up over
time, store a large amount of carbon. The canopy provided by densely
packed tropical and temperate forests slow the decay of fallen leaves
and other organic matter, slowing the release of carbon and
facilitating its incorporation into the soil.
A 40-year study of African, Asian and South American tropical
forests found that each year tropical forests absorb as much as 18
percent of all the CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuels.
Temperate forests in the United States also absorb and store carbon. In
2004, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that forests
sequestered 10.6 percent of the CO2 released by the
combustion of fossil fuels, with urban trees absorbing another 1.5
percent. Other research indicates that U.S. forests may sequester as
much as 40 percent of U.S. human greenhouse gas emissions.
forest fires are a growing climate concern
Unfortunately, poor forest management in the United States and
other countries contributes to wildfires, which directly add carbon to
the atmosphere and reduce the amount of CO2 absorbed by
forests. For instance:
Wildfires in the United States release about 290 million
metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year--
equaling as much as 6 percent of the nation's annual emissions
from burning fossil fuels.
Pine beetle infestations have killed so many trees in
Western Canada that they have contributed to a rise in large
wildfires, turning Canadian forests from a net carbon sink that
absorbs 55 million tons of CO2 per year into a net
emitter of up to 245 million tons annually.
The Australian government calculated that wildfires in 2003
released more than 190 million tons of CO2;
accounting for one-third of the country's total emissions, and
it found that fires in 2006 and 2007 released an additional 360
million tons of CO2.
In terms of total CO2 emissions, Indonesia is the
third-largest emitter worldwide due largely to its annual
wildfires--which emit nearly five times as much as its energy,
agriculture and waste sectors combined.
how government ownership contributes to forest fires
Large-scale forest fires are primarily the result of poor
management of publicly owned forests. Federal mismanagement of U.S.
forests has increased the number, size and cost of wildfires over the
past decade. Historically, the national forests have been logged to
provide lumber for commercial activities, to prevent wildfires and to
promote forest recreation, species protection and land management. In
recent decades, political pressure and lawsuits from environmental
lobbyists prevented or delayed both commercial and salvage logging,
turning much of our national forests into tinderboxes.
policy recommendations
Changing the management structure of national forests could enhance
the quality and value of these lands.
Privatizing the forests
The private sector currently preserves, protects and promotes many
historically important properties and manages the majority of the
country's forests and rangelands in ways that promote environmental
quality and benefit the owners and the public. The United States can
safely and perhaps profitably sell some of the hundreds of millions of
acres of national forests for market value, giving the owners of
adjacent properties priority for ownership.
Possible buyers include forest product companies, sportsmen's clubs
and environmental groups. While these lands will no longer be public
forests, many and perhaps most will be managed sustainably, in ways
that protect their natural character and enhance their environmental
and economic value because of the incentives of private ownership.
Private companies do not have the general treasury to bail out money-
losing operations and therefore seek to maintain the value of their
lands. Furthermore, privatizing public lands would increase the tax
base in rural areas and reduce the strain on the federal budget.
Public versus Private Management
Private property owners have flexibility in managing their lands,
whereas federal forest management is too often hampered by rigidity.
For instance, when a wildfire struck near Storrie, Calif., in August
2000, more than 55,000 acres burned, mostly in the Plumas National
Forest (28,000 acres) and Lassen National Forest (27,000 acres). About
3,200 acres of private forestland managed by W.M. Beaty and Associates
also burned. However, the Forest Service and Beaty's responses couldn't
have been more different. By 2001, Beaty foresters had:
Reduced the chance of a future catastrophic wildfire by
removing smaller dead trees and woody material--generating
enough clean biomass to fuel 3,600 homes for a year.
Harvested larger dead trees suitable for lumber processing--
amounting to 64.5 million board feet, enough to build 4,300
homes.
Spent millions of dollars to reforest the burned land,
planting nearly one million seedlings of seven different tree
species.
By contrast:
The Forest Service removed dead trees and other fuels from
only 1,206 acres and replanted 230 acres in the Lassen National
Forest.
In the Plumas National Forest, the Forest Service was
prevented from removing dead trees and reforested only 181
acres.
Private forest owners are not hindered by bureaucratic federal
rules requiring multiple studies, public hearings, comment periods and
court challenges. Thus, they are better able to prevent infestations
and respond quickly to disease outbreaks. Promptly removing dead and
dying timber can prevent infestations from spreading to other areas and
prevent potentially catastrophic fires. Private companies keep the
number of trees per acre at an optimal level. This reduces fire hazards
and lets sunlight reach the forest floor, which helps re-growth and
biodiversity.
Alternatives to Outright Privatization
For political reasons, it may be impossible to sell certain
national forests, but there are various mechanisms or institutional
arrangements that would confer many of the benefits of ownership
without removing land entirely from public control.
For instance, following a suggestion by economists Richard Stroup
and John Baden, Congress could establish Wilderness Endowment Boards to
own and manage national forests lands. These government-chartered,
nonprofit entities, whose board members would be approved by Congress,
would have a narrowly defined fiduciary duty to protect and enhance the
natural values of the land under their charge. Activities such as oil
and gas production, commercial hunting and other resource production
could enhance forests without hurting the environment; such is the case
with properties managed by the Audubon Society and the Nature
Conservancy.
Each individual board would decide how to balance use, recreational
access and strict ``off-limits'' preservation, bound only by their
understanding of what is necessary to preserve and enhance the land
while generating the revenues necessary to manage it.
Reintroducing Competition
Public lands retained by the federal government could still receive
some of the environmental benefits of private ownership if federal,
state and local governments competed for control of these lands within
the public system. For example, teams of experts from federal and state
agencies, environmental organizations and the timber industry in
Montana and Minnesota compared the environmental effects of state and
federal forest management practices. They all concluded that state
foresters better protected watersheds and waterways from the impacts of
logging and other activities:
In Minnesota, 90 percent of county lands had the highest
compliance rate with ``best management practices'' for
protecting water quality; federal forests had a slightly lower
compliance rate at 87 percent.
In Montana, 99 percent of the watersheds in state forests
were protected from all impacts from logging, compared to 92
percent in federal forests.
Congress could allow any state or county that demonstrates superior
economic and environmental performance to take over the management of
the national forests within their state or area. Congress could give
fixed but declining block grants during a transition period to the
forestry agencies that apply and allow them to retain any revenues
generated. The program should be allowed to run for several years so
state and county foresters could counteract the effects of federal
mismanagement.
At the end of the trial, states and counties that have improved a
forest's economic and environmental performance could be granted the
forests outright and federal payments ended. If forests have not
improved, they could be returned to federal control and new management
experiments implemented. This program would provide Forest Service
managers with an incentive to improve performance or risk losing
control over the lands.
why is this a no-regrets policy?
Any of the management regimes suggested above should decrease the
size, intensity and frequency of wildfires, meaning less CO2
will be pumped into the atmosphere each year and more carbon stored.
Also, where there are currently more dead or dying trees or in burnt-
over areas, trees will be replanted at a more rapid rate, increasing
the carbon uptake of the nation's forests.
When pest infestations and fires do occur, the incentives for the
new ``owners'' will be to help the forest recover as soon as possible
in order to help wildlife recover, reduce soil erosion and stream
destruction, restart natural ecological cycle and/ or make a profit.
Lastly, what about international forests? Despite the various legal
systems and property rights regimes around the world, all forests
should benefit from a no-regrets solution suggested in the paper
mentioned previously: the widespread adoption of agricultural
biotechnological innovations. Scientists are genetically engineering
trees that grow faster and can store carbon at a higher rate than
existing varieties. Such trees can be planted in forests where
commercial timber producers are operating and in tropical forests
previously lost to slash-and-burn agriculture. In addition, the
adoption of new biotech crops that increase yields, improve nutrition
and/or reduce the need for such inputs as fertilizers should also
reduce stress on tropical forests by reducing the need of farmers to
move from one forest plot to the next to maintain annual production.
______
Statement of David Moulton, The Wilderness Society
Thank you Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Barrasso for this
opportunity to address our concerns regarding the use of offsets on
public lands. The Wilderness Society shares your concern for
maintaining the health of our public lands in the face of global
warming. America's public lands--some 635 million acres of land and
150,000 square miles of protected waters--are a legacy we hold in trust
for generations to come. Global warming poses an unprecedented threat
to the nation's iconic landscapes--our national parks, forests,
wilderness areas, desert lands managed by the Bureau of Land
Management, and wildlife refuges. At the same time, our country's parks
and other public lands offer one of our best hopes for sustaining the
plants, animals, birds, clean water and air, and recreational
opportunities that are important to our heritage. They store carbon and
provide large core protected areas that will be essential in adapting
to a changing climate. These lands also provide critical services for
our communities, including filtering the air we breathe and the water
we drink, and play important roles in our nation's economy. Protecting
these natural places is more important now than ever.
You have asked about the advisability of authorizing private carbon
offset projects on land owned by the American public.
The Wilderness Society is not opposed to offsets in principle.
Private offsets markets, if well-designed and well-regulated, could
become a powerful tool for steering resources into land protection.
However, we believe that extending this powerful tool into the arena of
federal land management raises numerous unexamined issues that need to
be thoroughly vetted and understood before moving aggressively in such
a direction.
We are aware of the limited offset experiments that have already
been undertaken by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Forest
Service. It is important to understand that this experience has been
gained in the unregulated voluntary carbon market. Much of what has
enabled those projects to go forward would not be allowed in a
regulated carbon market because it would not meet standards of
additionality, permanence or measurement rigor that will be needed to
keep offsets from undermining emissions targets.
At the same time, these early experiments have demonstrated the
willingness of private parties to supplement public appropriations in
return for the right to carbon credits hosted on public lands. It is
apparent that if offsets on public lands are allowed, they could become
major sources of new revenue for resource-starved public agencies. It
is also apparent that they could entangle public land managers and
agencies in potential liability associated with enforcement intended to
maintain the integrity of a regulated carbon offsets market.
Here is a list of the issues that we believe your subcommittee
would benefit from examining in detail:
1. Effect on the cap on emissions.--Offsets on public lands
expand the availability of offsets generally. Offsets are seen
as an economically efficient method of accomplishing what
otherwise might be a direct reduction in emissions. But their
viability in a mandatory cap-and-trade regime remains to be
demonstrated. We believe that the Subcommittee should seek an
analysis from EPA regarding the pros and cons of expanding the
offsets playing field in this unprecedented way to assure
itself that it is not undermining the emissions caps.
2. Effect on private land protection.--Offsets undertaken on
public lands could become a substitute for offsets on private
lands, especially if having a public agency on one side of the
deal is seen as providing an imprimatur in the marketplace.
This raises the prospect of reducing the incentive to protect
vulnerable private parcels. Adjacent private land might have
been saved from conversion by a carbon offset project, but now
is not.
3. Effect on the private carbon offsets market.--Flooding the
market with offsets on public lands could impact the price of
offsets generally, leading to less private land protection
overall.
4. Lack of additionality.--Our public lands are already
managed under laws that require that their health be
maintained. Thus it seems difficult to meet the requirement of
a regulated offsets market that the carbon sequestered through
reforestation of certain acres, for example, would not have
occurred anyway under prudent public land management. Indeed,
to the extent that the project occurs on land already
prioritized by land managers for reforestation, it would seem
that many offset projects would be sited where the next dollar
of appropriations would have been spent anyway. This lack of
additionality has not seemed to matter in the voluntary market,
but it will matter a great deal in the mandatory market.
5. Lack of permanence.--Most of the contracts undertaken in
the voluntary market to date by the Fish and Wildlife Service
have involved durations of 50 years or less. In the mandatory
market, this is insufficient to achieve the level of
``permanence'' that justifies allowing a polluter to buy an
offset.
6. Impact on appropriations.--The perceived increase in
resources available for reforestation or wetlands restoration
from these contracts could become illusory if the
appropriations committees simply reduce public appropriations
by the amount attributable to this new private source. The
financial benefit to the agency would be wiped out.
7. Impact on Management Flexibility.--Forest Service Chief
Tidwell has stressed in his testimony the inadvisability of
managing a public forest only for carbon. Instead, carbon
storage should be the natural byproduct of managing for the
longterm health of the forest. Offsets contracts with private
parties run directly counter to this prudent approach. Climate
change implies the need to change management techniques over
time. Offset contracts lock in the preservation of a carbon
sequestration in a particular place as part of a mandatory
compliance regime. The potential for these two tensions to
become irreconcilable over time seems obvious. As your public
witness, Dr. Beverly Law, has stated ``Federal lands should be
managed for the public interest of carbon sequestration, not
revenue from carbon credits.''
8. Legal concerns.--Various solicitors' offices have issued
varied legal interpretations regarding proposals to have the
managers of our public lands bind themselves to a contract with
a private sequestration project developer in the voluntary
carbon market. In any event, these opinions will have to be
rewritten once the compliance market begins because the
compliance market will create liability, enforcement and
management issues not present in the voluntary market.
9. Use of offsets contract revenues.--Should revenues flowing
from efforts to mitigate climate change emissions be spent only
on mitigating climate change emissions? The agencies have huge
climate adaptation needs which would be directly related to the
purposes of climate legislation. On the other hand, diverting
the money to non-climate related activities within the relevant
agency, such as regular operations and maintenance, or outside
the agency itself, would potentially undermine the climate
purposes of the revenues.
For all these reasons, The Wilderness Society believes that it
would be preferable to provide direct funding for carbon sequestration
activities on the public lands through non-offset mechanisms. The
pending climate bills include a Natural Resources Adaptation title
which would supplement agency budgets to accomplish adaptation
purposes, much of which will have major sequestration benefits even if
not undertaken solely for that purpose. In addition, Senator Stabenow
has proposed a Carbon Conservation Program outside of the offsets
market that could provide resources to public land managers to protect
sequestration value without becoming entangled in long-term contracts
with individual private carbon projects. As Dr. Beverly Law has
testified ``To manage federal lands in the public interest of carbon
sequestration, we should strive to preserve mature and old forests to
avoid losses of carbon associated with harvest. Many of the mature and
old forests are on public lands, so they are uniquely positioned to act
as carbon reserves.'' Non-offsets funding from the climate bill could
and should be used to support this type of carbon storage on public
lands.
Finally, let me suggest that one model for taking advantage of the
offsets market that could be viewed as a middle ground was developed by
the Fish and Wildlife Service and The Conservation Fund for the
Theodore Roosevelt NWR in Mississippi. Agricultural land was reforested
adjacent to the refuge according to native species specifications
provided by the FWS. The carbon credits were sold into the voluntary
market. The proceeds were used to facilitate not just the project
itself, but also the conveyance of title to the USFWS after the
restoration work is complete. Note that the offsets were done on
private land, not public. The carbon encumbrance was ultimately
conveyed with the land, so many of the concerns expressed above would
still apply, but the critical new element of this model is that the
taxpayer received an expansion of protected acreage. In contrast, most
of the other experiments with offsets on public lands have involved no
such addition to the amount of acreage protected from conversion.
Thank you for this opportunity to place this information in the
record of your hearing.