Statement. First, for carl to respond. So you have noted that natural gas and leads to the displacement of coal in the power sector has what assumptions have you made about natural gas Going Forward the next 15 years, and what are the implications of that assumption for sailing up renewables and methane . We dont assume changes from those trajectories. Clearly, the four Building Blocks between the power plant will cause a mixture of both increases in natural gas use along with renewables in Energy Efficiency. Most of our projections assume that the state consistent with epas projections that the states will take advantage of all four Building Blocks. So we dont have we dont have explicit renewable additions beyond that in our coram business pathway. Rather the Clean Power Plant projections show significant increase in renewables and no disruptions or price pressure on the natural gas sector. Could i add something on this point, with respect to natural gas . I think one of the stories about natural gas that its sometimes cast towards natural gas versus renewables. The interesting story is the impact of natural gas in distributed you sht going to put a coal plant next to your house or office building, but can you put a combined heating power unit or a fuel cell and one of the challenges one of the things that weve done for Public Health reasons is to move big coal plants away from and other power plants away from population centers, but we lose a tremendous amount of the energy content in the form of heat because of the chimney but well, will new york state have to use more coal because of the fracking position . Will that have any impact . We dont have much coal as it is, and no were not going to have to use more coal. So the point that i want to make is using natural gas for distributed solutions, you use more of the energy content of the natural gas, but in terms of the solution it ties into other solutions of Energy Efficiency at the building level and also again, puts more pressure for policy changes that are going to enable other distributive resources like batteries or solar to build this integrated grid. Its a positive for reduction and emissions. Thank you. Im from the d. C. Peoples council. I have two questions. One is pretty generic or general in nature. It goes directly to stimulation of the economy. You know, we hear from the industry particularly the fossil industry, about the potential for lost jobs, and i want to know, you know, what are we doing in terms of stimulating, fostering, and promoting dream jobs and making certain that those jobs are available to consumers, to you know, to our residents and that in a way offsets, you know, one of the questions that was raised in terms of the increase in prices. Do have you that question directed towards anyone in particular . Maybe to maybe rick. And the second question would go to whats going on in new york . Can we ill cut you off, and thats a great question. Maybe we could start with rick, he would have some thoughts. Its an important topic. I think just to set the broad context as weave seen a 20time increase in solar and huge increase in wind during the course of this administration. To do the combined heat and Power Installations and to do whats required in order to cut energy waist throughout the economy. Mark can probably speak to that in some depth, and you might want to give him a moment as well. We see extraordinary opportunities for rapid ongoing job growth in the renewable sector, the Energy Efficiency sector and throughout the low Carbon Solution set as states move to implement the Clean Power Plant. I just want to note as a follow on to the prior question and an ebbing quo of what record said that a key part of the Clean Power Plan is that each state gets to decide how they want to implement the Clean Power Plan and many states will want to focus intensively on renewables. Others will want to focus on a combination of renewables and nuclear and other technologies, and so well see lots of jobs come with that transformation in each state, and ongoing job creation through the suite of policy that is are already in place consistent. Bit off topic but what recourse is it against those states, the number of states that have said that they will not implement. Theyve received email yonz of comments and are in the process now of working through those comments, taking on that input, and were confident that theyll be finalizing a strong robust rule that is appealing for states to adopt and, again every state will have latitude to design the program that fits their conditions and their priorities and to deliver the standards that are set for their state by the epa. Were confident that once the rule is finalized this summer that there will be a strong interest across states and getting moving on accelerating the momentum thats already out there in the power sector. Some have already noted. And theyll have lots of latitude in the way that works for their circumstances. Thank you. Mark, did you want to oh. I think the jobdz question is a very important one and its notably that epas Regulatory Impact analysis of the Clean Power Plan projects net job gains in the tens of thousands through implementation of the Clean Power Plant for just the reasons that rick outlined. When we deploy Energy Efficiency projects out there maybe on the commercial basis, its not just, you know, some installation folks that are there. You have project engineers designing the projects. It may be a large plan that were doing for a large facility, university, military base. Youve got those installers in there, and a lot of well go in and employ a lot of local subcontractors subcontractors. These are jobs that are out there, and the jobs with the buildings, i always like to say where our projects are. Lets also not forget about the manufacturing side of the business. Its not just the installation. We make the air conditioners and chiller heres in the United States. Theyre replacing the older more outdated inefficient ones. We make the batteries here in the United States. The advanced batteries in toledo, ohio, holland, michigan st. Louis. All those all of the local manufacturing swrobz and the other facilities that are making Energy Efficient and Renewable Energy privates out there here in the those are jobs that are going to also be created as well. Hi. My name is james. Im with the Green Climate fund in korea. I have two questions very quickly. One is to carl. I know this study is already done on the policy actions. I would like to ask you whats the Price Sensitivity of these if we saw a decline to a longterm energy price for fossil fuels with that. Would that change the outcomes . The second is more interesting. Its based on what richard said. Richard is absolutely right about the potential for smart grids in terms of changing the configuration of energy generation, consumption. Absolutely right. Actually, the thing is that the u. S. Is quite your question, please . The u. S. Is behind on smart grids in terms of its deployment. It sounds like. Mark. It was beyond the scope of the study to run different price trajectories on natural gas and prices coal prices, but i think it would depend on what your scenario was. If Natural Gas Prices remain low or are lower some parts of the plan would become easier if prices go up and then obviously some of the further backing off of coal and natural gas would become more expensive. I dont think the results are highly sensitive to some movement in Natural Gas Prices. Other studies especially if we look at the eia analysis, the lean power plan that just came out last week explores some sensitivity on energy prices, and thats worth looking at. And if we could get to if you want to pick up on the smart group question. What can be done to get the u. S. To catch up with europe and other countries on the smart grid . So the grid is a shared responsibility between state and federal authorities. Much of the part of the grid, however that it relates to around buildings and customers is really at the state level. So thats up to each state. What we are doing is profoundly changing the regulatory incentives for the utilities. Weve told the utilities that her job in delivering electricity is to do a few things. They are now to become more capital efficient in how right now they only get utilities only get paid for profit based upon the juan item of capital that they invest. They get they dont get paid based upon the amount of electricity people consume, but they get no compensation for any hidden capital. Its just physical capital. If we want to know why it is that were not employing the best technology, its because given a chase for example, between a poll that lasts 40 years and a piece of software that may not even be able to be capitalized, always pick the pole because they get no profit on things that are not capital. They need to be more capital efficient. They need to integrate distributed resources where its going to make sense for the grid. And we also want utilities to make investments in a in the network thats going to enable robust third party competitors to offer services to customers. When you have all those things together, it will lead to greater investments in this kind of Network Infrastructure that were trying to describe, which, again, looks a lot more like the i. T. System than the current grid that we have today. The thing thats on the demand side much the grid if you will so two points. A lot of what were seeing we talked about it. A lot of our customers are really looking at and were already starting to install folks are looking at it for other efficiency measures but gas fired gogen plants are becoming much more of an interest to our customers. The other side lets say the building side of things. Always like to say a smart grid needs Smart Buildings at the end of the line if you will. Can you as a Large Customer of a large institution. To what extent can you do that . Without very impact to mission at all. Dim your lights to 20 . To know when the price signals are come and to know when the rates are going to come, to know when the utility says i need you to shed some load right now, so i dont have to turb on that extra generator out there because were starting to peak out. Those are the type of things that youll be able to have when you have Smart Buildings and people distribute a generation out there in there to truly, i think, make the smart grid complete. Yes. I want to make it leer that the problem here is not the technology. The technology is here today. The problem is the regulatory structure which inhibits its adoption. Right now as an example, demand responds is a xlibs matter. Maybe it could help bring this in. Sure. Ill just say that this is an area where the dynamism is clear, and my money is on the private sector for solution that is will make this an important part of how we deliver low cost, low carbon instra structure Going Forward. Richard is right. Theres an important policy interface there as well. The president has been focused on this within a wide range of solutions that we need for the longterm transformation of low carbon new york. Weve its key enabling technology. Also, things like cinco phaser and a whole range of Cutting Edge Technology that is will help us to deliver the kinds of ciaing that we are talking about here while continuing to budget for innovation in the space through the department of energies. Also the electricity. Then there are important policy interfaces beyond that. Ferq has given sustained attention and how to have the right sort of markets developed and were broadly supporting with that work. Then under the Clean Power Plan we as states will look to this as part of their tool kit to deliver reductions in the clean energy that they want. Thank you. My name is dade bookbinder. Very simple question for mr. Duke. Is there a publicly available document that describes how the laundry list of measures in the indc will achieve 26 to 28 emissions reduck that is are promised, and if not, why not . I think well all acknowledge that there are no simple answers in this line of work. When we look at the overall. We they thats thats air critical feature, and we intend to continue to fully comply with what we have negotiated there in terms of transparency and accountability and how were doing on our climate targets. I will point you to in the first instance our biannual report which provides Important Information with respect to our 2020 target and i would invite you to stay tuned as we move forward to put out our second biannual report with every major economy, and i think this report from wri is also consistent with our own internal assessment. Were on track for both our 2020 and 2025 targets. Johns hopkins science masters candidate. This is a question for karl or anyone else whod like to comment. What are your underlying assumptions in your modeling about the deployment the rate of deployment in the extent of use of ccs and also the rate of retirement of Nuclear Plants . I know the aeo presents a variety of pathways that could significantly impact u. S. Carbon emissions. Yes. There again, we assume reference Case Projections from the aeo 2014 on both ccs and nuclear use and retirement. Nasa carter space flight center. Ive got two questions, if i may. One, how do we monitor and verify these Emissions Reductions . And does this action plan encompass alaska and u. S. Territories . The question is for rick. Rick or i was going to actually sort of bring john in and see if he had any ideas for whats needed for monitoring and then can we come back to alaska . I think tracking u. S. Emissions is fairly straightforward. I like to rely on wri to do that. But there are many institutions that track u. S. Emissions and look forward to what the policies are that would drive reductions. I tend to stay away from the eia and others, which tend to not be very good at forecasting whats going to happen. If youre looking for a forecast of renewables, i recommend my former employer, greenpeace. But i think that whether the u. S. Is on track will be well known in the u. S. For quite some time. I dont think theres any shortage of institutions that are going to be willing and able to focus attention on any shortcomings that might or might not exist. Frankly, including my institution, which tracks the coal plant shutdowns very carefully, and we constantly point out to the administration that they rely heavily on incorporating those decisions in their forecasting. I think thats pretty much set. I guess i would leave the second question to others. Big picture though. The monitoring is going to be a really big deal in the climate talks, isnt it . Globally. I think thats true. And i would say that where thats going to be a problem is not in the United States but in other countries. I think theres a number of players, as i said before, that will track u. S. Compliance with its targets, ranging the whole spectrum from me way over on the right to karl way over on the left. But i do think but i think the bigger challenge is the transparency and the accountability of other countries. And thats why the u. S. In the context of the negotiations has been very focused on a clear set of standards that applies to all players so that all countries are putting forward not just what their target is but what theyre doing to accomplish it in the constant of the biannual report. And rick, did you want to weigh in and maybe go on to the alaska question . Sure. So ill just broadly reinforce what john has said. Again, we view transparency and accountability as central to the climate discussions internationally. We pushed very hard to maximize transparency and accountability in the various agreements and will do the same as we come forward to the paris discussions. And so well also fully participate in everything thats agreed to including the biannual reports, including the multilateral assessment process last december in lima i sat in the hot seat and discussed with the entire plenary how were doing against our targets and took questions and every country is now doing that and thats critical to make sure that weve got broad transparency and accountability across all Major Economies in the whole world. So we feel very good about that whole process and the accountability that it brings. I would just note that with respect to our numbers we have lots of systems to track our numbers, as john has indicated, and they come on different time scales and with different scopes. One important data point thats worth noting is that in the last four months the Energy Information administration literally comes out with monthly data on our energy co2 emissions. And in the last four months the first four months of this year weve seen energy co2 emissions down 3 from last year. So we track on monthly scales annual scales, everyone tracks, and theres lots of accountability for the u. S. And we need to make sure thats true on a global scale as well through the climate discussions. With respect to the alaska question im not sure i fully understood the question but we do work to take a nationwide approach to our overall Climate Action plan and to our efforts to drive down emissions. I think karl wants to jump in on alaska. I am 100 sure alaska is in and im fairly sure the territories are in. Im going to ask my other project team members to give me a thumbs up on territories or a thumbs down if im wrong. I see a couple thumbs up. Thank you. All right. I guess we can move on to another question. Hi. George frampton. Partnership for responsible growth. In trying to correlate your Emissions Reductions pathways with existing policies i wonder if you could clarify what your assumptions were for the power plant sector. It looks like your box table 1 on page 13 that even the middle of the road as well as the gogetter snare yoerz acenarios assume a much greater reduction than the power plant rule would promise if fully implemented. Am i misreading this . This is 18 reduction by 2021 from 2012. But the power plant sector will only envision a 16 reduction by 2030. As we lay out in the full report, the reductions in the power sector from in our three pathways include the effects of the Clean Power Plan and then federal appliance standards and other federal programs we have treated as additive to whats going on at the state level in the Clean Power Plan. And we lay that out in detail in the report. I thought there was somebody a woman in the second row there. Hi. Im machll mccormick from the canadian embassy. I was wondering if wri plans to update its analysis when the clean power rule is finalized this summer. I cant say for sure whether we will do that. Certainly as sam laid out in his remarks we have been doing ongoing analysis of u. S. Mitigation potential over the years. And i will say that i hope we have a chance to update this as we move forward. Homestead with bracewell and giuliani. I just wanted to follow up on the answer about transparency and accountability. When the u. S. China agreement was announced i remember mr. Podesta and miss mccarthy both said it was based on a careful analysis of all the things that could be done under existing law and thats how the 26 to 28 reduction commitment was calculated. So my question i guess is a followup to davids. If there was that kind of analysis that got to 26 or 28 , when will that be made available to the public . Thank you for your question. And im glad you raised the u. S. China joint announcement. Let me just give quick context on that and comment on the underlying basis for our 2025 target. So last november president obama and president xi jointly announced a historic set of targets to cut emissions, and this is something that has had a galvanizing effect on the overall momentum in the context of the paris negotiations. Since then weve seen countries that represent over 60 of Global Energy co2 emissions come forward with post2020 Emissions Reductions targets. So lots of momentum, lots of movement to deploy low Carbon Technologies and see costs come down accordingly. India has since put forward a target of 175 gigawatts of renewables by 2022 which would mean well over 10 of their electricity would come from Renewable Energy by that year. So we see considerable momentum coming out of that joint announcement. And to get to the question of the development of the 26 to 28 target by 2025, we went through intensive dialogue with different agencies and the administration about whats possible about existing authorities existing statutes in order to drive down emissions. The president has asked every agency to consider what they can do and to keep looking for options to drive down emissions similar to what secretary vilsack has come forward to announce in the agriculture sector. And so in the runup to the joint announcement we conferred with different agencies and looked at all options across every sector under existing authorities to drive down emissions. As ive indicated, were participating fully in the climate negotiations process and we are pushing at every turn for common standards of transparency and accountability that all Major Economies are doing in lockstep. And well continue to push for those mechanisms in the context of the global negotiations. Well continue to fully deliver on that transparency sxktability in lockstep with other countries as they move forward. Theres someone okay. Just to follow up on that would you mind introducing yourself . Im sorry. Im jane liggett from the Congressional Research service. And appreciating the u. S. Longstanding push for transparency and accountability under the framework convention. Would it make sense for the United States to demonstrate the kind of transparency in detailing its commitment that we would like to see from other Key Countries like china and india . So thank you for the question. The important perspective that we bring to this topic is that we need Global Action on what is a global challenge. And to make that happen in a sustained way over the years and decades where we need to see transformation toward a global lowcarbon economy requires that all Major Economies participate fully in providing clear targets, ambitious and achievable targets and guidance on how theyre doing against those goals. And as other panelists have indicated, our numbers are quite clear and its really in other countries where we see more opportunity to clarify and document whats happening and what plans are. We need to make sure we negotiate accordingly and well continue to push far maximum transparency and well continue to fully comply with what weve negotiated in that context. Again i point to the multilateral assessment that i participated in in lima in the context of the climate negotiations just this past December Point to the biannual report we put forward, our first ever biannual report and forthcoming biannual reports and the fact that most Major Economies are doing the same could i jump in and ask you to sort of spell out why how this is such a complicated test. Perhaps spell out in laymans language why its so difficult to figure out whos doing what in the climate negotiations. Why transparency and verification are such issues. Im happy to jump in here. So i would say that the thing that everyone were sort of stepping around is that in a lot of countries we have poor or developing information just about the basic Greenhouse Gas emissions in those countries. What is industry contributing, what are consumers and others contributing. So that the basic thing thats negotiated is the entry level of accountability around what were the actual emissions and how were you doing to achieve the targets that youve set. That is not a question in the United States. Right. But for other countries or globally is there a uniform way of expressing these actions being taken . What hasnt been expected of countries is that they will spell out exactly how they will meet the Emission Reductions targets that theyve pledged. This is a long ways off. These are actions that will be taken by future administrations. There are huge factors at play including, you know big switches away from coal and other resources or global. There are ongoing questions about what future role congress and others will play. And all of those factors mean that well have to adapt as we move forward. We know that it will be difficult to meet this target in the u. S. We know that it will be difficult to meet the target that the eu set. And i dont think anyone expects that this administration will say here is the playbook heres exactly how well meet the target. Thats why wri did this report to show that there are a multitude of options. And you know in the future i think you will see the administration laying out additional policies that they will follow to achieve those targets. Well see future administrations do that. And well potentially see a reduction of Emission Reductions in response to those changes. But nowhere in our process or domestic political process do we expect parties to lay out what theyre going to do ten years forward. So thats the clear point, that there is no uniform way of expressing the targets and theres no dictate coming out from the top down. There is not. Yep. I think that person well go to people who havent asked questions yet. Mr. Duke, id like to ask for i think its the fourth time could you answer directly and simply the question of when are you going to release the assumptions that are behind your 26 to 28 reduction so that we can evaluate and audit their reasonableness . And i dont want you to answer any other question but that one. Sir, i think when we look at the overall Climate Action plan, we laid out in the Climate Action plan itself and in our formal submission of our intended nationally determined contribution, as its called, in the u. N. Context the different statutory authorities and the different measures that are part [ inaudible ]. So as i was just saying, weve laid out quite a bit of detail in the Climate Action plan itself and in our intended nationally determined contribution. The different statutory authorities and the different measures that well be pursuing in order to deliver our 2020 and 2025 Emissions Reductions goals. And so that includes things like the Clean Power Plan, the second phase of heavyduty vehicle standards. It includes three gigatons worth of Emissions Reductions from appliance efficiency and equipment efficiency and additional reductions from building codes determinations. It includes important progress on hfc reduction, on methane reductions. And all of these things are part of what we put forward publicly and which we will then continue to report on as we proceed. So this summer well see the epa finalize the Clean Power Plan and important new information will be part of that final rule and can be factored into everyones assessment of how were doing against our overall goals. Same thing applies to every appliance efficiency standard that the department of energy will bring forward with attendant energy waste reductions, consumer savings and Carbon Pollution reductions. Same thing with the epas significant new alternatives policy program, or snap program to reduce hfcs, which by the way were working very importantly on both the domestic and International Front to address hfc emissions, and thats an important part of the ten elements in the wri report. And i want to just comment on that briefly while i have the chance. Or perhaps later. Im being told that theres one question and theres time for one more question, which we can take from the floor. And then i actually wanted to get in a quick question on my own. Well see how long this one takes. Hi. Alan greenberg u. S. Department of transportation. Rick, on an earlier point you made about tapping all authority and so forth to go to look at other sectors, i believe its a center for Public Integrity out of nyu put out something that suggested that there would be Broad Authority under two parts of the clean air act. I believe section 115 involving the regulation of internationally recognized pollutants and 211 for fuels. And the theory is that you could do an economywide regulatory approach based on the authority from these two sections. And im wondering whether thats been looked at either by you or karl or john and if you had any comments on it. Thank you. I dont have any comment. Im not going to answer the question. Certainly on section 115 theres been ongoing discussion both on the hill and in the Environmental Community for some time, but that authority exists. It certainly offers the potential for a broad approach. I think that right now its pretty clear where the administration is heading. Under section 111 i think the amount of energy and the time thats gone in to set those standards and the process that that launch is Going Forward you know, shows that they are not intending to move forward under section 115. But nevertheless that authority does remain and it is a potential backstop in the future and potential way to get broader Emission Reductions if we you know, if we continue to need to use Administration Authority in the post2025 period. If no one wanted to sort of weigh in just if i could ask anyone if anybody here what they saw the prospects for getting action from congress or involvement from congress between now and november 2016, if anyone thought that that was remotely a reality or that could happen. Karl, its on your todo list. I would doubt it between now and november 2016. Both the house and senate are looking at some energy bills this year. Both of them have titles to promote Energy Efficiency. Its yet to be seen whether they can make it across the finish line. Come on. You can be the optimist. Well i can try. Congress is absolutely going to take some action on energy in the coming i guess basically year at this point. Whether it will impact the world i think is the real question. We saw the senate pass a bill with two senators on the floor after years of trying on Energy Efficiency. So we know theres some creativity at play. But i think in the end something meaningful, something that actually made a difference i dont think thats in the cards. For a second i thought you were going to stop us from ending on a down note. Post 2016 everythings possible. I do want to make a point, if i could, which is that some of the things were talking about that are going on in the market and from a technology standpoint are happening irrespective of whether congress acts. So the costs of distributed solutions, batteries, solar fuel cells all that stuff is going down. In some cases exponentially. So the utility Business Model is under pressure. So the customers are wanting to have more control over their energy. Whether its resiliency or independence. This is not going to change. And so the question is not can these forces be stopped. Its a question of whats the opportunity cost in terms of time, whats the cost in terms of opportunity cost in terms of economic development, and how much economic destruction of values going to take place. Those are the questions. May i Say Something upbeat . Upbeat . Yeah. I just want to note that as sam noted in his remarks across the states we have dozens of renewable portfolio standards. Energy efficiency resource standards. We have Public Benefit funds and those are spread across blue states, red states, purple states. Theres a lot of action going on at the state level to increase Renewable Energy increase Energy Efficiency, capture the economic benefits, capture the job benefits, and it cuts across parties. And we expect that to continue. Please join me in thanking suzanne and our panel for a great discussion, lively discussion. [ applause ] thank you for being here today, and we will see you again soon. Thank you very much. All this week on cspan 3 its American History tv in primetime. Tonight programs from our real america series, which takes viewers on a journey through the 20th century with archival films on public affairs. At 8 00 the dday invasion. Thats followed by a film on race and poverty in baltimore. At 9 50 president johnsons view on the vietnam war. And later the film apollo 13 houston, weve got a problem. Thats all tonight beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan 3. And on cspan three former treasury secretaries share their views on the state of the economy here and abroad. Tim geithner Henry Paulsen and robert ruben speak with facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg at the milken institutes annual global conference. Heres a preview. Its worth noting that none of us really know anything about the future. And we certainly dont know anything about how and his perform in the short term and even over the long run. We live in a messy, dark scary, uncertain world. But i think the economy is [ laughter ] but that said. Was that a scary dark uncertain world . I mean, that is the normal state of mankind. Its sort of sad to admit it but its true. But i think in that context, though, i do think the u. S. Is gradually getting slightly less dark. Were a lucky country. Very resilient country. And i think a much stronger country than any other major economy. And if you look at the challenges we face as a country theyre pretty stark challenges and our politics are terrible. But i think youd rather have our challenges than the challenges of really certainly certainly any developed economy and i think any emerging economy around the world. Watch that entire event from the milken institutes annual global conference tonight at 8 00 p. M. On cspan. Next, a Senate Natural Resources Committee hearing on wildFire Management. The committee examined the impacts on communities prone to wildfires such as arizona. Wildfire experts as well as Thomas Tidwell the chief of the u. S. Forest service testified. Senator Lisa Murkowski chairs the committee, and senator Maria Cantwell serves as the Ranking Member. Discussing logistics here because we theoretically have a vote at 10 15. Its my intention to offer my opening statements, turn to the Ranking Member for hers and if in fact they have called it at that point in time i think what we will do is just take a quick break, go vote so that we can come back and hear the testimony from our witnesses this morning. Obviously a very important issue to all of us around the country. We are here to examine our wildFire Management policies including the impacts of wildfire on communities and our country fire operations. Unfortunately today may be a day we strug toll find a whole lot that is positive about this. Over the last 50 years weve seen a rapid escalation in the size, frequency, and severity of wildfires. The most often cited causes are severe drought, a change in climate, hazardous fuel buildups due in part to decades of fire exclusion, insect and disease infestation, and an explosion of nonnative invasive species. These are big problems. Theyre downtowning problems. Ingdaunting problems and tar problems that are not easily going away. Weve already seen the consequences unfold firsthand in my home state of alaska. Last may we had the funny river fire just about this time actually, midmay burn through the kenine National Wildlife refuge. It spread smoke as far away as fairbanks more than 500 miles away. The fire burned nearly 200,000 acres or 300 square miles before it was finally extinguished. It was the second largest ever recorded on the kenine peninsula. It threatened lower skelak lake forcing residents to evacuate. Were all thankful there were no apparent fatalities. The funny river fire was likely started by human activity but the area has also changed dramatically in the last 20 years due in part to mass spruce bark beetle kill. Grasses have replaced forest and those grasses are more susceptible to fire. More than half the peninsulas total forested land nearly a million acres has been lost, which is of course a worrisome sign for the future. Already this year the concern back home is we will have an aggressive fire season. Its dry. I was in fairbanks this weekend. And i cannot recall a time on the 1st of may when not only the rivers are out but there is no snow anywhere, no snowpack anywhere. Sought same factors that we have seeing up north and in the peninsula that are increasing the size, frequency, and severity of wildfires are also driving up wildFire Suppression costs both in actual dollars and as a portion of the total budget of the Forest Service. Beyond that the expansion of the wild urban interface the wui, and fire operations strategies and tactics cant be overlooked. According to a recent usga Inspector General report 50 to 95 of Forest Service suppression costs were attributable to the defense of private property, much of which is located in the wildlife urban interface. It is looking more and more like the Forest Service is morphing into an Emergency Fire Service that throws everything it has at every wildfire whether effective or not. Last year was a good example. The Forest Service spent 200 million more on Fire Suppression than it did over the last ten years despite there being less than half the number of fires. Less than half the number of acres burned. And less than half the number of homes burned. We need to see a paradigm shift from fire control at all costs to actual Fire Management. So its my hope we can implement a wildfire policy that responsibly funds wildFire Suppression needs, ends the unsustainable practice of fire borrowing, helps firewise our community and makes the necessary investments in a full suite of fuel treatments. These will be my policy goals here in the committee. It wont be easy to achieve them. But if we do i think we create fireresilient landscapes in which fires can occur without such devastating consequences for our lands our communities and for our budgets. So i look forward to the testimony of our witnesses here this morning. Thank you all. And senator cantwell well now turn to you for your comments. Thank you madam chair. And thanks for calling this important hearing. And i too want to thank the witnesses for joining us today. Fire season is upon us, and were looking to you as experts to tell us how we can better prepare for this years fire season. For some time now the committee has heard time and again that our fires are getting noticeably worse. We have extreme weather conditions. The amount of hazardous fuel in our forests, suboptimal management schemes and not an increase ing interurban wildland interface are combining to produce more lethal fires. Sought people in my state are all too familiar with this and want to know what we can do to better prepare. Throughout the country we saw fires but i think washington the state of washington probably was most hard hit. I see chief tidwell nodding his head. More than twice the average number of acres burned across the northwest. Last july washington suffered the carlton complex fire, and we spent time talking to people in the community. This fire alone burned 149,000 acres in a single day. It burned an average of five acres per second for 24 hours straight. So the combination of extreme weather combined with this fire, over 353 homes were lost. So despite many efforts for people to coordinate resources the people in those towns lack the power of communication for weeks. Because of downed telephone lines, homeowners were not able to call to warn about the continued encroaching fires. Instead police had to drive around from town to town calling for evacuation from their vehicles using a megaphone. So one thing that i will be calling for is better coordination between the Forest Service and fema on communication responses during these natural disasters. If they are becoming worse, we need better memorandums of understanding that require communications be set up right away so that our communities can continue to deal with these disasters. I know that we can get ahead of these issues, and as the chair mentioned which need more hazardous fuel reduction in the wildland interurban the wildlandurban interface, and we need to figure out how to use resulting biomass to offset these costs. I know were going to hear some testimony about that stayed and i look forward to it. Im also eager to hear from the witnesses on more prescribed fire burns. Also we need to address fresh ideas on how to fund Forest Service efforts to protect our communities. Senator wyden as we know has introduced legislation on this. And im happy to be a cosponsor and look forward to discussing that. The science is clearly telling us that wildfires are not behaving the same way they have in the past decades. The witnesses will talk more about why this is, but i want to make sure that we discuss today what our response is going to be to this evolving problem. Researchers from the Forest Service just last week published a major scientific report. The report made it clear that if we are ever going to aget ahead of the problem the Forest Service needs to respond to wildfires in a fundamentally different way. To quote the report our modern wildfire problems derive themselves from selfreinforcing cycle of countereffective actions, end quote. We cannot keep using the same tired approaches that we have for the last 100 years. We need to make sure were focusing on getting different results. Common sense tells us that our response needs to be modified mow that the problem is different. The Forest Service report does a great job of summing up what the Forest Service needs to do. The report says that altering the current trajectory will require a total system transformation. The report bluntly states that maintaining the status quo will actually increase wildland fires, increase losses we suffer from wildfires and significantly affect the Forest Service ability to meet its core mission. So we need new solutions. Im certainly going to work with the chair and my colleagues here on the committee over the next few months to find some of those solutions i see for areas ripe for to us work on. First we need to do what we can to reduce the probability of catastrophic fires, and we need to see that at least that we are doubling the amount of hazardous fuel treatments and double the amount of prescribed fire burn. Second we need to fight large wildland fires which are becoming very expensive. Since 2000 the federal government has spent nearly 24 billion just fighting the large wildfires. So we need to ensure that federal agencies have the money necessary to protect our communities, and we need to treat large wildfires differently in our budget. Third we need to make sure that these fires are and the management on the ground is being done. Accountability. Weve seen questions about spending practices in the media. And we need to make sure that we are incentivizing the right kind of cost savings in the budget. And finally but most importantly as i mentioned early, the assistance communities receive after the wildfire has started needs to be different. The assistance needs to show up quicker. The assistance needs to be tail order to these issues that are being raised. The federal government is responding to a new type disaster where these events blowing up in greater degree and reaching communities in unbelievable lightning speed. So we need to have a more proactive upfront coordination with our federal agencies, the Forest Service and fema for example, just in delivering Realtime Communications and making sure that the resources, and i know the chief will address this are actually on the ground. The fire season fork came out last week and is particularly troubling for our state. I hope people are ready to help. And i hope fema will work to stage things like generators and assisting equipment and things that will be closer to these areas so they can respond more quickly. Again, madam chair thank you so much for this hearing. I look forward to the witnesses and i look forward to working with our committee to try to institute some new approaches. Thank you, senator cantwell. Lets go ahead and get started with our witnesses. And depending on what happens with the vote, we may just keep powering through or i may take a pause in the hearing. But id like to welcome all of our witnesses before the committee, before you, chief tidwell. Appreciate your leadership at the u. S. Forest service there. Next to chief tidwell we have dr. Stephen pyne. He is a regents professor at the school of Life Sciences at Arizona State university. Dr. Sharon hood is with us this morning. A postdoctoral researcher at the college of forestry and conservation at the university of montana. We have mr. Bob eisele. Im i pronouncing that correct . Eisele. Okay. Mr. Eisele is the watershed and fire analyst at the county of san diego, california. I understand youre retired. Great to have you with us. And finally mr. Bruce hallin, whos the director of water rights and contracts at the salt River Project. So chief, if we can begin with you for your fiveminute comments and to each of the witnesses, wed ask you that try to limit your testimony to five minutes. Your full statement will be included as part of the record. But we look forward to your comments and the opportunity to ask questions afterwards. Chief, good morning. Good morning. Madam chair, Ranking Member, members of the committee, thank you for giving us the opportunity to be here and especially with the other Panel Members today to be able to talk about not only our upcoming fire season but the things were currently doing and the things we need to continue to do to address this issue. As you both have already shared, the predictions for this coming fire season are similar to what we had last year with definitely a much more active fire season, primarily out in the west, and as the summer develops thats just going to continue to expand up to the northwest. Over into parts of utah idaho, and even into montana. That being said i cant stress enough that the fire seasons were seeing today these are the normal fire seasons and so we can look out and say yeah, theyre more active than they were a decade ago but its important for us to understand that today this is the fire seasons were going to continue to have. Once again we have the resources. We made sure that were going to have an adequate number of large air tankers to respond to these fires. The helicopters that we have. We already have 100 exclusive use. And with our call when needed we can bring up another 200 helicopters if we need that. Well have our firefighters our type one crews over 900 engines just from the Forest Service. And then as always, we have the airplanes from the Air National Guard and air force reserve that are ready to come on when we hit those surge times of the year. We are making a difference with the field treatments. When i look at the past, the millions of acres that weve been treating, a combination of managing natural fire in the back country using prescribed fire and then our fields treatments primarily in the weillandurban interface, we are making a difference. This year we plan to treat another 2. 5 million acres of hazardous fuels in fy15 and our fy16 budgets calling for that same level. And every year, and i can point back to the slide fire from just last year where these fuel treatments are making a significant difference to allow our firefighters to more safely be able to suppress these fires it reduces the severity has less impact on the watershed, and less impact on our communities. Our challenge remains to be able to find more ways so that we can continue to increase the pace and scale of this work. I want to thank the committee for your support for our budget this year with that considerable increase in hazardous fuels funding. If we can maintain that Going Forward, i think it will allow us to continue to increase this pace and scale. Along with the new authorities that we have with the farm bill as we move forward being able to use that work to be able to work closer and increase our coordination with the states and other partners to be able to get additional work accomplished. The other thing i need to stress and it was pointed out already, the wildland urban interface. Not only are our fire seasons longer, hotter, and dryer. Theyre another 60 to 80 days longer than what they were just 15 years ago. We have over 50 million acres of wildlandurban interface that we have to deal with. And madam chair as you pointed out in your statement, often this is the first thing we have to do with every fires take the actions to be able to protect that community. Before we can even take on really suppression these large wildfires. Now, we continue to suppress 98 of the fires that we take initial attack on. That doesnt include the ones that we manage in the back country for the benefits. So i need to stress that. But even with 98 theres that 1 to 2 that escape, the ones we see on the news, the ones that create the large costs. So once again, i appreciate the support. Theres a 90 chance we might not have enough money and we have to look at transferring funds. It is really past time. And i know some of you are tired of listening to me talk about this. But its really past time for us to find a solution and be able to move on and stop the disruptive practice of shutting down operations in the fall to be able to transfer money. I think theres no question that 1 , this concept of 1 of our fires should be considered natural disasters, and again last year the 10 large yeast fires, the 10 most costly fires, equaled about 320 million, which really tracks with what weve been talking about. 1 , 30 of the costs. So thank you again for having the opportunity to be here. And thank you again for the support youre providing us. Not only to increase the work were getting done but also to find a solution to dealing with the cost of Fire Suppression. Thank you. Thank you, chief. I think if theres one thing we would agree on as members of this committees weve got to find a way to stop the fire borrowing. Because as we talk about all the other things that go on within the Forest Service and the missions it comes back to the fact that you dont have the funds if youre using all of your budget here to deal with these catastrophic fires. I think what id like to do in deference to the other members of the panel so that we can all hear your important testimony is just take a quick like threeminute, were really going to race fast to go vote and come back. So well just put a little pause here. Minute and a half there and back. We stand adjourned for three minutes. Three minutes. Hurry. We will come back to order here. Thats three minutes in senate time. We apologize for that. But again, i think there are enough members here who wanted to hear the testimony from all the witnesses and as a courtesy to you weve made you hold over for a little bit longer. Dr. Pyne why dont we turn to you for your comments this morning . And again, you thank you for your indulgence on time. Well good morning. And thank you for the opportunity to speak. After the great fires of 1910 we spent 50 years trying to remove fire from the land. Call it a strategy of resistance that sought to eliminate threats before they could become serious. That doctrine failed because it excluded good fires as well as bad ones. We then tried to put good fire back in. We called this a strategy of restoration. Well, this strategy has now run its own 50year course. And the prospects and problems of its foundational doctrine, fire by prescription, are better understood. Which leads to a consideration of what might the next 50 years hold. A strategy seems to be congealing in the west that we might label resilience. It seeks to make the best of the hand we are being dealt. So let me consider these strategies in turn. Resistance. There remains an old guard who would like to return to the former order. And there are more progressive thinkers who want to upgrade that tradition into an allhazard Emergency Service model. Effectively, urban Fire Departments in the woods. Or in a national sense a kind of coast guard for the interior. This makes sense if your primary land use is urban or exurban. But its expensive and it has not shown it can manage fires. If it retains the strengths of Fire Suppression it also magnifies suppressions weaknesses. Restoration. Restoration too has upgraded its mission from the simple hope that prescribed fire might substitute for wildfire. It now embraces complex collaborations, supplements prescribe burning with other treatments, and tries to operate on the scale of landscapes. The determination endures however, to get ahead of the problem. Yet the vision has proved costly not only in money but in political and social capital. There is little reason to believe that the country will muster the will to rehabilitate at the rate or the scale required the tens of millions of acres believed out of whack. Resilience. In the west a strategy is emerging that accepts that we are likely to get ahead of the problems were coming at us. Instead it allows for the management of wildfires to shift where feasible from attempts at direct control to more indirect reliance on confining and containing outbreaks. Of course there are some fires that simply bolt away from the moment of ignition and there are some that threaten people or critical sites right from the onset. But many fires offer opportunities to back off and burn out. These are not let burns. Rather, fire officers concentrate their efforts at point protection where assets are most valuable. They can hold with minimum expenses risks, and damages. While this strategy is compatible with federal policy and in many respects moves in directions long urged by critics. Though it can look like a mashup, the outcomes will be mixed because the fires are patchy. Some patches are burned more severely than we would like. Some patches hardly burn at all. But the rest will likely burn within a range of tolerance. Such burnouts may well be the future of prescribed fire in the west. So without wishing to push an analogy too closely, we might liken the resistance strategy to iraq. The restoration strategy to scissors and the resilience strategy to paper. At any given time and place one trumps another and is in turn trumped. We need all three. We need rocks around our prize assets and communities when they are threatened by going fires. We need scissors to buffer against bad burns and nudge toward good ones. And we need paper because the ideal can be the enemy of the good and a mixed strategy that includes boxing and burning may be the best we can hope for. Thank you. Thank you dr. Pyne. Dr. Hood, welcome. Committee. Thank you for inviting me here today. My name is sharon hood. Im a postdoctoral researcher at the university of montana. Previously i worked as a u. S. Forest service ecologist prior to earning my ph. D. In organismal biology and ecology at the university of montana in 2014. Fire and native bark beetle have huge impacts on conifer forests across our country. Today my testimony focuses on my Research Showing that fire and thin can go increase Ponderosa Pine resistance to mount pine needle but also that thinning is not a substitute for fire. Ponderosa pine is adopted to survive frequent lowseverity fire, a type of fire that burns through the forest under story but generally causes little mortality to larger trees. However, lack of fire since the late 1800s has increased tree density and changed species composition in many areas. We continue to actively suppress the majority of wildfires today. Ahowever, there is recent acknowledgment such as the 2014 National Action plan for the National Cohesive Fire Management strategy that we must allow more fires to burn to promote healthy forest resilient to wildfire insects disease, and drought. To achieve the goal of allowing more fires to burn we must accept the Critical Role of fire as a natural ecological process. My Research Supports the need for frequent lowseverity fire in Ponderosa Pine forest in three ways. One, lowseverity fire increases resin ducks. These ducks are used by trees to make resin or pitch that helps resist bark beetle attacks. And trees with more ducks are more likely to survive attack. Two, when frequent lowseverity fire was removed from low severity pine forest resin duct defenses decline over time. And three, lowseverity fire acts as a natural thinning agent to reduce forest density. This also promotes an increase in resin duct defenses that increases resistance to Mountain Pine beetle. I examined the effects of thinning and fire on resistance to a Mountain Pine beetle outbreak at a longterm study site in western montana. These treatments were originally designed to study how to effectively restore Ponderosa Pine forest and increase resilience to wildfire. They were implemented five years before the outbreak began. Resin ducts increased after thinning with and without burning and remained higher than the control and burnonly treatments throughout the length of the study. Mortality from Mountain Pine beetle differed markedly between treatments. In the control 50 of the Ponderosa Pine was killed in the outbreak compared to 20 in the burn only and almost no mortality in the thinonly and thinburn combination treatments. High levels of douglas fir in both the control and burnonly treatments due to over 100 years of fire exclusion coupled with the high pine mortality from bark beetles has reduced stand administrative beyond the ability to return to a Ponderosa Pine dominated system and the absence of further disturbance or management. My result applied a dry pine Ponderosa Pine forest in the inland northwest. A forest type where there are strong scientific support that frequent and low severity fires were once common. Further research is needed to determine if fire increases treat offenses in other fire 2ke7dent pine forest types throughout the u. S. I found thinning with and without prescribed fire increased resistance to a Mountain Pine beetle outbreak, greatly reducing tree mortality. In the long term however, thinning with prescribed fire created the most resilient forest by stimulating tree defenses and through the beneficial effects of killing understory vegetation. These and other critical ecological effects of fire cannot be replicated by thinning alone. While thinning is a very useful and oftentimes necessary restoration and management tool fire is crucial for longterm maintenance of low to midelevation fire at Ponderosa Pine forests. Through both impacts on forest structure and composition and by stimulating defenses that can increase tree survival from bark beetle attacks. There is no one size fits all approach to restoring fire2ke7dent forests. Proactive restoration treatments should aim to increase forest resilience to a multitude of stressors and foster conditions that allow wildfires to burn under more natural intensities. My study is just one example. These fires are supported by other scientific literature showing the Critical Role of fire in cathy resilient Ponderosa Pine forest. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify here today. Thank you, dr. Hood. Mr. Eisele, welcome. Good morning, senator murkowski murkowski, senator cantwell, and members of the committee. Its an honor for me to be here to share my experience with you today. Ive been involved with fire my entire life, started with the volunteer firefighter to a prescribed burner for the county of san diego, fire behavior analyst on a federal Incident Management Team for 15 years, and i like to think of myself as a student of fire. Ive learned in Southern California that we will also have extreme fire weather we will always have a drought but there will always be ignitions and ignitions are plentiful and theyre random. So the driver of the entire system is fuel. Young fuel doesnt burn very well and doesnt burn very fast, even under extreme conditions. Old fuel, conversely burns extremely hot, extremely well, and extremely fast. For example, the origin the fuel at origin of fires in San Diego County in the past since 1950, the average age of the fuel where the big fires start is 71 years. And we dont find any fires starting in fuels less than 20 years old that go to become major fires. Next page. The fire problem in San Diego County has gotten worse and its kind of leading the nation again. California is not a good spot to be in the lead but what weve seen in california in the past 50 years is becoming the norm in the western United States. I see two main issues with the fire fire and cost. We recognize that the fire problem is the fuels. Were now treating close to 2 of the hazardous fuels, which is a 50year rotation cycle. Which means that as were doing a great job were not even getting close. We need to be doubling at least our fuel treatment and it has to be mechanical and fire because the forests have overgrown to the point that the fire will not thin them, it has to be thinned and then maintain ed thin with the fire. We need projects that are picked by Forest Service multidisciplinary teams of people not just fire but Forest Health people. And sociologists and risk assessments to pick the ones that difference the big bang for the buck. Because we dont have enough money to do it all. We need to spend our dollars wisely. We need to look at nepa. San Bernardino National Forest is on its fourth year of a oneyear nepa proposal or eis for 20,000acre general eis document. People are gaming the system on nepa. Nepas a good idea. We need to be doing it. Were not building a Shopping Center or freeways. Were mitigating the damage to the forests. The budget process id point out that theres a fema does a plan for state and local and travel governments when the fires meet a certain criteria fema picks up 75 of the cost. Seems like they could do that for the federal agencies also. Or somewhat similar. We can reduce the cost of fires by managing them better, and i think theres a technological asset here. We need to be able to have the guy on the ground with a laptop computer that can predict where the fires going and then measure the results of what theyre doing based on that. We need to know where the fire is. Its hard to believe we dont know where the fire is on some of these fires because we cant see them through the smoke and we cant map them. And they need to map them in the first day, not three days later. That kind of technology is i believe is going to go a long way toward managing things like managing the fire and then managing the air assets. We can model where aircraft are good and effective and where theyre not so good. And we can then let the fire managers make those kinds of decisions based on sound science. I think excuse me. In a safety issue with our firefighters every so often we wind up having a disaster like yarnell hill. We need to know where the fire is. We need to know where the firefighters are, and the people that are supervising those firefighters need to have an app in their hand that shows them where everybody is on the ground. Thats totally doable. It would be to have satellitebased. But just knowing where they are doesnt help. Its the guy in charge of them needs to know where they are. So i put a bunch of other suggestions inside my testimony and i appreciate the opportunity to comment today. Thank you, mr. Eisele. And last well go to mr. Hallin. Welcome to the committee. Chairman murkowski Ranking Member cantwell, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. My name is bruce hallin and im the director of water rights and contracts for salt River Project, or water supply to metropolitan phoenix. Srp rating 7 dams, 1300 miles of canals and numerous ground water wells. Were also dependent on the health of a 13,000 mile watershed and protecting these head waters has been a priority. Around the turn of the 20th century, watershed protection efforts focused on ensuring development in timber harvests were conducted in a way that reserved water supply. Today its causing catastrophic water fires that threaten the sustain ability and quality of tricking water for millions of arizona. This situation is not unique to arizona. Were working closely with the National Water Resources Association and others who are facing similar threats to their head waters. Catastrophic fire has severe and long term impacts to watersheds which are felt far beyond the area directly impacted by the fire. Unlike the low intensity fire seen in healthy forests, the aftermath were experiencing as a result of the unnatural forest conditions increased sediment loads and debris that reduced Storage Capacity at our reservoirs and affect the predictability of runoff. Water quality is deteriorate as a result of fire activity. Increased organics have led to increased capital and operational costs at city Water Treatment plants. These Treatment Facilities have been upgraded to handle the increased levels at cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. We know from science and experience exactly what needs to be done to mitigate these impacts. We know that we need to act quickly to thin overcrowded and unhealthy forests. We know we need to establish a Forest Products industry to carry out treatments and create an economy around Forest Restoration. And we know we need Public Policy at all levels of government to facilitate and invest this Forest Restoration. Srp is actively involved in efforts in all of these areas through our engagement in Public Private partnerships. For example, we have started a forest fund in partnership with the National Forest foundation to raise funds and invest . Forest Restoration Projects that protect our watershed. Were also involved in a project with the Forest Service, bureau of reclamation, city and national tore rest foundation to treat the 64,000 acre watershed that drains into the cc reservoir. The projects were currently involved with highlight the need to improve federal policy to more efficiently make progress in restoring our forests and protecting our watersheds. Specifically there is a need to improve both Fire Suppression budgeting and the planning and compliance process for Restoration Projects. The cc cragin is a perfect example of why we need to address both issues at the same time. We appreciate the priority of the tore rest service and department of interior have praised on this project, however, despite the significance funding and staff dedicated, it is expected to take at least two if not three years before any thinning can be done on the ground. This is too long to simply hope that a fire doesnt destroy the cragin watershed. We must find a way to move forward more quickly by utilizing the significance data and knowledge that already exists within the Forest Service. My written testimony includes some additional policy suggestions, but i wanted to highlight one issue related to fire borrowing. As the committee continues to address Fire Suppression budgets, it is also important that the provisions include a dedicated and secure funding stream for Forest Restoration in order to promote the certainty needed to encourage private sector investment. The greatest risk to our are forest is catastrophic wildfire and we need to rebalance the requirements placed on these types of projects to reflect that reality. The problems, the solutions and the consequences of inaction are clear, and i look forward to working together with this committee on our shared goals of protecting the forests and watersheds our communities rely on and enjoy. Thank you again and i look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you to all of our witnesses here this morning. As i mentioned after the chiefs testimony, i think we would all agree we have to figure out how we stop this fire bore he rowing because when were talking about how we deal with treatment, how we work to mitigate the risk here, it takes dollars and when youve spent all of your dollars on the suppression, it doesnt leave you much room for further opportunity there. The concern here is that the suppression costs are out of control. And, chief, i know you are very supportive of a wildfire cap adjustment, but from what would have heard this morning, its not necessarily the Silver Bullet to address the skyrocketing costs of wildFire Suppression spending. So how we deal with that is something id like to focus on this morning. You have described the hazardous fuel reduction projects that are critical to protecting whether its the watersheds that youve noted or just other areas there. The comment that you make, mr. Hallin that we know what it is we need to and yet we cant get to that point two to possibly three years to implement. We talk a lot about this analysis paralysis around here where we have endless process. And, again, a policy of we he hope that there will not be a Lightning Strike that is going to bring about disaster here. So chief, can you speak to this . Are we in a situation where were more worried about kind of checking the boxes here and making sure that weve gone through a critical process or are we acting with the level of urgency that i think youve heard from everybody here at this table with regards to these critical projects that will help us from the preventive perspective . Because i think we would agree that if we can he prevent these in the first place, we can get a better handle on these suppression costs. What seems to be slowing the process up . One of the issues weve dealt with in the past is needing do a large enough project where it actually makes a give. And thats where weve moved to taking a more landscape scale approach. In the past the healthy Forest Restoration act which you passed a few years ago which gave us a stream lined process was a very good tool. The problem with that is that it was limited to certain criteria. When we looked at larger landscapes, we could use that authority on a piece of the project, but it wouldnt apply to these tens of thousands of acres. Now it gives us more flexibility to be able to use that approach looking at one action alternative and a no action. So we can streamline the process. Let me ask you on that the key is larger landscapes. As we were going to the vote, the senator raised the issue that there were additional provisions to do what you said. Are these additional authorities being utilized at this point, are they making a difference . Were beginning to utilize them. We have projects Going Forward with that. In fy 16, many of our projects will be using these new authorities. But we often take a year of planning and going through the nepa before being implemented. And i think this is the concern, that we have this process that we have to go through. Is there any way to expedite that . One of the difficulties that we do have with the cragin watershed, we would prefer full scale restoration, but we decided to move forward with the healthy restoration act. We have 25 years in understanding the types of fires, where the endangered species are located and the extent of the watershed itself on those areas that are highly susceptibility to wildfire risk. The problem is they have to go through an entire eis process that essentially is designed from what i gather and watching staff is designed to essentially avoid litigation. We know what the issue is. We know that these forests need to be thinned. We know that the greatest threat to those species that the eis is designed to protect is catastrophic wildfire, but unfortunately, we have to go through the same process another two years before we can ultimately get in there and thin those forests. We hear this so often, that what were attempting to do is avoid litigation and in the meantime Lightning Strikes and were paying the cost. Senator. Thank you to the witnesses. Thank you for your testimony and work in this area. Its very important. Your key point about the fact that thinning and prescribed fire created the most long term resilient forests to future disturbances. So i want to drill down on that because i think that is a culmination of your conclusions, which is very important in looking at all these options. And chief tidwell, your testimony stated the tore rest service has identified 12 million acres that need hazardous fuel reduction, but the budget year after year only requests about 300 million for those treatments. So is that sufficient funding needed for those highest Priority Areas and so what do we need to do to get a more realistic number. And i also wanted to ask you about sorry to put all this out there, but thats the best way to get all the answers we need. Some you can give me in writing, too. But secondly, just this whole issue of do we have the best communication that we need for communities during these fires . Do we need more coordination with fema, should fema be part of the command team . It if the Communication Infrastructure doesnt exist anymore, how are we making sure that we dont have to wait two weeks to communicate about the ongoing crisis given the level of, you though, huge fires increases that were seeing. And does your agency have a permanent agreement with the faa on an application with them on drones . I would like to see this not be an issue where every state that has a fire and then wants to know whether the drones can be deployed to get a better understanding or mapping or what have you, id like to be a natural course between the Forest Service so that we dont have delays. Because i think they are providing us very Vital Information about these fires. Ill start with the last request. We are working very closely with the faa to be able to use the Unmanned Aircraft to be able to collect the information. And we have a team that has been put into place to be able to explore. The challenge for us is to be able to understand what information we need and when we need it so that because the potential there is there is so many data that is available, but we have to be able to prioritize it so we can quickly be able to use it. So well be moving forward this year, well be working with faa and also the states to be able to start to use the information, probably simply mapping is one of the simple and looking for hot spots especially outside the line where weve had success in the past. But youll do a permanent application so you wont have to keep going back and forth all the time . Well be working in that direction so that its automatic and that under these conditions we can use the aircraft. Your question about what happened with the aftermath or even did have the carlton fire, it really stresses how we need to do a better job with our preplanning. And we do a good job working with communities so theyre ready for the fire. But based on that experience, we need do a better job dealing with things like communications. We need to make sure communities have an emergency Communication System in place. So that whatever it takes so we maintain communications. Homeowners didnt know what was going on. I cant imagine that level of stress that would come from that situation. So its one of the things that weve learned we need to get that in place. We need to actually do a better job than we have been with utility companies. Theyre always great to step right in and ready to roll. But we need to include them also in our preplanning meetings so that when the next karl top happens, yeah, well have the fire to deal with, but he same time, we can provide a higher and better level of support to those communities to be able to eliminate some of the impact and get your services restored faster. So does fema need to be a permanent part . Yes, definitely. And they are part of the solution. And well continue to work with them. I just want to point out for my colleagues, but this is after 149,000 acres burned, the winthrop twist valley area was without communication and yet fires were still all around them. No one had any way to communicate with people other than as i said trying to go through the town. So it taught me communities need to be able to get a mobile broadband unit to be able to be deployed instead of waiting two or three weeks. This is all about who is going to pay for this in the end and were hesitating. Our constituents are without Vital Communications in a disaster. And if this is what were seeing because of the impacts of these drastic events because of weather, i just position we need to look at these events and say we need a better communication response in the aftermath and figuring out how do that for these communities. Thank you. Thank you, madame chair. Chief tidwell, i share your support for a solution to the wildfire funding challenge. Ive spent a lot of time traveling across montana hearing from groups. I think we have great Broad Spectrum agreement something has to change in the way wildfire fighting is funded. And im hoping we resolve this year and ill do everything i can to make that happen. Your office provided me information indicating that over 7 million federal acres in montana are at high or very high risk of wildfire. Most of which are managed by the Forest Service. Thats approximately one in four federally controlled acres in montana. I was further told that nearly 2 million of these acres are most in need of treatment because they are near populated communities or the watersheds. Unfortunately, i was informed that the Forest Service did it hazardous fuel treatment on only about 52,000 of those acres in the last fiscal year. Ive got no doubt that the work that was done there was important. But the current pace of treatment is simply not acceptable. Certainly our communities, our watersheds, our wild life habitat, access to recreation are at real risk to wildfire. More than 10 years ago, congress provided enhanced authorities to the Forest Service to reduce hazardous fuels through the healthy forest recreation act. You mentioned that. But as noted, these authorities are clearly not adequate and the hfra clearly has shortfalls. What in your way are the barriers to getting more done there . As i shared earlier, the healthy Forest Restoration act continues to be a Good Authority for us. But it is limited to certain areas based on the criteria that is required. You need to have a hazardous fuel components. And we really need to be looking at the entire landscapes, the full restoration work. What we need to do in the entire watershed its been pointed out from some of the witnesses, that is a much better approach. So we look at healthy Forest Restoration act and thousand with the new farm bill authorities that allow us to be able to use the similar type of nepa approach, but also address where we have insect and disease, by putting those together, it will allow us to take a more total landscape approach and to be able to look at not thousands of acres, we just have to be looking at tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of acres at a time and to be able to have the nepa in place for the next ten years we can be able to get in there and do the work that needs to be done. Those are the things that will make a difference. I truly appreciate your commitment to finding solutions that will improve Forest Health and also increase responsible timber harvest in montana. We look forward to further discussions to achieve that goal. I want to ask dr. Hood a question. First of all, welcome to our nations capital. Good to have another montanan the room and someone who intimately knows the challenges. Your testimony focused largely on the role of fire. The role of Fire Management on increasing resistance of the bark beatle. I remember seeing this when i was a kid back in the 70s and now were seeing it again. My children are seeing it, as well. And notice he know your research was primarily focused in the Rocky Mountain region, but montana has millions of acres that are damaged by beetle killing. Im pleased that congress recently gave the Forest Service new authorities to tackle this huge challenge in montana, but based on your research, how could increased management including thinning and prudently removing dead timber be used to improve the health of forests and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire . So in order to increase the health of our forest, thinning is definitely a should be a valid or a Good Management tool. My Research Also showed that having prescribed fires and low severity naturally occurring wildfires stimulates tree defenses. So having that combination of thinning and prescribed burning and then areas that we have treated to allow naturally to consider allowing ignitions to allow fires to burn further perpetuates a healthy forest that could be resistant to bark beetles. I think well always have some level of bark beetles. Theyre native insects to our forests. But doing treatments and promoting a patchy landscape can certainly help reduce the severity of those outbreaks. Thanks, doctor. Chief tidwell, you and i have talked before about the role of Climate Change in all of this. And weve talked about removal of hazardous fuel as weve been talking about today in different ways. And one of the ways that i think that we could possibly, and i want to ask anybody about this, to remove more hazardous fuel and be able to do it in a way that costs less is by monetizing that biomass. By monetizing it, using it, burning it and create electricity, combine heat and power, which is something that the chair and i have talked about. There is a lot of obviously areas in alaska where this hazardous fuel after all biomass you can argue zero carbon footprint, we can solve a lot of things at the same time. There is obviously a lot of challenges to this in terms of remoteness and moving this stuff and using it. But were talking about the wild land urban interface, so there is obviously areas where this is near a populated area. How can we what are some of the challenges standing in the way of more utilization of this tremendous resource . And this is for anyone. And what are your recommendations for overcoming these challenges or is there a there there is what im saying . Well, ill start, senator. The challenge is to be able to demonstrate that its economically viable. And so to be able to create these markets. And we need to continue to make investments to help people to do the Business Case analysis before they make the investment, we need to continue to use our authorities like the b Cap Authority where we can subsidize transportation of this biomass material to a facility, and to be able to get more and more demonstration projects. At the same time, we need to continue our research not only to increase the efficiency of these systems, but also for things like with pellet production, to be able to find a more efficient way to develop a pellet to increase the btus to increase the economics on it. I think we also need to just factor in the consequences if we dont. What is this cost avoidance. If we could ever capture a way to really consider that, i think it would really help with the economics of this. If we think about by thinning out these forests the reduction of risk thats occurred and then by being able to use the material for either to use it into a wood Product Material or for energy consumption, if we could factor in the cost avoidance benefit on that, i think that the economics would sell itself on this. But well have to continue with our research, continue with demonstration projects and to be able to also have a guaranteed supply of biomass. If youre going to make an investment, youd need to have the bank loan money. So we need to show that there is a ten year contract. You can take that to the bank that without any question materials will be there. So those are some of the things we need to continue to work on. I agree with you and i think there is a cost to not doing this. So are we doing the pilot projects, are we exploring this enough . Do we need do anything here in this committee and in congress to facilitate overcoming this challenge so that we can do something that especially with Energy Storage and distributed energy, how we can make this a piece so that you will have the ability to do to remove hazardous fuel because its monetized so we can do more of it and make it make sense . Anybody . Yes, mr. Hallin. Thank you for the question, senator. At salt River Project, there is a Biomass Plant that we actually buy half of the power at that facility. And one of the challenges as chief tidwell mentioned was the fact of to ensure that you have material at that plant. So we dont need any undue delays to ensure that there is material available at the Biomass Plant. I think secondly there is another added value benefit by going in and thinning these forests, there is essentially an avoided release of car upon. When you have these catastrophic wildfires, there is a major release of carbon into the air. Release it as energy that we use for electricity rather than just go up into the atmosphere. Yes. Thank you, madame chair. I really want to continue every time you testify, i bring this a little bit further. But i really want to keep exploring that especially with the chair. Thank you for the testimony. Nice to have a couple of arizonians here. Bruce, good to see you. Weve talked on a number of occasions. I appreciate the testimony from those who know so much on this. I appreciate the work of chief tidwell. I think its important to acknowledge some of the positive developments that weve seen recently related to forest management. Last month i think all of us were encouraged to learn phase one the record of decision was signed that will allow as chief talked about large scale management rather than just a couple of thousand acres here or there. The paltry 3,000 acres that have so far been treated is emblematic that it is too slow. We have to do it on a much larger scale. Youve noted 58 million acres at high or very high risk. We have to move on a larger scale. So we all recognize achieving reduction in hazardous fuels is critical. And weve got to find a way to solve this fire borrowing issue. I like some of the proposals that have been put forward. Myself and other senators have put forward, as well. By way of disrupting these activity, in terms of suppression, were putting hazardous fuels reduction on hold, were also putting communities and firefighters at risk as we know all too well in arizona. And as bruce talked about today, were also increasing challenges for maintaining a healthy watershed and for what that does to Drinking Water supplies. And for all these reasons, im obviously supportive of efforts to restore or im sorry, resolve the fire borrowing issue by allowing a limited adjustment to statutory budget caps under specific circumstances or scenarios. For example, when the Forest Service and doi exceed anticipatable or those that we forecast, they are not doubt impactful on Water Quality and wildlife, but we condition let the disastrous nature of wildfire make us lose sight of the costs of fighting fires. Many of the costs both preventing and as well as fighting fires can be anticipated like municipal Fire Departments that budget for expected personnel and Incident Response costs. I believe that we can do of the same here. I would agree that on the significance of the problems that wildfires present, but where there is some disagreement is dealing with these socalled anticipatable costs. I would support efforts and recognize that in some years there will be large fires that drive the wildFire Suppression costs well above those that were anticipated in those years, that the agencies have been appropriated 100 of the anticipated cost, i think that limited budget cap adjustments to allow the agencies to fight fire without borrowing from other sources would make sense. But again, if they have been fully budgeted for what is easily anticipated as a realistic cost of suppression, then that would apply. Frankly, i would like to see sufficient funds on the front end. I think we all would like to see that. To be put into suppression activities, as well. Sound budgeting requires dealing with both preventable symptoms as well as resulting disasters. What i disagree with is the notion that we should simply move 30 of those anticipated costs off the budget because its convenient or because it creates additional flexibility for increased tending under the statutory budget caps, paying for one disaster while furthering our current fiscal disaster doesnt make sense. And we need to be realistic about what we can do, we need to deal with the house, as well, and be realistic about what we can budget for and what we cant. There is a solution to be found on the issue i believe that involves flexibility, but only after 100 of those anticipatable suppression costs have been expended. Lets not confuse disasters with unanticipated costs. We need to plan for what is likely to occur to take steps necessary to prevent those disasters from occurring. And then use flexibility in those rare years where we go over those costs. I hope that high colleagues and the administration will come together and find a solution, a long term solution, on this issue. I didnt want to use all my time speaking here, but i believe i have. So thank you, madame chair. Senator flake, i think this is a keep part that what this committee will be grappling with. We have to be realistic in terms of what were facing and it has to be a solution that is more lasting than what year dealing with rights now, which is interim stopgap and again borrowing that hurts everybody. Well be working with you on this. Chief, at the beginning i think you apologized for bringing up fire borrowing once again. I think most of us up here would say dont apologize and keep bringing it up until we find a workable way forward on this. Because it is sort of the elephant in the room here. And we have to fix that piece of all of this one way or the other to be able to really scale these projects up to the kind of landscape levels that you were talking about. Mr. Hallin, i wanted to ask you to go into more detail about the kinds of projects youre doing and the partnerships. I know in new mexico, weve started to look at this and we have a couple of Different Things going, one in the santa fe watershed, the Santa Fe Water Fund which use as contributions from water uses to match up with Forest Service funding and treat the watershed above santa fe. In addition the Rio Grande Water Fund is now doing a Similar Partnership on a much larger Geographic Area south of colorado and north of new mexico. So if you would, just tell us a little bit more about those partnerships and how we might be able to learn from those things, scale them to other regions to get some of those benefits that we see when were able to connect downstream water users effectively to the health of their watershed which may be hundreds and hundreds of miles away. Thank you, senator, for the question. We found very quickly that there was a definite disconnect with many of the businesses and water users in the valley. And when im talking about the valley, phoenix metropolitan area, disconnects between a healthy forest and healthy watershed. And to begin getting the subject matter to a broader base group of individuals, we decided to Work Together with some of our larger power customers and other customers that receive energy there srp and many of those organizations have green initiatives and other initiatives that theyre looking at spending money to improve not only their product that theyre delivering but also their image. So we sat down and found there were opportunities to link it with end years so we established the fund. Now, the National Forest foundation is congressionally authorized to use private funds as a 501c 3 organization. We didnt want end users to think there was something in this for the salt River Project respect its actually for the watershed. So this Northern Arizona forest fund essentially we identified projects in partnership with the tore rest service that are outside of these large full scale Restoration Projects, but theyre smaller projects that have a begin date and an end date so that when you invest your money, you know specifically what youre investing in. I think thats really key. Connecting up these users who dont or havent in the past had an intuitive connection to where their water comes from. In santa fes case, they can actually see their watershed. But for someone say in albuquerque or phoenix, that watershed may be a long way away and connecting those things together is a pretty powerful tool. Chief, i want to just ask you a quick question with my remaining time. We heard from dr. Hood about using these treatments together, prescribed low intensity fire, but using them in combination having by far the best results. Are you able to do that as you scale up these landscape level fuel treatments, are you able to plan both the prescribed and natural fire piece and the mechanical fitting piece together in concert . Yes. A lot of places its necessary for us to have at least two entries into these areas. So first year well come in and do the thinning to reduce the total biomass and then follow it up with prescribed fire. And that is the right approaches specially in our dry forest types. And then once you have that thinning done, then you can continue to run that fire through there. Either prescribed fire or with our natural fire. But often we need to do that meg cal treatment first it reduce the stand down to a level of biomass that we can then handle when we do have a fire. And probably a more historical level, at least within the Ponderosa Pine in the west. Yes. Thank you, madame chair. Thank you. Chief tidwell, as a doctor, i appreciate the adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Im concerned with the ever increasing need to fire borrow money from Fire Prevention activities and the declining health of our National Forests. The administration seems intent wanting more without engaging in Land Management reform. The administration is set on maintaining failed status quo policies and culture of litigation. And as i said last month, Forest Service has i believe lost its direction and purpose. The Forest Service has become a bureaucracy emphasizing internal processes over real results and improvements on the ground. So in my view, if were going to increase Fire Prevention activities, then Congress Needs to direct and mandate results and outcomes. So does either the Administration Proposal of s235 contain language guaranteeing that it goes towards activities and provide language providing legislative reforms aimed at streamlining active management and reducing litigation . No, it only eliminates the
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