Transcripts For CSPAN Forest 20240705

Chief and others at the National Association of counties legislative Conference Held here in washington dc earlier this year. Homework can just be homework. Cox connects to compete. A Public Service along with the other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. Mandy moore is the chief of the service discussing management and wildfire was little and see and resiliency. It is responsible for managing more than 190 million acres of National Forest. Could have good morning. Good afternoon and welcome to the public land summit on wildfire resiliency. My name is todd and im the chair of the committee. Todays summit will be bringing together those from federal agencies to discuss how we can improve cooperative efforts and how to best communicate threats and opportunities to residents and visitors. Investments in recent years, congress has given Agencies Authority and investments. To support and make landscapes more fireproof. We are honored to have randy moore as our first speaker. He will discuss how his agency is working with local communities. Lessons learned from the 2018 and ways to improve treatments by building. Please welcome chief randy moore. [applause] randy now i can hear it. Good afternoon. Thank you all for being here and more importantly, thank you for giving me the opportunity to have a conversation with you all about some of the things that we are going through. When i think of collaboration, your close collaboration with the agency will continue to be central in making our forests healthy. All of us here have a tremendous responsibility to communities that have been affected by the wildfire disease, drought, and some of those activities that have created catastrophic wildfires. I want to start by talking about the wildfire crisis strategy. You are at the county level. You play a Critical Role in how we treat the communities that we serve. To work to reduce the strategy landscape is our top priority in the agency. Through this strategy, we will be doing this in the right places, at the right time, at the right scale. You have witnessed already. We have taken traditionally the money that began, that we tried to treat a lot of different areas, and we do treat a lot of areas, but the level and skill of treatment that we provide does not match the level and skill of the fires that are taking place on the landscape. This wildfire crisis strategy allows us to scale up, if you will, treatments in a way that will have a positive impact on the landscape. I had as i was looking i am hoping that we have the opportunity for some q a, to billing talk about those things that are important because i have enough paperwork that i could talk for the next two hours and im not sure i would be on port on point. I want to say a few words and then wait for our turn to open it up, to see how i could be most useful to you in the room. Elected officials, you have a duty to the constituents that elected you as the chief. And i have a duty to you and how you are trying to work to help protect the communities that you serve. There are a couple things that happened. It is really great. When i look at the production inflation act, we have opportunities we have not had in history of the Forest Service. It really looks at getting trees back in the ground in areas that have been affected by disease. This is going into our second year. The first year, we had to get organized, and in doing so, we sent money out to begin to start that work. We had to develop a baseline. If you look at where we have been, we have lost employees. We will not go back, but we want to hire 4000 and leverage the other 4000 through working with others to create health and resiliency in the landscapes. Some of you may be experiencing what we are in the agent. We hired 3300 employees and it was really good. We lost 2500 through attrition. What we gained was 800 new people to add to the capacity that we had. There is an amount of time where you need to be training people as well. The other thing a lot of the people that we hired, a High Percentage of them have left the agency, and we do not know if that is the new labor pool, but we are experiencing a 45 reduction. We do not know if covid in the workforce. That is a conversation that i would like to have with you all, but we are managing through that. Nevertheless, we have been successful with this first year, and i think we are set up to be even more successful. You all know that the secretary, i accompanied him in arizona and we made the announcement of 10 landscapes. We have added another 20 landscapes that we will be focusing on. This is the area that is highly likely. The fire sheds are about our scientists are telling us that if we are able to treat between 20 to 40 of fire shed, we would have a positive outcome we are moving in that direction and we have positioned ourselves to send out a billion dollars this year, looking at project work. We have a collaborative restoration project. We also have additional joint chiefs projects looking at trying to Work Together across to do restoration work as well. As we move into this next year, hopefully you will begin to see a lot of work that is taking place on the ground. We have about a billion dollars to look at how we bring new innovations, particularly in small, rural communities. Rather than looking at those facilities going out of business, how do we bring a new innovations and new Job Opportunities so that we keep people in these communities that we all live and work in. That is another piece that we are very positive and hopeful about. We are getting ready to send out proposals to the tune of about 41 grant proposals. You would like to hear from the counties on what kind of things they might be interested in for innovations. I will tell you quickly and then i will move onto the next person to jump in. We are excited about new opportunities that we see taking place. As billy there are a number of facilities across the country. Through that innovation, about 1600 buildings have been built, are being built or are in the design phase to be built using certain materials that have been serving as kindling for fires across the west, in particular. The other piece, we have seen a lot of positive things and what is exciting about this is when we began to observe, there is also opportunities to combine that with other opportunities, in terms of carbon credit and applying it in other types of lands across the country. Those are some of the things that we are excited about. We are looking at this to occur for the next 10 years. As long as the bipartisan infrastructure, as well as the Inflation Reduction Act moneys. We are off to a good start. I met with a group this morning. They have been able to leverage the money that we have divided by a tune of 71, a great return. We are excited about what the future holds and we are looking for more opportunities. With that, i will turn it back to you. Question and answer for the chief of her here. I want to touch on your employee issue. What we have seen in our area is the requirement that you have to have resume diversification of working in different spot. It has worked against the local people that one to put down in this area. You have to be able to work up to the ranks. That is randy that is the way that we have built. You will see that we have been promoting more people to stay in place. In the past, in order to move up , you have to go to a new location. We have recognized that and we are no longer requiring Different Levels of experience. We do not turn that away. In fact, you will see people staying in place and people being promoted in place without having to move and uproot their families. It is no secret. A part of that pattern was that people moved around. It is no longer true and it is not desirable or wanted anymore. I know that from my own experience in the agency. My very first job was in north dakota. The plus is that i got to meet people that i never would have met otherwise. I gained an appreciation for different cultures and a different way of doing business and existing. Those are some of the values that we still have in the agency when you are able to move around. It is not necessary anymore that if a person is that is something that we have stopped doing. People are being promoted and do not feel like they have to approve their families. Rosemary, gateway tell Yosemite National park. Thank you for the projects. I worked with the Forest Service Sierra National forest. Because of the joint chiefs project in our area, you saved the community in 2018 with the ferguson fire, and i think again last year. Thank you very much for that. Im sure you know that they are embracing the recognition process with considerable enthusiasm. I think it is essential that they take responsibility. My question is for those like jersey dale and about four other communities in my district, they are surrounded and my question is, is the Forest Service looking at how we can Work Together around those communities . If so, how do i access that . Randy thank you for raising the question. We have been working diligently to protect communities. My answer is that the only way to move forward is to collaborate with the counties moving forward. If you do not feel like you have an opportunity to work with personnel, we are saying is the only way to move forward. Hopefully i will try to come up with all these great ideas and we want to have a little bit of a different approach. Lets sit down together and decide what needs to happen. How can we throw our resources together to make it happen . . A question on the right. We appreciate the efforts Going Forward with these critical areas that need to be cleaned up. It is going to be a long road. My question relates to after the fire. We had another one in 20 that ran into the 2013 fire. They need some help to start with. The point of the question is, there is so much in those watersheds from those fires that is critical. We will we have talked to several members. What is the plan for this . There has to be some carbon coming off of that. There is no way it will sit there for years before it can be printable. Is there any kind of strategy after the fires . Randy i am glad that you brought it up. I am very familiar with the situation in colorado. Here again, the short answer is that colorado no longer has an industry to speak of. A part of that, there are a lot of different reasons. There is just nothing there. I believe the west slope is where you have the closest facility. We are trying to create opportunities to start some type of industry there. You do have a lot of dying material in colorado, particularly around the i75. So how do we begin to take advantage to create a new opportunity and some of these areas where you no longer have facilities there in that part of the country . We want to be a part of that and we want you to be a part of that. How do we Work Together to stimulate business to operate . One of the things that we have heard. We will probably talk about this in a little bit. We have lost a lot of facilities. How do we start something new . Without getting made of the old . We need those facilities in place, and we also need to improve the number of those facilities that we currently have in place. When we look at new products, that would is as strong as steel. Looking at that technology, as we move into a new era and opportunity that we have, we are open to suggestions. We look at opportunities and we are open to grant businesses to study that and have startups. We have invested about 200 million so far. We have another 800 million that we are looking at investing in those opportunities. I bring this up because you know more about what the opportunities are in your communities than we do. I want you to take this and challenge us to work with you to create new Job Opportunities. We have a question in front. Thank you, chief. I want to thank you. I think we finally have hope again with a lot of trying to reestablish a biomass and being able to use absolutely everything. In that case, thank you. The Forest Service has been a great partner to work with, and we have a great relationship. It is exciting to hear. That is exactly where our mindset is as well. I wanted to bring up one other topic. We have gone through and set ambitious standards. It is a huge amount, a huge opportunity and one challenge i am looking at, the Greenhouse Gas inventories is trying to make an environmental argument for these projects, according to emissions data. There is not an accepted scientific formula that when we go in, we leave a healthier forest. We can bring that back and say not only did this create jobs and make people safer, but also, be are able to reduce the risk of fire that is one of the highest amount of emissions. That land will be more productive. We lack the ability to do that, even though there is all kinds of data out there. One final bit is that we had a report come out that one year of fire eliminated most 20 years of carbon emission that the state has undergone. I think it is something that we are talking about, but we could use your leadership so that we can tell policymakers. Randy well said. That seems more like a statement than a question. We do want to be a part of that. I think that is where certain parts of the country are leaning , and we want to lean in that direction with you. One of the things that we are beginning to see is that there are a number of things that the communities are experiencing that are really negative. Insurance companies are dropping Insurance Coverage. Can you imagine how devastating that would be to not be able to have insurance . In california, we are trying to work with a number of partners, including the Insurance Industry to save. If you are removing Insurance Coverage from people who live in a fiery fire danger area, are you willing to reassure them, if they are willing to reduce the hazards associated with that fire said, so that homeowners can begin to have hope that they are insured again. There is nothing more frightening to than to live in an area like that and not have Insurance Coverage. With our approach, just looking at how to bring the community together, we are looking at creating a little bit of stability in some of these communities that are at risk for these wildfires. We want to be your partners. Its particularly challenging because we have no land on the far service has the lab. Have you considered ways where you can and hands your existing housing, add more density to the areas we do have . As you brought up earlier on the military model, one thing we dont have enough of our barracks on those particular areas so consider having that and we can keep these people in our communities and have Career Growth there. We certainly can. We are in kind of a Pilot Project in colorado on the white river where we are trying to work out some Creative Solutions to have Affordable Housing. That includes barracks and includes places for employees and others to live at an affordable rate. I think its for 50 years, thats the pilot so if there is an investment, thats enough time to recoup the investments. We are piloting that and trying to look at what other opportunities we can get like that. If you have some ideas as well about how we can do that, we are all years. It is a significant problem for not only our employees but also yours as well to live in these communities in Affordable Housing or have a landbased to have homes. We want to be Good Neighbors and we want to be a good partner with you and we want to invite you to help us be strategic help be our thinking partners. Together, we will get much further than we will separately like weve been doing for so long. Weve got a question to your right way in the back. Thanks for being here area we want to thank your field officers who helped us in the dixie and fish Lake National forest. I will try to turn it into a question like jeopardy. [laughter] we have very few private industries left that are willing to take the wood out of the forest and sounds like you want to get it out, but that you hold onto it like its meat in a lions mouth and therefore, no industry can shoot up so we are trying to get, for example, in beaver, utah, i talked to the owners of one of the few little mills left, fish lake lumber, but they cannot at the Forest Service to just give them the wood. They will process it and turn it into laminates or turn it into mulch or whatever but its almost like you want to give it up so you dont have to do the work and private industry is willing to do the work for you, but you wont let them go get the wood even in an environmentally sensitive way. There is the question. Would you help us with that . That would be awesome. Its easy for me to say yes but i dont know the specifics. Or the particulars about the areas you are referring to. I want to be clear about this we want to work with you. We have the best opportunity we have had in the last 117 years. We dont have all the answers nor do we want to if you have an opportunity there, lets sit down and talk about what that opportunity is and what will be required to implement that opportunity. Like the sign says, we are open for business so lets look at some opportunities and projects and see if they are doable. We do want to make this thing work because we know weve got a tough situation out there on the landscape area we have said we want to clear restore 20 million federal acres but another 30 million private, tribal and other lands. Thats a lot of work that we are trying to commit to and we want to be smart and strategic and the challenge, no matter where we go, there are places we didnt go that will feel left out. In terms of priorities and how we choose these and what is the criteria for these priorities, thats where we can use some help. No matter where we go or how we get there, there will be some that is left. We know that and believe me, most of us that work for the Forest Service, we live in the same communities your supervisors are in. We raise our families there so we have a connection there. We do want to try and make things better. Its our livelihoods as well. I think thats the last question we will take today. I have to remind every day that we are being recorded for cspan. I thought maybe that was appropriate to tell you. The panel knew but you didnt know. [laughter] thank you chief, for your hard work to reduce the impact of wildfires in our communities. Thank you. [applause] the United States department of interior has also received substantial new investments from congress to reduce wildfire threats on federal lands from mechanical thinning and control earns in the removal of invasive species. The department of Interior Office of wildfire directive will discuss how governmental partners and private stakeholders can work with Agency Personnel to target investments to landscapes and at the greatest risk of catastrophic fire. Please welcome director jeff ruppert. [applause] thanks, very much appreciate it. I cant help it come i have to take the opportunity to share with you all that i grew up in a little farm town growing soybeans north of kansas city which means i grew up in kansas city in the 70s and 80s when following the chiefs was a difficult thing to do. For someone like me, i appreciate where the chief nation is now. Thanks much. The department of the interior of office of wildfire, what i represent is a cross between four Land Management bureaus, bureau of Land Management, National Park service, u. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Life system and the bureau of indian affairs. Nearly all of the operational capacity interior and the wildfire management programs sits in those Land Management bureaus and thats important for all of you at that local level. That means where we have that connection and where we are working to address all of the topics that now talk about some of the high level accomplishments and the work we have going on in those areas. All of that coordination really exists within those Land Management bureaus at the local level like with phil unit managers and park superintendents, important relationships for the interior. I will talk a little bit about what we have accomplished. There was a real focus and infrastructure because it really has been substantial Additional Support for interior for the wild wildfire management program. What is the future look like for interior over the next four years of infrastructure implementation . Im really interested to hear from you all whats working and what isnt working and what do we need to know in the interior to focus on for us to realize the change that we really want to make with this Additional Support thats coming in through infrastructure. It has been a little over a year since infrastructure was passed. It is described by many, myself included, as an historic investment. It is a substantial increase in support for interior and wildfire management programs. It is helping to drive expanded delivery as well as there are a lot of requirements that are helping us drive that change management. And how we are doing business around wildlife and fire both before during and after a fire. Over the past year, we really have laid the groundwork to implement that additional investment and it allocated nearly two much million to increase wildlife and wildfire pay and expand the mitigation and resilience work we are doing in post recovery work. If you are close to wildfire, youre probably aware that there is a real focus on wildfire work reform. Infrastructure specifically directed us to increase federal wildfire fighter pay. We have done that over the past year, we have increased pay to all of our wildlife wildFire Fighters and we will provide that support under infrastructure. Infrastructure doesnt last forever so we are also very much working hard to strategically come up with a longterm strategy and a longterm approach for essentially that Additional Support to become permanent. Thats important because thats a fundamental part of how we think about addressing the challenge that is already been talked about and that is the real challenge around recruiting and retaining wildlife and wildFire Fighters. We are experiencing in a federal level but across the whole country. We think, based on what we hear from Fire Fighters that this compensation issue is in an wharton issue. The other thing we are doing on our infrastructure is we are looking at how we classify wild and firefighters. Its been a contention in the agency for years and that wild and Firefighters Want to be recognized as professional wild and firefighters and the way our position classification framework has been for many years, we call them wild and firefighters but when they look at their Position Description and responsibility, thats not what they are called we have been working jointly with usda Forest Service as well as office of personnel across the federal government and have established a new wild and firefighter, professional series and that we are in the process of implementing that so that wild and firefighters have that professional title as well as we are addressing sort of all of the qualifications and establishing clear lines of Career Development so when someone comes in and enters the workforce as an entrylevel firefighter, they have a clear path to becoming a senior manager and see a full career in front of them. From everything we hear from wild and firefighters, this is an important change we are making. Importantly, we are also jointly working with usda. We are developing a joint health and wellbeing program that really focuses providing Mental Health support and taking steps to reduce exposure to line of duty hazards. Our next big step in an effort to develop this joint program which expands upon a lot of the support we currently provide will be this coming april when we hold a summit where we will bring Mental Health experts and wild and firefighters together to start to really lay out an evidencebased expansion of health and wellness expanded program. We are excited about the expansion of this program and real excited about this next step in april. I am convinced that these efforts will help the department to better respond to what many people call the new normal for wild and fire, this trend weve been on, catastrophic mega fire and all the impacts that come along with it. We feel this is a critically important piece because Everything Else i will talk about and highlight, none of it is possible without a good, solid wild and firefighter workforce so making these workforce reforms and changes is to clean written. We are working on more than just workforce reform. With support from the infrastructure law over this past year, we completed over 2 million acres of fuel reduction so thats prefire Risk Reduction. Thats good prevention work across the country. As we move into 23 now, we are expecting to increase that fuel work by another 800,000 acres. So we are on a good solid trajectory of increasing the amount of Risk Reduction work occurring across the country. Weve gotten a really good start on it in the first half of this year. We feel like we are on a confident trajectory there. I will say that its not about treating acres, its about bringing a priority focus on where you were treating acres, how you are partnering to treat acres at that broader scale, the landscape scale, the watershed scale in developing shared strategies to reduce that risk, working at the county level or local communities or other federal partners and tribes so that its not just about what is our plan on a particular interior administered piece of land but what is that shared strategy to reduce risk at a scale that makes a difference. When you look at mega fires, the really rare, very infrequent 500 thousand acre fire, much less a million acre fire, we see that every year multiple times. Its no big deal for us to deploy Incident Management Teams to five hundred thousand acre plus buyers. Its a horrible trajectory so that Risk Reduction and prevention has to be on an equivalent scale and that makes it multijurisdictional. We have no misconception that the secret Silver Bullet to making that work is all about local communities all about working with local interests interested parties to develop the shared strategies we have also similarly expanded our work and that recovery rehab space as well. Last year, we completed more than 360,000 acres of postfire emergency stabilization and burned area rehabilitation so thats all post Fire Recovery work and i will say the same thing that i said about prefire and the Risk Reduction work, we are working very hard to expand the multijurisdictional coordination to deliver post fire. In that prefire Risk Reduction space, we have been on a trajectory and we talked a lot about multijurisdictional coordination to address Risk Reduction and weve been talking about that seriously for a number of years now the post fire, at least from my perspective, that priority focus on post fire coordination is a little more recent. I am really excited about the laser focus that i think is becoming apparent now about how do we more effectively coordinate multijurisdictional and cross programmatically in the post fire space. When you look at a broad range of recovery programs that are out there, theres a lot of opportunity for us to improve that post fire coordination and there is a good solid focus on that now. I dont know that was necessarily the case a few years ago so i think we have at least got the right focus in place now. Now we just need to make progress and make really good use of the investments and all the expectations that go along with that to get more effective coordination in place. There is good supportive infrastructure as well. Im looking at improvements to Wildfire Response capability so things focused on firefighter and Public Safety and things like radio interoperability, satellite the texan Technology Satellite detection technology. We have always had a pretty open sort of partner focused, coordination and culture in many ways but infrastructure is really doubled down on that. Looking at these technology advancements, we are working with organizations like noaah with satellite detection capability on board and the department of defense and nasa, it is an expanding partnership and coordination which is clearly going to be impactful in this capability space. Again, infrastructure is playing a huge role in helping to be a catalyst that increases the expectation for all of us that we will work through these change management challenges. I think i will jump down to the and and hopefully leave some time to hear whats working. I will take that for sure but more importantly, whats not working and what kind of focus do we need to bring. To more effectively deliver on all of this. Im just going to reemphasize crystalclear recognition of the importance of working with local communities, with counties and local governments and private landowners to realize those shared opportunities to reduce risk before a fire, better respond to fire and more effectively recover after a fire which really just sets you up to essentially be prepared for the next buyer so it really is that full cycle. I will stop there and hopefully there is questions or feedback. Q a is my mike honda . Before we take q a i would like to take about a 15 minute break. Just kidding. [laughter] you should have seen the look on his face. Right here. Thank you for being here today. This is not a negative comment but you mention multijurisdictional approaches and lot of resources. Forest behavior is out of control. I am from telluride county colorado which is first county west of Colorado Springs which is half auras and lots of smaller pieces. I think the speakers before have highlighted the challenges. There are jurisdictional questions, there are folks that i talked to that look in me and say i hear you but its public and thats all i want. With all this money and all this focus multijurisdictional, have you given thoughts to enforcement and education . After Labor Day Weekend last year anna blm property in our county, we had over 54 smoldering fires left on blm and they were discovered by 70 or 80yearolds and they realize you cannot stop that behavior but if we can educate, i havent heard a lot of that i think its an unfair burden on this. On us. Thanks for the feedback, very much appreciated. With the increasing focus in the increasing guidance and increasing encouragement, whatever qualifier fits in that that character of trying to facilitate more coordination that multijurisdictional scale, there are excellent examples of that around the country and as ive traveled around and visited places, i am recognizing that some of those model multijurisdictional efforts that are in place might still be the exception as opposed to the rule and as part of the effort here is how to make that the general rule. Specifically, enforcement, a lot of complexity there and you probably understand that at her than i do, quite frankly. It certainly resonates with me that the enforcement piece is an important one and a challenging one and the same kind of route treatment, retention challenges we talk about in fire and other sectors is also present in Law Enforcement but not necessarily the kind of direct budget relationship between a wild and fire program in reeses and lawn oarsmen. Within the Land Management agencies, we have lots of opportunities to bring real integrated approaches to how we address those integrated challenges. I dont know that ive got a magic answer of what we need to do, but i can assure you that the direction we are going and certainly the expectation that everyone in interior, folks across the Land Management agencies are dealing with these problems understand how we Work Together and how we address those real complicated challenges. We are all expected to be a part of that. Question upfront here . You must be farther up the food chain than me. Commissioner leland pollock, garfield county, utah and you look familiar because it looks like you been interior with interior for a while. The years fly by. I will jump into something you can do to help us and a lot of us in this room share this same issue and problem. Juniper is a noxious weed, believe me nothing grows under it. I dont know why the tree hovers like it is nobody else likes it. We are having a very difficult time on the Grand Staircase National Monument because its blm land and is not a monument, its a rangeland. We need your help to get the restrictions off of areas like that and across the west so we can start getting rid of this noxious weed, its really like a shrub. Will you help us with that . Yes, and thank you. I dont know that a month goes by when the notion of compliance and deficiencies and how we better deliver on that planning and compliance issues that thats not a major focus. Whether its congressional hearings, internal workshops and strategies, i hear you and thanks. Yeah, i think i will certainly reinforce it and forever and forever its worth, theres not a lack of engagement were awareness, its trying to figure out what are the steps we can take to really start to address this. I will take the opportunity to hit on the earlier team, the notion of really collaborative, shared development of Risk Reduction strategies. As you go across the country and where you see things working well in some parts of the country, and in some specific places, a lot of those places have really good local level coordinated planning and strategic Risk Reduction, stakeholders working together in place and i think one of the reasons that is is when you have that broadspectrum of folks interested in these issues and topics at the local Community Level sitting at the same table, talking about the same solutions, i think it helps whether its the legal challenge side of a lot of these kind of efforts. Its not the only solution but certainly, trying to get as many folks at the local level together talking about real strategic Risk Reduction together. In some pies the country where seen efforts in place, it seems to help. It does seem to help. I want to go back to the previous question. I want to speak to the question about Law Enforcement. There is no provision ground Law Enforcement but there is a provision around collaborating with communities on the question of education. We will explore that. Thats one of the first times weve heard that comment so i will take that back and see what opportunities we might have. Thank you. We got a question way to the right. I am from jackson county, oregon and i know we spoken in the past. This first catastrophic wildfires, i have to comment that weve gotten great coordination with our federal agencies in our county, less than 100 acres burned in the last fire season which is a huge Success Story in the two. Read in an attack when our state declared fire season and it works and its accessible. We have an overarching dirtyyearold fire policy that allows prescribed fire no matter what time of year, season or ground conditions and in the west, its been horribly devastating. Hopefully you will take a look at it and i have packets for any of you that wanted with recommendations with our resolution to amend that policy. Hopefully, you will take a look at it and i appreciate the time and for your attention on this. Thank you for the feedback and i wont leave without grabbing one of your packets. Question right in front. Middle of the room . Rosebud county, southeastern montana. You talk about mitigation and we have a lot of coal and weve been having problems with coal seam fires. They will get to burning and burn underground for years and eventually drop in and start a fire when you least expect it. It seems like if they mind the federal coal but if its not mineable, it ends up on the counties. We have four counties and two tribes trying to mitigate it. Weve identified mitigating that we had a small fire couple of years ago and it burned 175,000 acres called by coal seeping. Were working out of a we could use federal help to mitigate these. We are in Rough Country and its difficult and almost impossible to stop. Thanks for that. In terms of a fire surfacing and getting going, i understand in terms of coal seam fires. I cant say of got a whole lot of insider experience of what the potential solutions are there but thank you for that. We have time for one more question right here to your left. Daggett county, utah. Thank you for the collaborative approach and the work youre doing to pull things together. One of the questions ive got maybe a paradigm shift as you speak about the infrastructure, i hear you speaking of the infrastructure within your agencies. What about the idea that our watersheds are infrastructure and those moneys can be applied whether its prefire mitigation efforts and whether they fit the rules to be able to look at things that way so that we have those diverse landscapes whether its getting into the things that commissioner pollock was talking about withpj efforts or any especially as it relates to being able to get past just nature of some of eric ngos . Am i thinking outside the box . I dont think you are. Year one of infrastructure law, many times, im a bit lazy with how i use infrastructure. The infrastructure law which provided this dramatic expanded support for us, year one, a lot of our implementation so there is the workforce piece. Our implementation focused on prefire Risk Reduction, post Fire Recovery and rehabilitation. A lot of that your one effort would go on like the project portfolio and the planning we had in place as we carry work forward. We have some of that workforce focus and Additional Support we have seen like in our annual appropriations work is for for expanding capacity. We are not having some success in that regard which is setting us up to really start to expand out our Risk Reduction work in the direction that you are talking about. For example, one of the things we are looking at right now, we are in the process of moving a proposal forward and looking at watersheds and looking at how we can most effectively use thewhiden amendment to have that solid collaboration and partnership, not just on the land we are administering but also on adjacent lands and lands that are in need of the attention to reduce the overall risk. Very much i see that being relevant and icy is working hard to try to move in that direction so we can have a more effective impact at that watershed scale. Thank you, director rupert. [applause] we appreciate his efforts. The Forest Products industry plays a Critical Role in maintaining healthy federal force, reducing fire rollout and wildfire threats and protecting watersheds. Billembergamo, director of the federal Resource Coalition will discuss how the Timber Industry supports healthy lands and local economies while highlighting the creation of the recently developed coalition of intergovernmental partners. This is Industry Groups and carbon conservation groups to work with the federal agencies on the implementation of federal funds. Please welcome bill embergamo. [applause] hi there. I know two things for sure its 3 30 p. M. And when i went to the coffee station, they only had decaf so i will do everything i can to try to keep you awake. Thanks for having me here and i appreciate the opportunity. Im with the federal forest Resource Coalition and we represent sawmills, loggers, truckers and ive got the salt River Project in arizona as a member and several are scattered around. Mostly, i have family run sawmills and other Forest Products companies that depend on the Forest Service for all or some of their fight fire supplies. There are a lot of assumptions when i get in front of a group of people why having a first Products Industry would be good. A Forest Products industry would be good. One of the biggest runs we have is forest over stocking. Brush is a problem, chaparral is a problem and grasses a problem and houses being built into that but forest fires are very problem and a big driver of that problem is overly dense forest it stands. These tend to generate hot and fastmoving wildfires that become wind driven and can turn into wild buyers that blowout into the chaparral and the communities and you get things like the fires we had in colorado and the santa rosa fire where you have a wildfire but the fuel type is houses. The point i would like to make most strongly is we cannot protect those communities if we are only working where you can see the houses. We need to be protecting watersheds and protecting Wildlife Habitat and we need to work away from the communities to the fires dont burn into the committees with that kind of velocity. The chief and mr. Rupert discussed a lot of these things but i will give you more context. The infrastructure bill and the inflationary reduction act are important but there have another goods that have happened in the last several years. There are things that several previous chiefs and blm directors avast four. The farm bills of 20 and 2018 created permanent stewardship contracting opportunity which is important method of getting things done. It changes the contracting mechanism and you can trade goods for services. It expanded Good Neighbor authority to all 50 states. There were two authorities on the book simultaneously and im not sure which one they were using and read the insect and disease categorical exclusion and expanded the purposes of that in 201820 hazard skill reduction. Then we had the 2018 omnibus. You look at the earlier years, we had cheese get up in front of congress and say far fire borrowing is her problem and it took way longer than it should have been happened in 2018. We also got a partial fix to the cottonwood issue. If you are not familiar with cottonwood, i will give you a 32nd summary. It is enabled environmental lingered it dead litigators to get injunctions against Forest Service management to force them to go back and consult on the forest plan even if fish and wildlife had no concerns about the project. In other words, the project didnt trigger anything for endangered species but they can go look they can go back and look at the plans. Some the pns rolled onto vote and some were writt when i graduated high school and i will not say when that s. Weve got a partial cottonwood fixing to get the fire borrowing fix and the Great American outdoors act provides mandatory funding and doesnt go through the annual exercisof spending bills so there is mandatory money r Forest Service roads, trails and infrastructure. Its not enough and not for all of it but there is mandatory money there. Obviously, ija and my Forest Service friends call it the bill. It was a lot of money. There is about 1. 5 billion of that was for fuels reduction. Its in a lot of different pots and most of them allow mechanical fuels reduction treatment and some of them favor prescribed fire. There was 400 million for industry assistance that still very poorly defined in terms of trying to keep facilities that can consume wood and other materials and federal lands and there were also two other authorities, categorical exclusion and i assume folks know what that is. It means you dont have to do additionalnepa, the activities presented not create a Significant Impact on the human environment. And new authority for emergency actions and the Inflation Reduction Act provide another 1. 5 billion. When you combine that with the two bills, there was 800 Million Dollars in the 2022 omnibus , the firstcr for 2022 for additional fuels reduction, hurricane recovery, Fire Recovery, you are talking a 67 billion combined for Forest Service and doi for between five and seven years. Is a significant amount of money and it was appropriated in complete ignorance to what the Forest Service and interior budget structures are so they are struggling with that but its a substantial amount of money in my industry where it exists is there to help get more done on the ground. I mentioned fuel over stocking. These are caveats. We are not the panacea and there are no Silver Bullets. Not all trees are fuel and not all fuels are trees and not all timberarvest is Hazard Reduction work. There are other good timber we create habitat ispin of the u. S. And theres all of areas wherere i not a lot of young forest and we can do a lot of things with timber forest. Needs to happen is we need to harvest every acre of the National Forestm. But, where there is value, there is no reason why that value cannot help pay for additional treatments. It can help reduce fuels on the acres that have the timber and you can generate revenue to pay for other noncommercial activities like mastication, prescribed fire, Wildlife Habitat improvement. I took this picture friday on the Prescott National forest in arizona. I assure you, is not a hot bed of the Forest Products industry. I couldnt visit to her three nose with this project paid its way out of the woods and its all downhill from this spot to a pallet mill outside of phoenix. They get a gravity assist their and in all of these funds and all of these authorities, this did not open a single new acre of National Forest or blm plan to harvest that was already available. It didnt wave a single requirement, it does not waive any endangered species considerations. One of the things that was mentioned is caveats and restrictions inija and none of those are absolute. There is tree retention language and its specifically cited language from the healthy forest registration act that says you must retain large trees to the extent they create fire resilient landscapes. Ija starts at the end of this fiscal year but we are off to a slow start the last several years, we are moving in the wrong direction. Commercial thinning is a good way of doing just what i said, generate revenue, pay for noncommercial work, pay for reforestation. There are number of acres commercially thin and as you can see, we are off 45 since 2018. Even while the industry was experiencing a momentary bout of profitability we saw a thinning decline in the national auris. When you look at the expedited authorities that the Forest Service was given, they only approved five of those covering fewer than 13,000 acres. That is extremely concerning. When you get down to this, the Environmental Community says you should only be treating next to homes and protecting communities. Thats exactly without authority is for. I sincerely feel most blm district have some idea of a place where they can use a fuelburning. For only five of them to be approved in the first fiscal year i think there were seven more on the books, as of november of last year my quite frankly thats not enough. This should be extraordinarily noncontroversial. There is an overreliance on prescribed fire. There is an over promotion of prescribed fire. When you hear the Forest Service say they pursue arrived earn or they prescribed treatment, roughly one million acres of that is prescribed burning in region eight. Its great stuff and creates a good turkey habitat. There nothing wrong with it but it is not helping address the fuel loading on forested lands in the west that are driving these large fires and suppression cost and safety for communities. We also see back burning being used during suppression operations. I think there is a lot more scrutiny on this since in nbc news story in september of last since september of last year but i hope the focus doesnt go away on that. In timber harvest, acres are important. My member volumes are important and you cant run acre without running a log across it. We saw a slight bump up and out put in 2022, primarily driven by some selvage in california but these declines have been the areas where my members are most dependent on Forest Service timber. Region six is oregon and washington in the Forest Service hit 20 year low in fiscal 22. I had five mills close last two years, all of them have relied on the Forest Service for at least half of their timber supply. I had other members who were investing as fast as they could, as far away as they could from the Forest Service by building new mills, upgrading old mills. We saw five close, to nr again and one in montana and one in idaho when one in south dakota. That is a bad direction. When im here to say is we need to change our thinking. This is a picture from summer of 2020 and i hope its public domain. Thats my hometown, new york city, im from outside new york city, i stumbled into forestry, dont ask. That was the air quality in august of 2020. My nephew lives in connecticut and asked what it was so smoky. My wife was driving to wilmington, North Carolina and had to slow down on i40 outside of wilmington because smoke from hartigan and washington National Forest wildfires made it so thick you couldnt see where it was going in North Carolina structural risk emission cannot be the metric for what defines a community at risk portland, oregon, seattle, eugene were never in danger of actually burning down. The summers of 2020 and 2021, no one could go outsidfo three weeks. Not unhealthy for sensitive groups not hethy for humans. We need to thk out protecting entire watersheds and protecting communities from stuff like that, not just being set on fire. The other thing we need to think about is how we change our definition of protection and what is protte you will know a large portion of the natiol forest is wilderness and roadless. When we have species outside these areas, our protection strategies were based on science that was written in the 1990s. Back then, the assumption was this list of species was up here and needed dance, closed canopy forest and thats the best habitat for them. That picture i took in the summer of 2014 on the plumas National Forest, that was a northern spotted owl. That one ive actually seen. The Forest Service tried for six years to thin this out and reduce fire danger. They were litigated and blocked at every turn and the chips fire destroyed this entire watershed. Over 20 spotted towel protected Activity Centers, how protected to those look to you guys . Not very well protected. This is a change that has to take place over time as we update lands and forest plans. I heard some good news in arizona, i heard the fish and Wildlife Service has told the Forest Service they will sign off on whatever thinning they want as close to protective Activity Centers because they know we are losing these things in these catastrophic fires. A lot of this was implied. Every National Forest in the west this year should have at least one fuel break categorical exclusion. We should use the emergency actions authority on every National Forest in the west. We need to enact permanent cottonwood reform that addresses all four aspects of the cottonwood issue and i would be happy to dig into that more during q a. Over time, we need to start challenging the assumptions about what counts as protect it. How are we maintaining habitats for species. We have some species in the eastern u. S. That respond well to timber management. They are listed species. The warbler was taken off the endangered species list because the there cut on the National Forest and created the habitat it needs. We thinned the woodpecker habitat and create a habitat that endangered species needs to thrive so we need to start challenging those things. We need to acknowledge about half the Forest Service our wilderness for road less. There is National Monuments as hard to sort out where the overlap is. Its at least 50 of the lands, we are trying to work on other acres. The over promotion of prescribed fire was thinned in 2016 and has been prescribed burns twice since and i asked the Forest Service if theres any way you could have introduced prescribed fire without doing the commercial thin first and they said absolutely not it would have looked like the picture of the chips fire. We need to stop counting back on operations like hazardous sure production what is being done during suppression ops and we need to keep the industry we have. Quite frankly, there is a lot of talk about creating new wood using industries in the west. If they are not colocated within existing Forest Products facility, i put somebody to sleep there is a problem with investment of skill. If capital wants to work and would products, it can invest anywhere. If you have the choice of investing where half or more of the timber land is owned by a federal agency and can be soothed and dragged into your enjoined and threatened or you can invest in alabama where they have a 330 day growing season and an extraordinarily probusiness attitude and 85 of the timberlands private. Think where you will invest. We keep the installed capacity where it is, build new products, new demand around those facilities. The idea that we will launch a new industry into some of these areas that heave there never had it were lost at 30 years ago is challenging to put it mildly. Lastly, i mentioned the summer of 2020 and its not just a problem because my family was impacted, you all lived through this. We called an emergency and we got congresss attention and congress reacted to what happened and pass these laws. As weve gone into the someone has asked a question. I represent i am from the aviva county. They have burned hundreds of thousands of acres. Your comments right now in our legislature, we are looking forward to prescribed burns during the spring. Not sure what is going to happen. The other issue are travel communities trying to clear the forest. They are no longer in an area where you have a middle . I do not know if i should ask or if there is something that we can do to make it possible for those activities. That is really interesting. He still had them doing their thing. They were burning, when it was appropriate to burn. They were extraordinarily proud. The history of fire suppression, we need it is not a panacea. We tried to work with better understandings around how to get the landscape. That way you can lay out some of the parameters, what you have to do first. That is my first initial suggestion. The incredible about the hermits peak fire is that it was 23 years to the week. Literally, just, im say. Sorry. They had been done six years prior. There was a guardian case out of new mexico. I have portion. Portions of them. When the agency screws up like that, they do it in the same place. When it happened in new mexico Anyone Running around new mexico they are not a resource manager. Hello. My name is heidi. We were on the edge of the car fire. If. You know you are living that is how i keep track you know you are living the dream. That is how i keep track. I belong to the burn association. We do prescribed burning. We joke and say that they burn intentionally. For Different Things that are used, you can look online. I just want to encourage there is a unique way to get all the local voices and you want to check in to that. The resource conservation district, they put more fire on the ground, and i would encourage you because in the fall, it smells really good. It is a unique thing. It is we are just hoping that they can start going away. It works for us, where we are. A question over here. Some of them had to leave. This includes urban utah. This deals with flood control. The snowpack, this year we will have snowpack again. So we do have moisture in the spring. We have had some pretty serious fires in the urban stages. The scrub oak is incredibly dry. We have not been watering our yards. We are into these neighborhoods with their scrub oak and the winds. We have people with their windows open at night. In addition to rural utah, there is our city and our county. We have been having meetings to try to figure them out proactively. That is what we are trying to work on but it is sitting in urban utah as well. You talked about another place. And the one thing that i will say on that plane is that one of the things i saw in arizona and montana comedic these little subdivisions in the mountains. They have talked to this community. It is all true. It would be hard to have a cabin in the woods right now and not be thinking about those issues. In my opinion, they need to focus on the line. County government, you need to Work Together on this stuff. At the nonfederal level. This one is the limited resource. Talk into the community about what they have to do. Making it less likely that when it gets to that boundary, it is not going 90 miles an hour. I think they are giving me the hook. All right. [applause] thank you for your efforts to improve the economy. I hope i pronounced your name correctly. He did better than a lot. Cameron adams at the Nature Conservancy discussing those recently partnered on a National Poll and Resource Groups and key communities throughout the u. S. They will inform us about the results of this, including recommendations and potential solutions. Please welcome cameron adams. My name is cameron adams. Presenting to you today. I want to start by going through the technology that we use. Just showing you all what we learned for the Different Solutions around wildfires. For purpose and methods, we do a lot on wildfire. Representing all 50 states that are immersed in communities. And then we have our team in d. C. One great example is the roadmap for wildfire resilience policies. Nearly 100 recommendations for sensible policies we can use. We wanted to make sure that concurrent with that, have a good understanding and interest in what we can do. It helps us justify greater action. I am not a. We just want to talk about some of the methods on this project and Environmental Issues. They do not have any political bias. This is something that we got involved in with over 2000 responses. We did pull perspectives to make sure that we are capturing that issue. Importantly, we did a number of focus groups, we dig in to better understand what we are seeing in the numbers. We also did an Online Focus Group as well. Moving right along into some of the results. We had a question. Thinking about personal safety and you can see that we have a plurality of responses. Asking the question again, the result is potentially flipped. I think it surprises no one in this room. Importantly, the results. We adjusted those responding showing that it really jumped up. We see that show up in a few similar discussions. So we see sort of modest numbers with that personal connection for obvious reasons. A lot going on here. We ask where we gave a list of issues. What youre seeing here are the percentages. Extremely serious or very serious. This is a great chance. You see it pretty static through the early to thousands and this past year. So, really, clearly demonstrating concerns for voters. Just contrasting the results there. Relatively high level. Not a lot of change. Really demonstrating environmental concern. There are other issues on environmental. This is that same question. How big is this problem . Again, you see that these issues like inflation and other issues are up here. We know it is a toptier environmental concern. There are other issues that are discussed. This is critically important for us to know. We have spent time talking about the political breakdown, party affiliation. This is that same question for voters. There is that 20 point gap. When they talk about this, there is pretty much no issue. The question becomes less to try to judge. Put wildfire up in the middle. The amount you pay in taxes and the parties surpassing what we see. Showing that this is still a majority. Where we are solution oriented, we are trying to make progress on this issue. We just want to run through some of the result. I would just break it down. This is not a real scenario, just a example. Proposed agencies have proposed to work with local government to do more proactive work. That would involve using controlled burning. This work, hypothetically they would be distributed among all levels of government. So, a broad proposal. We asked if you would support. We are encouraged to see overwhelmingly strong support. So, that was true for us. It aligns pretty closely to get done on the landscape. That level of support and response. We did a little bit of work to break it down and see the levels of support to go back and change regions. You see all of the regions on the left there. We really found no regional signal. This is really more of a national issue. Even areas where fire is not a pressing issue, still really like really high levels of support. We also look at political parties. Selfreported liberals and conservatives. Ultimately a strong majority. A lot going on here. There is a lot in there. We wanted to try to break it down a little bit. That is what you are seeing here. What we really found was, whether it is controlled burning or all levels of government, higher levels of support for individual components rather than individual policies. We said we wanted to play with that little bit. We pulled this out and had 75 . We will see how many other funds respond to that. So, it helps a lot to pull out the reason, but the cost is kind of what the cost is. They said, lets do it. A lack of sticker shock, there are a level that there was a strong agreement. And then, we also learned a little bit about controlled burning. There really. We found a high level and what that work involves. We had,. It helps with the context there. We have received an enormous amount of sport. We wanted look. We have a list who might br responsibility. Where does everyone fl . 81 have responded. Getting to this point, we heard through a lot the data. These are taxpayer dollars that need to be spent. All the actors above tt, everyone has rponsibility. No big surprises. Not far behind it, we heard a lot of funding to get it done. We talked through all the proposals. Resources are finite. We gave a list of communities supplies and we asked for analysis for support. You can see it on the right. We did not. They have a willingness to do what it takes. They are predict protected. They came out on top but they are still strong. Wrapping up, we have some Lessons Learned and key takeaways. Just trying to some it up a little bit. We were curious about who. We ask the voters trust them a great deal. Most importantly, we know that they are a trusted messenger on this issue. We want to get a better sense. You see them me seven percent you see them up there, 77 . Very low they are very trusted and respected. How we are thinking about messaging and the most compelling story. We want to make sure that we are building off of this work to help us leverage bigger action and bring more support to resilience effor. Voters are not nearly as concerned about wildfire smoke. There is maybe not enough education about the Health Impact of smoke. They see it as a symptom of the broader problem. They are not as compelled by the stories. They would rather see us addressing t underlying problem of fire. Tested well, and we connected it to impacts of Climate Change. Voters were pretty compelled by that sort of mesging. When we were making direct connections between Climate Change and fire, things began breaking down a little bit, Climate Change being a partisan issue. The public really liked the term controlled burning. Theres a sense that it is controlled, it is in the name. It is better than prescribed burning. We use that term because it is more inclusive. They do not like the phrase wildfire resilience. They dont understand, why are the wildfires resilient . [laughter] we have began to use this term in a policy focused crowd. It is in my title. But it is not compelling with the general public audience. It is good for us to know. As i mentioned in the last slide, agencies are key messengers but we dont want to discount the Important Role of firefighters in our messaging. Just a few more key kind of conclusions to take away, we know from this resrch the majority of American Voters continue to see the condition of American Forests are worsening, wildfires are a toptier concern not only amongst Environmental Issues but in issues like inflation. Government and Public Sector actors he the biggest responsibility in bringing suort for this issue and reducing the risk of severe fire theres extra ordinarily broad support for a pretty vast sum of money in terms of annual investments in fire Risk Reduction and action for Land Management like controlled burning and hazardous fields reduction. That is it for may. For me. If you have any specific questions, i will take any now as well. Yes. [indiscernible] you mentioned state your name. My name is anne cottrell. Weve had two fires in the past six years in my county. This is a huge issue for the county. I just wanted to share a couple of observations, then ask a question. I just got my supervisor job. I spent a lot of time campaigning last year. Wildfire was either the top or the second issue across the county. And yet, we also smoke is a critical issue for our county as an agricultural community. For us, smoke gets into our groups and ruins the crop grapes and ruins the crop. It impacts folks working in the vineyards. For our community, we would poll a little bit differently on that issue, too. I would be interested to see if that changes. The impacts of smoke. The other piece we ended up doing with running a measure to see if we could raise funds to do vegetation management, that failed. We care about it a lot but not enough to take money out of our own wallets to pay for it. It is interesting to see this. If it is already something allocated, people can support it. But i would love to my question was if you can share those policy recommendations, or if there is some way because we are going to need to go back to our committee and say, how can we raise funds for it . The piece that you also pointed out about whose responsibility is it, our community is struggling with that question, too, because there is an understanding that private landowners need to do some part of it, too. I think that will be an issue Going Forward as well. Absolutely. On the smoke please, this is obviously a National Poll. We had a sample in the west. But theres a lot of education to be done for those that have not experienced that firsthand. I hear you on that point. In your community, in particular. To try to compel voters nationwide. Good observation. Great queuing up on the policy recommendations. Weve been working this for a year and a half. A series of briefings, we are still pulling together. We can help share that around. A big emphasis on federal policy and working down to the Community Level making sure we are working with partners. Happy to share that. Good afternoon. Lisa j. , western washington. I happen to be married to a civil engineer, who served 10 years on the tmc board for the state of washington. The question that i have is about the fact that there is public support for longterm commitment to fitting. I saw mechanical thinning was one of those preferred over prescribed burning. My question is, will the policy can the policy include that multiyear commitment . Because i can tell you, operators out there who still have equipment need to know if they are going to buy harvesters and trucks for their Long Distance hauls to males that are very far away now mills that are very far away now. Knowing if that funding will be there. I would love to see that written into the policy. Absolutely. Weve heard that many times before, something we are thinking about and looking at. I wanted to scroll back to this slide as well to emphasize that this is the individual component of that bigger policy proposal broken out. The topmost interest one from respondents is the level of accountability. Detailed public disclosure, making sure it is used effectively. I think that goes to your point. The public is interested in seeing this commitment include accountability to make sure it is done right. It is backed up in the research for sure. Right here. Hi, just wanted to request that you scroll back to the messages so i can take a photo of it. Sure, can do. Thank you so much. I will check exactly what we can share, but we have more details at our posters that we may be able to distribute. Happy to follow up with that as well. These are just some examples. Any more questions . Yeah . Thank you. I wanted to ask, its the communities that really experience it, from a california lens, these are very highly urbanized audience where smoke might not be present but it is the only way that they experience it was positive or negative messaging regarding it more effective . Was it presented in a, this is a jobs investment, fixing the forest, or we have to stop this, it is tragedy . We did a little bit of positive and negative testing. Not on smoke specifically. You know, this is a more negative version of one of our questions, speaking to prescribed fire and giving a clearly negative stance. We saw a market decrease in support when spun that way. Voters can definitely be compelled to go when we are another based on who their messenger is. Yeah. I think thats it. Ok. Thanks, everybody. [applause] thank you, cameron. We appreciate the Nature Conservancys dedication on reducing the threat of wildfire to our communities. Give a big round of applause for the entire panel. [applause] with that, if theres anything else for the good of the group, we are adjourned. Thank you. Watch video on demand at cspan. Org and try our points of interest feature, which you can use to guide you to interesting highlights of coverage. Use points of interest online at cspan. Org. 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