U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today criticized U.S. Forest Service Chief Thomas Tidwell’s 2016 budget request for its lack of willingness to actively manage federal forests for the benefit of those communities impacted by forestry lands.

Murkowski, the committee’s chairman, pointed to her home state of Alaska, where the actions of the Forest Service have caused significant declines in the amount of timber harvested from the Tongass National Forest – which covers nearly all of Southeast Alaska. The decline has had devastating impacts on the region’s employment and economic activity.

“I look at Southeast Alaska and don’t know how these communities are surviving under what amounts to Forest Service home rule. So far, the forest service has offered nothing to get mills running again, create jobs in the timber industry, and grow local economies that are dependent on timber harvesting,” Murkowski said. “Over the last decade, timber cutting from the Tongass has averaged just 35 million board feet per year. That’s an unacceptable level and reflects the overarching goal on part of the Forest Service to eliminate timber harvests from the region’s economic base.”

To view Chairman Murkowski’s full comments about the Tongass National Forest, click here.

Significant reforms of federal management practices are needed to help rural communities survive, especially now that the Secure Rural School program – which for years masked the problem of declining timber receipts by paying communities directly from the federal treasury – was not reauthorized for fiscal year 2014. The current budget request calls for just over $50 million for the Payment to States program to be shared with rural communities nationwide.

“The Forest Service has broken the federal government’s promise to actively manage our national forests. We’ve reached a point where if we’re not cutting trees on federal lands –

and we hardly are – then counties, parishes, and boroughs are going to be cutting their budgets,” Murkowski said. “The timber industry can be sustainable, but the funding for SRS is not. It’s time rural communities had the opportunity to realize the benefits of increased timber production and active forest management – because the current path is unstainable.”

More than half of the Forest Service’s nearly $5 billion budget request is dedicated to wildfire suppression and efforts to reduce the frequency and severity of fires.

This year’s request again includes a proposal that would treat many wildfires as “disasters,” to be funded in part by budget authority outside of the agency’s discretionary appropriation. But the Forest Service’s budget request does not include any significant cost containment measures or funding increases for prevention activities that would reduce wildfire risks and bring down suppression costs over time, including flat funding for the hazardous fuels reduction program. 

“Time and time again, the Forest Service exceeds its suppression budget causing the agency to transfer funds from other important programs to pay for suppression efforts. This endless cycle of fire borrowing has to end,” Murkowski said. “This budget request proposes a wildfire suppression gap adjustment. I share that goal and welcome a dialogue moving forward to permanently fix this problem, but any eventual solution must be fiscally responsible.”

Murkowski concluded her questioning of Chief Tidwell with calls for the agency to work with Congress on legislative proposals that promote healthy forests and economic growth for rural communities.

“In order for the Forest Service to keep its promises to rural communities, it needs to take steps to return to actively managing forest lands. This will allow effected communities to have a viable economy moving forward and will also help fire suppression efforts by restoring the health of our forests,” Murkowski said.

The Forest Service manages more than 22 million acres of national forest lands in Alaska, including nearly all of the land in Southeast. That is more acres than the entire 52 national forests located in the eastern and southern United States combined.

Archived video of the hearing is available on the committee’s website.

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