Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I am happy to yield.

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I repeat what is a phenomenally frustrating concern of ours, that the Public Broadcasting Act that created NPR authorized the use of public money and what appears now at this moment to be an effort to go out and find a worst case scenario to refute arguments being placed on the floor. That is not the role of the public broadcasting program in this country. I am extremely pleased that this article appeared. We became aware of that e-mail traffic yesterday. I am glad some journalists have the right and the willingness to step forward and say: Wait a minute. This appears to be a complicit act of a nonprofit organization established by Congress for the purpose of educating our public but not misinforming our public. That appears by every evidence to be exactly what was underway. What fell out of it was the very basis of the argument I and others have been placing for some time and why my amendment or a version of my amendment in dealing with these critical areas and in dealing with allowing a process to move forward that cannot be just summarily blocked by an appeal but does not yet close the courthouse door is very critical to all of us. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, for the last good number of minutes, I have been listening to the Senator from Wyoming talk about forest fires in the making. I must tell you, it was not only fascinating but an issue he and I, as westerners who live in forested States, have grown to develop some knowledge about over the years. I liken Senator Enzi's speech to Forest Fire 101. It was appropriate, and it well defines the great problems we face, not just in the West today, although conifer trees--or pine trees, fir trees, all that the Senator was speaking about--have a different characteristic in fire than do the broadleafs. What is fascinating to me now is that in January, February, and March, which oftentimes are the dryer seasons on the Eastern seaboard, we are beginning to see more and more fires in our broadleaf forests because of the fuel loading that is occurring. It starts in the brush and in the leaf flora and goes to trees that are not yet leafed out and green. The point I make, and why we are talking about this as a national fire policy and why it is important for the Senate to stop, as we have, to focus on the need to reshape public policy in this critical area, is it is now of national importance and a magnitude we have never seen before. We are not used to allocating $2 billion a year of taxpayers' resources to fight fires. That is approximately what we are going to be doing this year. It is what we did last year and the year before. The American public ought to be scratching their heads a bit and asking a fundamental question of their policymakers: Is that justifiable? Can we, as a country, spend $2 billion a year to fight fire in our national forests? Why are we doing it? As I have mentioned several times, it is not any longer just to put out fires that are burning trees and watershed and wildlife habitat. It is to protect an ever-growing number of homes that are built near or in these forested areas because that has become an extremely popular place to live for the average American over the course of the last number of years. In 1998, we had some very severe fires in Idaho, and in an area with which I am very familiar--which is where I grew up--in the McCall- Cascade area of the national forest--the forest supervisor of the Payette at that time told me--and I think we lost 200,000 to 250,000 acres in two or three fires that joined together that year--that the greatest concern he had and the most resources he used was to keep fire away from homes; that while the fires had to be left to burn elsewhere because they simply did not have the manpower to put them out, they focused on protecting homes. We now call that the urban wildland interface. Over the course of the last several years, we have tried to shape fire policy around that and direct resources toward the thinning and cleaning of forests in the immediate areas around these lovely homes that are being built out in the wooded areas. Is that a national responsibility, is that a Federal responsibility, or is that the responsibility of the homeowner? The homeowner builds his or her home next to a national forest anticipating that forest is cared for and is not going to erupt in fire and, therefore, will not place their home at risk. So this is a public obligation, in part, to sustain a healthy forest, not just for wildlife habitat and watershed but to assure that fires will not sweep across private land and destroy private property. There is, at least arguably, a liability factor there if the forests are not properly maintained. Over time, we have said there is a liability factor if the poor management of product on one side of a property line causes damage to property on the other side of a property line. Out West, we say if you harbor noxious weeds on one side of a property line and they move over to your neighbor's property, you are liable. County law and State law says so. That is why we have dedicated phenomenal resources over the last number of years, as this fire situation has grown in our forested areas, to protecting homes. Even as we try to protect the home, as the Senator from Wyoming has so clearly spelled out, in this fiscal year, starting in mid-June, we have lost now over 2,100 homes across this country, mostly along the Rocky Mountain front from the White Mountain forests of Arizona up through the Rocky Mountain forests of Colorado, homes in California, a few in Oregon, an entire town almost wiped out in Arizona, and an entire community threatened in Oregon this year with severe fire. It is appropriate, while the Senate would wish to rush on to other issues, that we deal with this issue in some form. It is a national crisis. Nowhere can we say that the loss of 6.5 million acres of our forested lands is anything but a crisis. As I have said, if this had been Hurricane Andrew--and I am not sure Andrew did much more damage than that years ago in Florida--we would rush down there with all possible Federal resources to help the community, to turn the power on, to rebuild the homes, to clean up the debris. Here we step back and say--or at least some do--this is all but an act of nature in a normal sense. It is not an act of nature to see abnormal fires of the kind the Senator from Wyoming has spoken so clearly about, with heat intensities in a multiple of hundreds of degrees hotter than a normal fire, burning everything in its path, leaving nothing behind. That is not a normal forest fire. That is an abnormal forest fire that is a creation of public policy that has disallowed the thinning and cleaning by mankind that was once done by fire, before we eliminated fire from the ecosystem about 90 to 100 years ago. We became extremely active in fire management in a post-World War II era when a bunch of young men came home who had learned how to jump out of airplanes. They could put a shovel and a pulaski on their back and file in a Ford trimotor out across the forests of the West and jump off to a lightning strike and throw a few shovels of dirt on it and put it out and they became known as smoke jumpers. That was the beginning of a scenario on our western public land forests to put fire out. We got better and better at it over the years, to the point where we have nearly eliminated the fires, and in eliminating fire, which was the natural cleanser of our forests at that time, we did not replace it with a fire-like, man-created presence. So the fuels begin to build and the small trees begin to grow and the brush begins to multiply to the point we have added fuels to the acres of such magnitude that scientists tell us that they are fuels equivalent in Btu's to tens of thousands of gallons of gasoline per acre in explosive character or ignitable capability. That is the reality of many of these public land forests today. In the White Forests of Arizona, where 100 years ago stood 25 trees per acre in a relatively pastoral setting, with grass growing beneath, wildlife ambling through, large trees scattered across the landscape, in that very forest this June, instead of 25 or 30 trees per acre, there were 700 trees per acre--not big trees, little ones, 6 to 8 inches through. A forester would call those weed trees, scrub trees, of no value, except to do exactly what the Senator from Wyoming said-- create that ignition of fire that starts from the bottom and sweeps upward to the crown of the tree along the natural coning shape of a conifer, a fur, a spruce, or a pine. It is the characteristic of fire that we do not want to speak to today. We just want to ignore it because some groups have said it is natural, leave it alone, turn your back on it, walk away. They want to because they do not want us in there. It has been in the name of the environment. You cannot call this anything but now an environmental disaster, a total wipeout of the watershed. You heard the Senator from Colorado last night talk about it. Now, in Durango, CO, where the land burned but 2\1/2\ months ago, the rains have now come and the land is sliding down the mountainside and blocking the streams and the roads and filling the reservoirs full of muddy ash and water. That is not natural. Had that watershed in the Durango area that feeds Denver been allowed to be thinned, cleaned, alive and vibrant, fire would not have burned it. The rains would have come. The organic soils would have consumed the water and slowly allowed them to trickle down that watershed into the lakes and reservoirs that feed the Greater Denver area and its water systems. Absent that is nothing but a tragedy. To say that is only a natural occurrence and that somehow we have to accept it is wrong. To the environmentalists who make that argument, I say, shame on you. You ought to become a copartner in working with us to determine how we can effectively thin and clean and restore the health and vibrancy and environmental integrity of those watersheds so they can support wildlife habitat and become the ever-replenishing source of water for the urban areas of the West or anywhere else in our country. Our forests are important to our ecosystem. They are great sequesters of carbon that flows out of the air as a result of the human presence and great storehouses of water that then feed out over the course of a year, to be used by all of us for life-sustaining purposes, not to slide down mountains in the form of mud and ash and broken, burned trees, of a kind that you will now see all over the West this winter in those 6.5 million acres that have already burned. It is a disaster that has happened. To not stand here on the floor and shout out about it would be a failure of anyone who represents those areas. It is not natural. It is a creation or a result of public policy that has allowed that. I am suggesting we not look backwards and start pointing fingers and blame, but we look forward. We know the conditions today. We know the problem. We also know a solution. And every forest scientist will line up and tell you exactly what to do. Most all of them will agree. It is not clearcutting. It is not logging. It is not all of the kinds of things that some accuse us of wanting to do. It is a systematic cleaning and thinning and restoring of health, and replacing fire with man's presence in a fire-like way. By that, I mean the thinning, cleaning process. No, I am going to be an advocate of green sales, and I will be an advocate of a logging program as a part of a multiple use base of our national forests, but that is a different argument and a separate issue from the issue of forest health. When we have hundreds of millions of acres of forests across our Nation today, and we know there are over 94 million acres that are in some form of health problems, and there are nearly 30 million that are at crisis today by big kill of the kind that the Senator from Wyoming spoke of, by dead and dying trees, by magnitudes of large fuel loading that creates the kindling of the fires that swept across and are continuing to burn in the West today, that is where we ought to focus. That is where we are focusing with the Craig- Domenici amendment. It is why we have invited all of our colleagues to become involved and help us work out these problems, instead of simply saying no, because some special interest group said, tell them no. This is not an answer today in the West. No means we will continue to burn. And every year we will burn 5 or 6 or 7 million acres--every year for the next 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. That is a magnitude of environmental disaster of the kind this country has never seen. It is one of which I do not want to be a part; it is one the Senator from Wyoming does not want to be a part. It is why we are working so hard to strike a compromise, to make a small step forward, to change the thinking just a little bit. It is why the Craig-Domenici amendment selects urban wildlife interface, municipal watersheds, and an unlimited number of those 30 million acres of the critical dead and dying--less than 10 million acres in total. We have said, let us make this small step forward and watch the U.S. Forest Service--bring the cameras in--prove we can thin and we can clean and we can reestablish the health of these forests. And it is not by someone also's definition of logging. That it is not evil and clandestine and somehow a subterfuge to get loggers back into the woods. There is nothing wrong with loggers in the woods, nothing wrong at all. But this is not that issue. This is a forest health issue. If we do the right logging in the right areas and we sustain ourselves, we can always have a healthy forest. But today we ignore it. The last 3 years I fought the effort of the former President, President Clinton, to lock up 94 million acres of roadless lands. I guess it was about 1994. We succeeded in stopping him. But he wanted to lock it up, again at the advice of some interest groups, and then ask America to simply turn their back on it and let it sit. That is where all these fires are starting today. Many of the fires that started in the roadless class 3 lands today are the ones that swept out of those, into class 2 and class 1 high-quality forest lands, and wiped everything out in the process. Because fires of the kind the Senator from Wyoming spoke about know no bounds. The Senator said it: All they know is heat, fuel, oxygen. And in a drought-like environment where humidity is dramatically low, kindling points drop dramatically and forests literally do explode. Those who have seen the great forest fires of the West, have seen the devastation, have seen the plumes of smoke going 12,000, 14,000, 20,000 feet into the air and mushrooming like an atomic bomb, will never forget what they saw. When the White Forests were burning this year, I was flying from Dallas to Denver. Somewhere out over northwestern New Mexico we began to hit the cloud plume and the smoke rolling off the fires in Arizona. The pilot came on the intercom--we were at 35,000 feet, and the airplane was in smoke--and he said to the passengers on the plane: As a pilot, I have never experienced this before, but we are in the smoke from the forest fires of Arizona. We were in smoke from that time, as that plane flew out of New Mexico, across Arizona, and into Colorado, until we landed in Denver and then the winds had shifted; Denver had cleared, but from Denver south, it was all full of smoke. But to have an airline pilot say he had never experienced that, to me, is a simple description of the magnitude of these fires, the intensity of them, the phenomenal fuel consumption, the tremendous release of carbon into the air, that smoke cloud that literally spread across the United States at high altitude. That is the crisis to which we speak. Some would like to rush to judgment, ignore these problems, walk away from them. Shame on us if we do. Shame on us if we do not work to make one small step toward correcting these problems. If we then, by that small step, can prove to the American public that we have done the right thing--and I think we will be able to--then will they allow us to make another step? I hope that is the case. That is what we are going to try to get accomplished, and I think we can get that accomplished today. I hope we can. What I would appreciate, if we are wrong, is to have the opposition come speak on the floor and tell us why we are wrong. I have heard no one come to the floor this year and try to justify the fires that have burned across America's public forests this year. In fact, they are cowering in the smoke, wishing not to speak out. They will vote for the special interests that ask them to vote no, but they will not come out and openly express that what happened in Arizona and Colorado and California this year, and parts of Oregon, is all but a natural process and 2,100 homes and 22 or 25 lives and $2 billion is an acceptable reality to America's forest environment. I do not believe that is the case. So, if you can't justify the current policy and the current policy is creating that kind of damage, then why not change it just a little bit, enough to prove to the American people, and to the critics, that what we are advocating is the right and proper direction? Give us the time to do the programs, turn the television cameras on, come out and look at it, and tell America what we are doing. If it is wrong, we will change it. But I think they will be very surprised, finding out we can thin and we can clean and we can improve the watersheds and you can save the forests and you can defuel them and therefore fireproof them--at least from the kinds of fires the Senator from Wyoming and I have been discussing--and allow these forests to return, in some instances, to the natural fires of 100 years ago that burned lightly and ambled across the land, thinning and cleaning but not destroying and not burning large trees or the pastoral landscape that Europeans first experienced when they landed on these soils and began to trek across this great continent and through these marvelous forests from east to west. It is a legacy. The legacy of today is a legacy of embarrassment, in my opinion. It is a legacy of misguided public policy that has brought us to a point of decision. We ought not take it lightly. We certainly ought to deal with it now rather than later. I yield.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I appreciate the frustration the assistant leader is going through at this moment trying to resolve an issue on the Interior appropriations bill about which he and I are concerned and move it forward and at the same time move homeland security forward. Today we have worked to facilitate both of those bills, and I have encouraged the majority leader and the assistant leader to allow a vote on my amendment, which is pending on the Interior appropriations bill or, if not, a stand-alone vote, and then to allow a side by side, with their alternative, by a majority vote of either. That is not what they apparently want to do at this moment. I do not want to see the Interior appropriations bill laid aside. We have critical fire money in the bill. We have critical drought money in the bill for agriculture. The Interior appropriations bill is very key to my State. At the same time, we must bring this Senate together on some way of dealing with the crisis in our forests today that has resulted in devastating fires across the West. I feel very strongly about that. At the same time, I know the leader has worked hard to facilitate homeland security. Certainly it is very evident this side is not holding up that bill at this moment. We want the votes. We want to move the issue, deal with it, and get it to the President's desk before we adjourn or recess for the November elections. Under those considerations, dual track is important. I say to the leader, give me a vote. Give me a vote on the Craig- Domenici amendment up or down--however. But I do believe we deserve a vote. I do believe it is critically important that the Senate of the United States express its will on a 6.5-million-acre loss to wildfire this year and thousands of homes and well over 25 lives. We must deal with the issue. This situation has cost us--and I think Senator Reid will agree--$800 million extra in this budget, to fight fires or to pay the debt of the fires that have already been fought. We will spend well over $1 billion of extra money this year. With that, I must object.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, the terrorism of September 11 changed America forever, and it profoundly changed Americans, as well. The people we lost left behind legacies, the compilation of the meaningful things they accomplished throughout their lives, actions and words that still touch their friends and families after their deaths. Those legacies inspire all of us with the bravery and courage of the human spirit, and also remind us of the precious frailty of life. Brady Howell lost his life in the attack on the Pentagon. This letter, written by Brady's brother Carson Howell to commemorate the one year anniversary of that terrible event, articulates the legacy Brady left behind. I would like to enter this letter into the Congressional Record so all my colleagues can remember the great example these Americans are to us. In the words of Carson Howell, ``The men and women who perished that day are not heroes because of how they died; they are heroes because of how they lived.'' Let me read the letter in its entirety: Today is a sad day for our family. Not just our family, but also families just like the Vauk family, the Conaty family, the Andrews family, and thousands of others. It's a sad day for our American family as we all remember and pay tribute to the thousands of friends, family, and fellow Americans that lost their lives one year ago today. It's a day that many will remember as the day we learned that heroes aren't found only in comic books. No, there are heroes greater than Superman and my brother is one of them. Brady Kay Howell loved this country. He was an Eagle Scout. He loved children and taught the youth in Sunday School classes while living in New York and later Virginia. He loved his family and actually had plans to return to Idaho that following weekend for a welcome home party for my parents and for my wedding reception. He loved his wife, Liz, to whom he'd been married for only five short years. Brady was working in naval intelligence as an intern. Shortly before his death, he and I had a telephone conversation. In it he told me that one of his goals in his life was to have top-secret clearance. I'm proud to say that he accomplished that goal. I could go on and on about how great my brother was. But, if it were he speaking here today, he wouldn't use this opportunity to speak of his accomplishments. I believe that he would talk about service. He would talk about what a great country this is that we live in and how proud he was to serve and protect all of us. The work that Brady and many others did that died that day was for all of us. Brady prepared briefings for the Chief of Naval Intelligence and other high-ranking officials so that they could best be informed of how to protect us the American public. Everyday he was protecting our country. Everyday he was fighting for our freedoms that we enjoy. To Brady, it didn't matter how much money you had, it didn't matter what the color of your skin was, it didn't matter which religion you believed. To Brady, what mattered were the people. Ongoing community service initiatives to commemorate Brady's commitment to public service are being conducted in the Washington, DC area and there are plans for at least one such initiative in Utah. Generous contributions from all over the country have allowed us to create an endowed memory in Brady's name to continue the influence of his story. These contributions will also support an endowed lecture series in Brady's name that has been established and now approved by the BYU-Idaho Board of Trustees. I miss Brady very much. I remember with fondness building bases and battling with our G.I. Joe action figures, waking up early Saturday morning to watch the Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show together, and climbing trees together. I always looked up to Brady and for me, he was always a hero. As his story is told, others are hearing about the hero whom I was privileged enough to call ``brother''. September 11th wasn't the first day that this country has known heroes, nor has it been the last. We should take this time to pay tribute not only to the heroes of September 11th, but all of the heroes that have fought for freedom. Thousands of men and women are working today to protect us from evil. The men and women who perished that day are not heroes because of how they died; they are heroes because of how they lived. Heroes are the men and women who have put themselves in harms way for the cause of democracy and freedom since long before September 11, 2001. Heroes are the men and women who serve each day to protect people they will never know. Heroes are the men and women who spend more waking hours caring for and about others than they do for themselves. Let us remember the heroes of September 11th 2001, along with the heroes who stood before, who stand now, and who are preparing to stand against evil. Because it is to all of you who have served this country, have given your children for the service of America, and are currently serving that we, the American people, pay tribute this day; the fire fighters, the police officers, the emergency medical crews, and the soldiers of freedom. If the mark of a hero is one that cares about and fights for others, I hope that the destruction of September 11th has facilitated the construction of tomorrow's heroes. Wouldn't the greatest honor that we could pay to those that perished be if we could follow their example and give of ourselves as they did? We may not be called upon to die for this country, but we are all called upon to live for it. This country doesn't need more martyrs, but this country could use more doers. Tens of thousands have given their time and tens of thousands have given their lives for America; this ``one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.'' To be ``one nation'', we need to be one state, one neighborhood, one home. Let us rededicate ourselves as we did after September 11th, to being Americans. Never in my life before September 11th, had I seen such a display and attitude of patriotism. We were friendlier, we were more patient, and we looked out for each other. I wish that those who died that day could have seen the America that we became. We became strong and united. We showed forth the America that we always should have been; the America that those men and women sacrificed their lives for. Let us honor all of the heroes of America by not letting their sacrifices be in vain. Let us continue their legacies. Let us live for what they died for The United States of America.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I yield the Senator from Idaho 5 minutes.

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Idaho for his very thoughtful presentation and his true expression of the real conditions on our forest lands. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Colorado.

Mr. CRAIG. The Senator did hear that.

Mr. CRAIG. We are not.

Mr. CRAIG. It is not our intention to delay. We have never intended to delay the bill.

Mr. CRAIG. I will be happy to yield if I have time remaining.

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, Senator Reid, I assume we would retain the last 5 minutes for closing purposes.

Mr. CRAIG. Yes, because it is our amendment. We would want that.

Mr. CRAIG. That will be fine.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I have the 5 remaining minutes prior to the vote reserved. We have no more time to allocate on our side. The assistant leader said we could use time if there were no speakers from the other side. Senator Byrd is here.

Mr. CRAIG. I think our colleague from Oklahoma would like to speak for 5, and then if I could use 5 to close it out, then we could advance the vote.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, for the life of me, I must tell the majority leader, I cannot understand what you speak of. There has been no filibuster on this bill, and a second-degree amendment is not extraordinary nor does it require 60 votes. You know the rules as well as I do. The chairman of the Appropriations Committee just came to the floor and made the right speech, talking about the urgency of his amendment and firefighting money. I support it totally. If we don't deal with his amendment and deal with my amendment in concept as a new public policy for this country, he as chairman, or another chairman, will be coming to the floor every year and asking for $1.5 billion to $2 billion of taxpayer money to fight the wildfires of the West, across the Alleghenies, and down to the Blue Ridge. That is the reality of a misguided public policy that has put our national treasures at risk, the U.S. forestlands. This year, we burned over 6.5 million acres; the chairman spoke to that. We lost 2,100 homes; the chairman spoke to that. We lost 21 lives; the chairman spoke to that, too. This is a tactic to stall? Not at all. No, the majority leader, in my opinion, misspoke. There has been no filibuster. I have kept him and the assistant leader in full consultation as we have tried to resolve and bring, in a bipartisan way, a clear new adjustment in public policy. We cannot arrive at that. It is my amendment that is now up as a second degree, and appropriately so. I ask for a vote on it, an up-or-down vote, as it is entitled to. I would accept a side-by-side debate with Senator Bingaman's alternative but not a 60-vote, no--51 or 50. Majority rules here, except under the rules that require a 60 vote. In this instance, it is not required. I hope my colleagues will join with us this afternoon and say no to cloture, and maybe then we can move expeditiously because we have lost days when this could have been resolved very quickly. I don't blame the Senator from West Virginia for being frustrated. He is chairman of the Interior Subcommittee. He brought a bill to the floor that most of us want. The majority leader knows I supported the aid to farmers and ranchers that have experienced catastrophic drought. It is not my intention, nor anyone else's, to hold up that money. But it is our intention, it is our purpose, and we will have a vote, to deal with national forest policy that will slightly adjust our ability to get active on the land, to remove the fuel, to improve the forest health, to save the watershed, to save the wildlife habitat, and, also, to save homes and people's lives and the beautiful landscapes of the public forests of these United States. Shame on us for failing to address a policy that, this year, has allowed the burning of 6.5 million acres of public land, and the fires will continue year after year into the future until the public stands up and says: Congress, United States Senate, change your ways. Your policy isn't working. Your policy is not working, and our forests are burning and our forests are being lost because of public policy.

Mr. CRAIG. I will be happy to respond to a question.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, we are attempting to make a very important policy determination on the management of our public lands. Many of us have been on the floor over the last good number of years to talk with some concern about the changing character of our public lands and the impending crisis that might occur under the normal climate cycles across the United States as a result of catastrophic wildfires on our forested public lands. Tragically enough, many of the alarms we were talking about were based on studies done over several decades, that inactive management of our public lands, in the absence of fire, was allowing a fuel buildup that ultimately could result in catastrophic wildfires. We are now at that point where it has become obvious to the American public, from watching television this summer, and seeing the fires that have raged across the western forests, that something is wrong out there; that this was not a normal environment; that this was something they were not used to; Why were these beautiful forests now burning? They were burning, they are burning--they are still burning--and have been since mid-June because of public policy that had largely taken fire out of the ecosystem but had not allowed a comparable activity in the ecosystem of our forested lands that would remove the underbrush and the small trees and maintain the kind of environmental balance that was there prior to European man coming upon the scene a couple hundred years ago, and especially in the last 65 to 70 years when we had become very good at putting out fires in our forests. It is from that perspective that brings us to the floor today. A few moments ago, my colleague from Arizona was on the floor talking in great detail about the wildfires that swept across his State this summer--the white forests of southwestern Arizona, and the phenomenal damage that occurred there. It nearly wiped out an entire community. It clearly destroyed valuable ecosystems and watersheds and wildlife habitat to a point of ultimate devastation. It, in fact, has created such an environment that it denies Mother Nature, once she has done this damage, the ability to come back and to create a resilient forest in a reasonably short period of time. By that I mean several decades. These fires are now so intense, based on the fuel loading on these lands, that it is equivalent to literally tens of thousands of gallons of gasoline per acre in Btu's. The fire burns deep into the soil, soil loaded with organic materials that absorb and hold water and allow plants to flourish, creating what are known as hydrophobic soils. In other words, it caramelizes them; it fuses them; it ultimately destroys the ability of these lands to reproduce for decades. Of course, because you have denied the ability of the land to absorb water, when the rains come in the fall, massive landslides, erosion, and watershed damage occurs. Right now, in Colorado, with the current rainfall, landslides are occurring as we speak. They are not making the national news that the fires that swept across those lands a couple of months ago did, but they are making the local news because the roads are blocked, people cannot traverse the area, watersheds are being damaged, and, of course, the quality of the water that now flows into the reservoirs that supply the urban areas of Denver and other places is in question--all because of public policy and a perception that has prevailed in public policy for the last several decades that inactive management, no management, man's hand not present in the forest, was, by far, the better way to go. I am not even questioning the fact that several of the industries that were prevalent in our forests over the last century have lost credibility in the eyes of the American people. I am not even going to argue that forest policy of 30 years ago, based on certain attitudes and certain images, projected by national environmental groups, has not changed attitudes and has caused us to lose the support of the American public on certain aspects of national U.S. forest policy. I believe most of that is true. But what I also believe is true is that a radical move from one position to the other, and holding the far position on the other side, is just as bad as maybe clear cutting policies of 40 or 50 years ago. Many will now argue: But we are saving old-growth forests across our country by disallowing the human hand to touch the land. I suggest to those who so argue that this year we have lost over 2\1/2\ to 3 million acres of old-growth forest because we were not allowed to go in and take out the underbrush and the small trees that are below these older trees. And as the fires swept across the land, it took everything, including the old growth. So radicalism or extremism or a fixed policy on one extreme or the other can produce the wrong results. Putting good stewards on the land who understand the science of the land and the science of the forest itself is, by far, the better way to go. But in the last decades, we have decided that the policy was bad. I say, collectively, as a Congress, we have decided that. So we began to micromanage from the floor of the Senate. Every Senator influenced by some of his or her environmental friends decided they were the forest experts. They would legislate the particulars or they would deny certain actions that should be happening on the public lands. As a result, over the last number of years, we have seen the average number of fires and total number of acres destroyed per year begin to rapidly increase on our public forested lands. What was once an average burn of 1 million, 1.5 million to 2 million acres a year is now up into the 6 to 7 to 8 million acres a year. And it seems now, if you were to graph it, to be progressively climbing. This year we have now burned about 6.5 million acres of forested land--not just burned it but destroyed it. There is hardly a tree standing--watersheds destroyed, land hydrophobic, wildlife habitat gone. Mother Nature will not come in there and replace herself for a decade. In the meantime, watersheds will slip and slide off the face of these mountains in landslides, riparian areas destroyed and urban areas at risk. We are, therefore, going to sit here, as a Congress, and say: This is OK. This is the right thing to do. The majority leader some months ago knew that in the Black Hills of South Dakota it wasn't the right thing to do, and he was able to work with groups and accomplish for South Dakota some of what we would like to accomplish for the rest of the forested States of our country: an active form of management that brings groups together, creates local public interest, understands the dynamics of good stewardship, and allows some degree of active management. So for the last several weeks we have worked very closely with a variety of Senators from both sides of the aisle to see if there was not a bipartisan way of accomplishing this. Tragically, some interest groups have some of our colleagues so locked into a single position that they can find no flexibility in their vote. My colleague from Oregon, Ron Wyden, and Senator Dianne Feinstein of California have worked closely with us to try to make some of these changes. They have come a long way. I, too, have come a long way in trying to craft a middle ground that will allow active management on a select number of acres of land to prove to the American public that what we can do can be done right not only in improving forest health but, at the same time, not damaging the environment and, in a very short time, allowing that land to rapidly improve as wildlife habitat and watershed quality land and also be productive for additional tree production for the housing industry and for the American consumer that would like to own a stick-built home. Last week, Senator Domenici of New Mexico and I offered an amendment that we thought was a comprehensive effort to come to the middle ground, to a position that both sides could support. We took the advice of the western Governors who met with the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture some months ago to express the very concern I and other Western colleagues have expressed about the state of at least the western forests and to try to arrive at a collaborative process that would allow both sides to come together. In our amendment, what we have offered is basically allowing a collaborative process to go forward at the State levels to select those lands most critically in need of active management for the kind of thinning and cleaning that would be most desirable under these areas and, at the same time, to recognize the clear protection that would come as a result of existing forest plans, to not override forest plans that most of our States have on a forest-by-forest basis, but to recognize that those are appropriate planning processes, that the efforts we would recommend to improve forest health would be consistent with the resource management plans and other applicable agency plans. We would establish a limited priority of action, and that limited priority would be in the wildland/urban interface areas. This year, we have lost over 2,100 human dwellings while we have lost 6.5 million acres of wildlife dwellings. So the human, in this instance, is experiencing phenomenal damage to his or her dwelling, just as is wildlife. As a result of that, we recognize the most critical need of trying to resolve the wildland/urban interface. I see my colleague from West Virginia on the floor at the moment. He was very willing to put additional money into firefighting this year. It is part of this amendment on the floor now. Why? Not only do we need it, but now the Forest Service spends most of its time protecting houses instead of protecting trees and wildlife habitat and watershed. Why? Because over the last 25 years in the West, every piece of non-Federal land that is in the timbered areas has found it to be a place where people like to live. They have built beautiful homes out there. As a result, we now have a conflict that we did not have 25 years or 30 years ago when fire became an issue on our public lands. So we are dealing with the wildland/urban interface areas. The other area I mentioned, now very critical in the West, is the municipal watershed area. These are the watersheds that provide the water and the impoundment or where water is collected for our growing urban areas. Many of those were devastated this year. I was on one in Denver, Colorado; now devastated, water that will now flow into the reservoirs that will feed the city of Denver. Much of that water will have the result of an acid base produced by the ashes of the forest fires that destroyed the watersheds of that area. We also recognize that forested or range land areas affected by disease, insect activity, and what we call wind throw or wind blowdown, those are the areas that are now dead or dying. As a result of that, those are most susceptible to fire. We have recognized the need to get into some of those areas. That would be important to do. Lastly, areas susceptible to what we call reburn, where the fire flashes across it, largely kills the trees, and then causes those trees to die, making them more susceptible to fire. We have also said that this approach, while extraordinary, will include only 10 million acres. When I say only 10 million, I am talking about over 300 million forested Federal acres in our Nation under the direction and management of the U.S. Forest Service. These forested public lands encompass a very small amount. This would be showcased over a limited period of time with substantial restrictions. So that would be very important, and the process would have some limitations as it relates to current law: That we would not allow appeals or injunctions, but that there would be a judicial review process on a project-by-project basis. It would allow the filing in a Federal district court for which the Federal lands are located within 7 days after legal notice when a decision to conduct a project under the section is made. In other words, we do provide a legal remedy for those who openly object to any of this activity. As I and others have said, and the President said over a month ago, we will not lock the courthouse door. While we think it is tremendously important that we begin to deal with forest health, we should not deny the fundamental process in the end. And we would not deny locking the courthouse door so that there could be a review as these actions proceeded. Those are the fundamentals of what we are proposing to do--a limited nature, 10 million acres, to allow the groups to come together on a State-by-State basis to meet with the Forest Service and examine those acres and the most critical need of action, and to recommend to the Forest Service those areas, to allow a limited environmental review to go forward and, through that recommendation, then move to expedite the process in a way that is commensurate with forest health. (Mr. JOHNSON assumed the Chair.)

Mr. CRAIG. If we could treat 5, or 6, or 7 million acres a year, and by that, I mean thinning and cleaning, leaving the old growth; our legislation talks about leaving no less than 10 trees per acre of the oldest trees, and more if it fits the landscape, or the species, or the watershed in which this activity would be going on. But even if we do all of that--if the public would allow us, and this Senate were to vote to become active managers of our lands once again-- with all of that, the state of our forests is now in such disrepair from a health, fuel-loading, big-kill standpoint, that in the years to come we are still going to lose 4, 5, 6, 7 million acres a year to wildfire. It is simply a situation of human creation by public policy that has denied active and reasonable management on these lands for several decades now. As a result of that, we have a tragedy in the making. But if we act, in the course of the next decade we can save 700, 800, or a million acres of old growth and watershed and wildlife habitat, by these actions, that might otherwise be burned by wildfire. That is the scenario and the issue as I see it. It is also the issue that some of our top forest scientists see. Is it a political issue today? Tragically enough, it has been politicized. There seems to be a loud chorus of people out there who say: Do nothing. The tragedy today is that a do-nothing scenario is, without question, more destructive to the environment than a do- something scenario could ever be, because it would be total destruction instead of limited damage in some areas that we treat, as we move to protect the old trees and guard against entry into the roadless areas at this moment in time, but still allow the thinning, cleaning, and fuel removal to come out of these acreages, as proposed by the Craig- Domenici amendment that is now pending. So I hope my colleagues will support us and join with us. While the fires have dominantly been in the West this year, this is not just a western issue. We are fortunate to have forested public lands all over our country. Here in the East, similar problems are now happening: Overpopulation of our forests, even in the hard woods, bug kill, fuel loading; and now we are beginning to see more of our forests in the East, along the Allegheny and the Blue Ridge and down into the South, become ripe for burn during certain seasons of the year. So it is a situation that is now beginning to repeat itself in the East as much as it has since the late 1990s out in the West. So I believe it is a national issue of substantial importance and one that we ought to spend time debating and understanding. I encourage my colleagues to visit with me, Senator Domenici, or others who have offered this amendment, trying to seek a balanced approach to allow the U.S. Forest Service to begin the program of selective, active management of thinning and cleaning, using a comprehensive, collaborative approach on a State-by-State basis, with interest groups from those areas, in a way that will begin to restore the forest health of this Nation. We may have a cloture vote at about 5:15. I hope my colleagues will not vote for cloture but will give us an opportunity to vote up or down on this amendment, as I think we are entitled, because we believe it is not only good policy but it is a critical and necessary vote for our country. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise to note an interesting coincidence of things that are happening, and not happening, today. Many Americans are celebrating today as Constitution Day. At 4 p.m. eastern time, on September 17, 1787, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution adjourned the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The Constitution they proposed, after deep debates and tortured compromise, was then submitted to the several States for ratification, and for the judgment of history. According to the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, Constitution Day, Inc., at 4 p.m. today, ``schools across America will be led in the recitation of the Preamble to the US Constitution on a national teleconferencing call conducted by Sprint . . . churches across America will be led in the ringing of their bells to honor the First Amendment, Freedom of Religion . . .'' and there will be commemorations from Valley Forge, PA, to a replica of Independence Hall at Knott's Berry Farm, CA. Little can be said, that has not been said before, about the profound wisdom, foresight, and faith that the Framers of our Constitution brought to constructing the foundational document of our Nation's system of government and laws. President Coolidge said of the Constitution, in 1929, ``The more I study it, the more I have come to admire it, realizing that no other document devised by the hand of man ever brought so much progress and happiness to humanity.'' I rise to acknowledge this special day of celebrating our Constitution and I join all Americans in paying tribute to the patriots who produced it. For many Americans, one of the signs of our deep respect for the Constitution is our acknowledgment that, in exceptional cases, a problem rises to such a level that it can be adequately addressed only in the Constitution, by way of a Constitutional amendment. Yesterday, President Bush spoke forcefully about the Senate's failure to pass a budget resolution for the fiscal year that starts in just 14 days. He called upon us to do what was needed, urgent, and responsible, and to do it promptly, by sending him this year's defense appropriation and the homeland security bill. And in all this, the need to maintain fiscal discipline becomes evident, as we see a return to deficit spending. For 4 years in a row, a modern record, the first time since the 1920s, Republican Congresses balanced the Federal Budget. The first Republican Congresses in 40 years made balancing the budget their top priority, and did what was necessary to run the kind of surpluses we need to pay down the national debt and safeguard the future of Social Security. Today, the Federal budget is again written in red ink. The Congressional Budget Office's recently released budget update projects a $157 billion deficit for fiscal year 2002, the year about to end. If you don't count the Social Security surplus, the rest of the government will run a $317 billion deficit. Under current policies, CBO says the deficit will be about the same next year, in fiscal year 2003. But we don't know today what war against terrorism will demand next year. And, unfortunately, we do know that too many in Congress and too many interest groups are demanding large increases in spending for other purposes. This year's budget deficit was caused by an economic recession and a war begun by a terrorist attack. Even before taking office, President Bush correctly foresaw the coming recession and prescribed the right medicine, the bipartisan Tax Relief Act of 2001, that has bolstered the economy and prevented a far worse recession. We will rebound from the recent economic slowdown. And we must do whatever it takes to win the war, that's a matter of survival and of protecting the safety and security of the American people. Beyond that, we must keep all other federal spending under control, so that we return, as soon as possible, to balancing the budget. Even in the heady days of budget surpluses, I always maintained the only way to guarantee that the Federal Government would stay fiscally responsible was to add a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. Before we balanced the budget in 1998, the government was deficit spending for 28 years in a row and for 59 out of 67 years. The basic law of politics, to just say ``yes'' was not repealed in 1998, but only restrained some, when we came together and briefly faced up to the grave threat to the future posed by decades of debt. The Government is back to borrowing. And for some, a return to deficit spending seems to have been liberating, as the demands for new spending only seem to be multiplying again. That is why, on Constitution Day, it is important to me to be a cosponsor of S.J. Res. 2, and to call again for Congress to adopt a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution and send it to the states for ratification. I also stress that this amendment would not count the Social Security surplus in its calculation of a balanced budget. Those annual surpluses would be set aside exclusively to meet the future needs of Social Security beneficiaries. On Constitution Day, I call on the Senate to do today's work: Send the President a Defense appropriations bill, send the President a homeland security bill, and pass a budget that holds the line on new spending. And, on Constitution Day, I call on the Senate to safeguard the future, by again taking up a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I thank the majority leader for yielding. He has just filed cloture on the Byrd amendment. The underlying second degree is the Craig-Domenici amendment to try to deal with forest health. I appreciate the frustration of time here and the reality we have to get a lot of work done in the next several weeks to conclude the appropriations process. It was never our intent to block the Byrd amendment. This is a critical and necessary amendment that deals with fire itself and replacing some of the moneys or refurbishing, replenishing some of the moneys that have been spent fighting fires, primarily in the West but across the country, in our public forests. We are continuing to work. We had another meeting this morning. I told all of my colleagues, Democrat and Republican alike, that Monday was drop dead. I meant that only in the sense of the legislation itself. Clearly, we have worked hard. There have been some good faith efforts. There has also been a reality as to where all of the sides are on this issue. Tragically enough, no matter what we accomplish, the forests of our country are going to continue to burn at a high rate because of their diminished health because of public policy over the last good number of decades. But on Monday, in visiting with Senator Reid, I hope we will have something we can vote on--or a clear decision that we cannot arrive at an agreement. I hope at some point, Leader, I can come to you and ask you if you could vitiate the vote on cloture, that we could expedite this ourselves. But there are a good number on my side, and some on yours, who want more debate and at least more discussion on this issue, even if we can have opposing positions on which to vote. I do believe for the American people, who have seen the western skies full of smoke now since the middle of June, it is important that this Senate express its will on this issue. The Senator from South Dakota found an expression that fit his State. I do not criticize him for it because the Black Hills of South Dakota are in a state of forest health problems, as are other public forests. Clearly, it is important that we not walk away from this session of Congress without the public knowing where we are on this issue because, as the Senator knows, no matter what we do, even if we can have some aggressive effort on thinning and cleaning, the country must become ready to accept, tragically enough, that we are going to lose 5 million or 6 million acres a year of old growth and watershed and wildlife habitat to wildfires because of the public policy that has brought our forests to this current health environment. But I hope we can make a step, probably not a big one but at least a small step, in the right direction of showing the public we can manage their land and we can do so in an environmentally sensitive way that will replenish the health of these magnificent forests that have now grown to a state of disrepair. I understand where the leader is. I did want that expression out there. I hope we can come to the majority leader on Monday and say we have something, we hope you can vitiate, and we hope we can come to this floor and debate this issue and get on with the process.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, is it my understanding that we would still allow the Craig-Domenici amendment to be in place when we return?