George Miller

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MILLER of California. Because, apparently, as they point out in the report, they anticipate this language, so they have taken a position. Rather than ratifying the practice, they will deal with it when they get to conference.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, earlier this year three committees came together, the Committee on Appropriations, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on Resources, to hear about the problems, the financial problems of the U.S. Forest Service. The Committee on Resources and the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Appropriations gathered to hear the GAO's report on a decade's worth of reports that they have done over the past years which conclude that the lack of financial performance accountability has resulted in inefficiency and waste by the Forest Service. To make the Forest Service accountable, I think the way to do this is to take their off-budget funds and subject them to appropriations. The Forest Service has 23 special accounts amounting to more than one-third of their total budget, according to the Congressional Research Service. These funds, which now receive little congressional oversight, ought to be subject to appropriation, and I have introduced legislation to do that. But this bill, this current bill does nothing to improve the Forest Service's accountability. In fact, it moves in the opposite direction by sanctioning the agency's use of forest restoration funds for administrative overhead costs. It permits the same abuses to occur with salvage funds, and it rewrites the roads and trails fund to allow those funds to be diverted to vaguely defined forest health projects. My amendment does not address all of these issues but, in effect, it requires that the funds that are intended for forest restoration be used as Congress intended, not as a slush fund by the Forest Service for administrative costs. By contrast, the committee's bill would allow up to 25 percent of these restoration funds to be used for so-called indirect expenses. This, in effect, ratifies the current practices, the current practices that so many Members of these three committees were shocked at when they were told about them by the GAO. The GAO told us that in reporting its fiscal year 1995 financial results, the Forest Service could not identify how it spent $215 million, $215 million out of $3.5 billion in its operating fund programs with respect to these forest restoration programs. Mr. Chairman, these are funds that when the Forest Service has a forest sale and the loggers go in and they log that tract of land, whether it is a few acres or a couple hundred acres, whatever extent that the logging practice is in, these are funds that the Congress of the United States made a determination would go in after the logging is done, replant that area, restore that area so that we would get a new generation of trees; we would put the forest back into a position so that it might be logged in the future, or it might be used for other forest values such as recreation or what have you. That is supposed to be done on a sale-by-sale basis. However, because of accounting practices within the Forest Service, what we now see them doing is not doing it on a sale-by-sale basis, but collecting the revenues on a sale-by-sale basis, putting them into a slush fund and now subsidizing the administration of the Forest Service, as opposed to going back and replanting and reforesting those sales and those areas that belong to the public. What has the result been? The result has been that reforestation has not kept up with the cutting in the forests; that a number of areas where reforestation has taken place, it has been a complete failure, and we now have these huge scars on the public lands. If one visits some areas in northern California and southern Oregon and some of the Western States, we will see massive scars upon the land where reforestation has been a failure. But rather than go back in and fix those and reforest them to get those trees to grow again, what we see is they are diverting this to the overhead of the Forest Service. Again, the GAO told the three committees when they were assembled earlier this year that the Forest Service does not have the financial management information and controls needed to ensure compliance with these Reforestation Fund Act monies and the prohibition limiting these funds for expenditure in individual sale areas to the collection from those same sale areas. What they told us was that the Forest Service, because it lacks accountability, because it lacks financial controls, has created a slush fund that is not being used for the purposes for which the public intended. The diversion of these funds now in this last year was some 31 percent of the $166 million that were supposed to be used for reforestation of the timber sale areas. Instead of planting trees, instead of improving watersheds, instead of improving wildlife habitat, we were buying furniture, we were turning on the lights, and we are engaged in funding the overhead of the Forest Service.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, when we had a lot of these Alaska issues on a debate, Chairman Udall led a trip, and we had all of the scientists on board one of the tour ships, one of your ferry systems going down to Sitka.

Mr. MILLER of California. They were talking about reforestation and how soon these trees would grow back. So we were looking, as the gentleman said, at 500-year-old trees and 400-year-old trees, and there were people from the forestry industry that said, ``See all this? It will be back in 30 years.'' How the hell will it be back in 30 years, when it took 500 years to grow the first time? Plus you know what happens to the soil on these slopes. A lot of these will not be back. That is why it took 500 years for that tree to get there.

Mr. MILLER of California. That river boat is coming right to the forefront here.

Mr. MILLER of California. He is quite correct. He is quite correct. Very rarely do they initiate over here.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. MILLER of California. That has been a historical proposition.

Mr. MILLER of California. I do not know why it would. It would not affect the previous purchaser credits, no.

Mr. MILLER of California. No.

Mr. MILLER of California. Apparently my amendment is going to lay off 600 people. The gentleman's bill does not have any money in it for new roads to begin with. We are down to $1 million nationwide. So let us not pretend like somebody cares about people, and other people do not at this point.

Mr. MILLER of California. No, there is no market for the pulp.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. But that is not my amendment.

Mr. MILLER of California. I am not taking them.

Mr. MILLER of California. It was.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, we can make that argument about a lot of efforts. But when we address the crime bill and we are looking at the priorities, this was one of them. The point is, this provides, you know, a small match that brings together a lot of private resources and some public resources at the local level. The governors of the State, unfortunately, this is not on their agenda. These are a lot of cities that are trying to provide some local recreation opportunities.

Mr. MILLER of California. I appreciate that.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I would just say to the gentleman, two points. One, I have been working on UPARR for many years, both on the resources side and on the crime bill side, and the only reason we are tapping this account is that this account is now building up an amount that is supposed to be matched on an annual basis. It has not been matched for the last several years, so we are just putting money into an account, when money is now hard to come by. It has $80 million in it unmatched, and to take $2 million for this fiscal year, if they spend the money, there is no harm to them. But there is no indication they can spend anywhere close to the $80 million because of the matching requirement that other communities have. It is an effort to try to address the crime problem here and use the money without harm.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?