creative and, actually, it's the opposite. you have to like to do the same thing over and over again exactly the same way from about 5 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon. so when i say you have to have a passion for your business, you have to have a passion for the entire process, the entire understanding, and i'm a fabulous bathroom cleaner, and i'm very good at, um, talking down arguments, i'm very good at being deferential, and i have passion for those things. i have passion for the entire process. so while, you know, being an artist and wanting to open a gallery or being a pie maker and wanting to open a bakery or somebody who has the clientele kind of telling them what they need in order to supply the maases are very different things. ..

who were sponsoring the bill to testify followed by federal, state and local officials. the room is filling up here on c-span2. and ogle conversations

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>> again, we are live on capitol hill waiting for this hearing to get under way. the house natural resources subcommittee on forests pulling the hearing this morning. the subject, wild fire prevention. we expect to hear from three members of congress who are sponsoring bills that seek to streamline some of the federal regulations. also a number of experts from the local communities and industries scheduled to testify. so we will get under way now here live coverage on c-span2. [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] >> and again how we expect this hearing to get underway in just a moment. couple program notes coming up on c-span2. 1:00 this afternoon live to the national press club where the cleveland chief executive dr. cosgrove will talk about health care policy in the wake of the supreme court's recent decision. also, we are expecting to have live coverage of president barack obama about 11:20 a.m.. the president in florida this morning on a campaign stop all the we expect him to make remarks about the colorado shootings. so we plan to have coverage on c-span. president obama when he gets his remarks under way about 20

minutes after 11:00 this morning from florida. we see the chairman in the room here coming and we expect this hearing to get under way shortly [inaudible conversations]

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order. on national parks for rest and public services to here today to testify on three bills within our jurisdiction and deal with of a significant issue of our national forests and public land catastrophic wildfires from happening in the future. since we are not doing a very good job with our present methods of stopping them in the present time. under the rules of the committee, the remarks of limited to the ranking member and the chairman. i ask unanimous consent to include any of their members opening statement in the record if they are submitted to the clerk by the end of today. and hearing no objection i also ask unanimous consent for any member who wishes to join to participate in the meeting today. and once again, with that. in dissent that will be the case of this. i realize that we are in a situation as far as timing is concerned. some of you have flights to make this morning. i also recognize that we have

brought people in from across the country, so i appreciate them coming in to witness. therefore my opening comments i'm going to submit on the record and move forward. ranking members long, do you have an opening comment? >> i just want to say good morning and thank everyone for joining us today and welcome our witnesses, especially those that have been wild life firefighters. we respect and thank your dedication. it to be brief, i yield back my time. >> we will start with our first group of witnesses who will talk to me and we will put the first three bills that are here and the sponsors on those. we recognize the first to talk about 6744. mr. markey if he appears that will talk about 5960 and then mr. tipton with regard to 69. once again come to have five minutes. senator gosar, go for it. >> thank you, german bishop for cosponsoring the bill the

catastrophic wild prevention act of 2012, h.r. 5784. first one shots and prayers continue to go ou

one of forests across the west or overgrown ny fer catastrophic wildfires according to the multi agency database. our force had been mismanaged for a long time and it is way past due to change our strategy. the current federal system continues to prioritize fighting sires although we need to suppress fires. it's never going to go away but we must shift priorities towards a proactive management. we cannot afford to do otherwise. catastrophic wildfires are difficult to control and cost the federal government millions of dollars of immediate fire response and many millions more in restoration rehabilitation. the western forestry leadership coalition, a state and federal government partnership estimates the costs are two to 30 times the reported suppression costs. last year the forest service spent a record total of $48 million on the recovery

work. $25 million has already been spent to prepare for the immediate aftermath of this year's wildfires putting the u.s. forest service on track for another possible record year spend on the burned area recovery efforts. what is standing in the we of the proactive and fiscally sustainable forest management? the bureaucratic red tape is preventing us from participating the stewardship of our public land and exports of tactics of some of the environmental groups which of devastated the timber industry and placed local ranchers and economic livelihood of risk. that is why i introduced the catastrophic while prevention act of 2012. my bill authorizes the forest service and department interior to implement wildfire prevention projects including timber harvest and livestock grazing in the risk for us along with threatened and endangered species habitat to focus on surface, water and kanaby fuel reduction activities. in other words it streamlines the review process, and proves local coordination come eliminates duplicative and sets from time frames to bring more

accountability to the process. forests sinning works. in eastern arizona theory is treated as part of the white mountains toward ship project contract designed to fend the natural forest and tribal lands the ury is managed locally by the apache tribe in the state of orders, were properly cleared. today there are still healthy trees with burning underbrush and the lands that were untouched by finning practices the majority of the u.s. forest and administered land in the state fire left only scorched earth behind. we simply need to make ecological restoration easier. this common sense approach has garnered strong bipartisan support. this legislation has 32 co-sponsors from 23 states and additionally utah senator mike lee has introduced a companion legislation in the senate. many supporters our present state for congressional districts with large swaths of forest land, bureau of land management and administrative land, not massachusetts. in short, they are people directly in harm's way, not

safely tucked in a concrete jungle. thank you, german bishop, for your leadership on this issue and i look forward to the further committee action on the bill proposals that will restore public safety and save the taxpayers' dollars and put people back to work. i yield back. >> we will but ranking member markey speak whenever he appears on his particular bill. mr. tipton if i can turn to you now for a house bill 6089. >> thank you come chairman bishop for including my legislation h.r. 6089, the whole the forest management act of 2012 in today's hearing. for your support of this bill. i also like to thank my fellow members of the colorado delegation. congressman coughlin, congressman gardner as well as congressman greg walden and congressman gosar for the valuable contribution to this effort. the epidemic, drought and deteriorated forest conditions increased the propensity for devastating wildfires at the time already seen in colorado and throughout forests in the

united states this season. while the outbreak has affected state and private land, the damage is often times more heavily concentrated in federal land where a lack of active management has allowed the epidemic to spread to catastrophic levels. of the 6.6 million acres invested in colorado, over 4 million are on federal land. federal efforts to response we manage forests and prevent conditions for fires that ravaged colorado and other western states have been hampered by an unwieldly regulatory framework that systematically prevent progress toward helping forests. h.r. 6089 vv forest management act 2012 is greater controlled the states and communities most directly affected by these conditions. and provides a pathway for comprehensive landscape planning and local emphasis. this legislation builds on a bipartisan healthy forest restoration act of 2003 tribes to be more active in addressing

these emergency circumstances. we can proactively manage forests, reduce destruction from wildfires, safeguard water supply, species habitat and promote a healthy natural environment. utilizing the tools of a healthy forest restoration act which are proving to be effective to help the forest management act can help reduce the cost imposed on taxpayers due to litigation, expedited emergency mitigation procedures and restore the forests before they go up in flames and the costs are far greater pager 69 prioritizes conservation and will help reduce the investment required to taxpayers by making public-private partnerships more feasible. this bill is the result of more than a year of committee work coming meetings with the land management and other agencies meeting with county and state officials with constituents as well as congressional hearings on the forest management. everyone that we talked to agreed more needs to be done to be able to manage our federal forests, and this legislation is

the outgrowth of that stakeholder engagement. this is further batter out by the groundswell of support we have received from this legislation. from colorado, local, state and national groups and organizations on both sides of the political spectrum. since the bill was introduced this last week. the whole the forest management act empowers governors to work with county commissioners, tried to be able to identify the most problematic areas. it is supposed imminent risk of fuelling wild fire and take action to be able to manage the risk by removing hazardous you'll like killed timber. this bill allows those most directly impacted by wildfires to take measures to be able to address problems come amid a the causes of catastrophic wild fire. this bill isn't a talker is a doer. the whole the forest management act has received the support of the cover the timber association, the color of the association of conservation district, commissioners to dolores, jefferson and lamarca

counties and even their endorsements. so have boon and crockett club and the farm bureau federal forestry service coalition national cattlemen's these associations and the national association of counties, national association of forest service retirees, national shooting forest foundation, national association of conservation district, publicly of counsel, and the society for rain management. i'd like to urge my colleagues to join us in the strong coalition of support for common sense bill that takes action to be able to fix the problem and seriously address the critical state of the western forest. thank you mr. chairman and i yield back. >> thank you brank member tipton we've members that traveled great distances and i'm aware of your plans going back home swing going to get you down in time. some of the witnesses are addressing all three bills, and only one bill. so i'm going to make sure we do those that want to address all three bills of the same time so let me invite mary wagner from

the forest service, ed roberson from the department of interior who will be addressing all three bills. can i also invite -- we are going to make a change here -- where is my second panel? commissioner gibbs from summit county colorado. without my glasses here, joseph romm. sorry about that, the center of american progress. you are speaking on all three bills if i can invite you up. let me also invite hayne to kashdan from the national association of forest service retirees and tom jankovsky, the commissioner from garfield county in colorado. actually, if you are coming up here to be the first panel would appreciate that. i was excited for weigel when i saw garfield and summit county then i realized this is garfield and at the summit county in

colorado, not utah three disappointment rained again. all right. if i could ask you -- am i missing somebody there? good for you. if i could ask you once again if you could address the first four witnesses all three bills and then the last two witnesses, the commissioner and mr. kashdan from the retirees if you would talk about 6089. once again, we are on a short time limit to make sure it everybody gets their available time. you have five minutes. you know the drill. most of you have been here before. we have your written testimony. it will appear as written in the record. this is an oral testimonies only hit the highlights. make sure it comes within the five minutes. when the green light is in front of you, that means you are free to go. when the yellow light hits you have less than a minute to sum up. i will apologize to you now when it hits five minutes i'm going to cut you off even if it is in

midsentence. i want to get all the testimony so it can be heard and we can get through these issues and get people to meet their deadlines they have here. so i appreciate that. okay. i think everyone now is situated and settle. we realize you are happy to be here and you are going to thank us. don't do that. just get right to your message. ms. wagner we will get right to you. >> mr. try, members of the committee i'm going to offer a few remarks and those in detail in the written testimony that's been submitted. drought endangered species, loss of open space, severe wild fires, devastating out bricks and insects and disease. all these stresses and disturbances are to of forests on an unprecedented scale. 65 to 82 million acres are in need of restoration on the national forests alone. 65 million acres are at high or very high risk of large wild fire. increasing the pace of restoration of the nation's forest is critically needed to address the health of the forest

ecosystems, watershed and communities. in fiscal year 11, we accomplished 3.7 million acres of frustration and in fiscal year 12 we are on track to accomplish about 4 million acres. we have made strides in our efforts to increase the pace of restoration working with kim gandy organizations come in for a metal groups, forest industry, local government and communities, states, tribes and other federal agencies. we've demonstrated that forests and hazardous fuel treatments reduced the impact of fire. but clearly we have more to do. i want to offer my appreciation to members of the subcommittee and other members of congress for your interest and action on this issue and express my condolences to families and communities impacted by fires today. this is the reason this work needs hour very best. before i address the three bills, i want to tell you about the work we are doing to implement restoration in many cases new authorities and tools from congress has made this possible. we've invested in restoration projects with partners to the

collaborative restoration program. these projects have demonstrated collaboration among stakeholders can facilitate large landscape skill restoration. the landscape strategies developed by these collaborative ventures alone exceed 16 million acres in the footprint and the strategic placement of fuel and chemical treatment will help build more resilient landscape. states are featured partners in many of these csrl are projects. under the 2008 farm bill state forest action plans were required and delineate pretty areas through the restoration we've partnered across boundaries for many of the state action plans and in the process of implementing them. we've implemented the beagle strategy focusing priority treatment areas to ensure human health and safety and reduce hazardous tool conditions. we've used tools available to the agencies such as the storch contracts and good neighbor authorities to develop more holistic treatments that have accomplished multiple resource objectives many times working across jurisdictional boundaries

with the passage of the 2012 interior appropriations bill congress could provide resources and authorizations to plummet into a great resource restoration for three pilot regions in the interior in the united states. we're going to bring resources for maintaining and restoring the ecosystems under one budget line-item giving us a lot of flexibility to do the necessary work on the land. we've worked hard on improving the efficiency for restoration and a couple of examples close to issuing two new categorical exclusion for soil and water restoration activities and we are increasing the use of landscape scale larger acreage covered in one analysis. two examples of that are arizona forest initiatives where the document that is covering the restoration plan for the acreage is centered on 50,000 acres. recently the black hills the issued and adaptive environmental impact statement covering over to under 50,000 acres of mountain pine

vehicles at risk or impacted landscape. last we are working as a partner of the land cohesive strategy. congress through the flame act, the agencies to put together a strategy that would focus on restoring and maintaining higher adopted linscott including communities and optimizing coordinated response to wildfires. and we are working with a host of local, municipal, state, other federal agencies prayers to respond to that strategy. a critical part of all these efforts is building public support for forest restoration and management activities. while the department opposes h.r. 5784 and h.r. 6089 as drafted, there are elements of the bills that we support and we would like to work with the subcommittee and sponsors and developing language that meets forest restoration objective. while we support 5960 we would like to ask further discussion on some of the alliance. we do support extending good

neighbor a for the entry of a rising contracting authority. as well as fires that impacted land across the west we recognize the interest, the urgency and the willingness of many members of congress to provide tools for the forest service and other federal agencies to apply restoration principles. we look forward to working with you on this issue. thank you. >> thank you ms. wagner and for watching the clock so diligently. i appreciate that. i saw you speed up. mr. roberson from the department of interior. same natural petraeus -- the same natural. >> thank you for inviting me and the bureau to testify this morning. the department of interior and our cohesive wild fire strategy management strategy is working towards maintaining was a land landscapes creating fire adaptive communities at managing wildfire response in a complex environment. an agency of the department of interior of the bureau of land management continue assisting the help diversity and

productivity of the forests and woodlands, which together comprise 58 million acres of public lands which we manage for the american people. the mounting effective in insect infestation, prolonged drought, climate change come invasion of harmful non-native species and the accumulation of fuel generate increased risk of catastrophic losses, including risk to life and property and that may result from wild fire. the blm works with its partners across land ownership to protect lives and properties. wildlife habitat and other resources from wild fire. towards this goal, last year they treated for injured thousand acres for house artist will be the guiding all of the management actions, including forestry and fuel management, as the agency land use planning process. the blm uses an open land process to include public input and to analyze the effect of proposed actions.

we valued this process and the information it provides for us. the two of the tools that we've used effectively in our fuel management program for storage should contract on the good neighbor authority. to date, the blm has successfully used stewart should contract in over 1,000 acres producing hazardous fuel restoring habitat, protecting communities fro wild life fired. the blm used the good neighbor authority in colorado to partner with the state and gain some efficiencies in achieving restoration goals. with regards to congressman gosar's bill, h.r. 5784, it requires the blm to implement all the rise while the fire prevention projects which are defined to include timber harvest and livestock grazing under the reduced will allow public comment and environmental analysis. the bill would allow timber harvesting and study areas would

impose strict time lines for public review and analysis. it deems a project as nepa compliant of the time lines are not met. the bill also requires fingar and fuel research prior to endangered species act listings critical habitat determination and recovery plans. that party is committed to using hazardous fuel reduction treatments to maintain resilient landscapes and protect life and property from wild fire. however, we do not believe that nature 5784 will help achieve the goal of mitigating the risk of wild fire damage. the bill will curtail the use of some of the blm most valuable assessment and analysis. the bill stripped tie line for public review and in their metal analysis coupled with the fact that the legislation seems project nepa compliance if we don't meet te time lines would not enable sufficient analysis. therefore the department opposes the bill's limited study area provision and the provisions that change esa.

with 5660,, this man still it provides for enhanced restoration work and research and it authorizes stewart should contracting and good neighbor authority. the bill blm supports authorization stewart shook contracting and expansion of good neighbor authority in this legislation. these authorities will enable the blm to better achieve land and forest health goals and cooperation with partners. the department supports h.r. 56 -- 5960 and appreciate the opportunity to work with a sponsor of the committee on certain technical improvements. we do for the forest service on those portions of the bill that relate to the national forest. with regard to 6089, congressman tipton's bill it authorizes the state governor secretary to designate areas of public land that as high risk of current and future damage for areas designated as high risk the bill

requires blm to implement projects in those areas under the reduced environmental analysis. the bill also extends stewart should contracting and good neighbor authority. the department imposes a 6089 the definition of high risk areas outside the normal planning process particularly by governors without consultation with other federal land managers profess public involvement in making those designations and further the time frames are designating these areas and implementing proposed project is not sufficient for our analysis of those decisions. under the bill -- >> please. >> thank you. commissioner gibbs come five minutes and i'm going to impose that deadline very strictly. let's go. >> thank you, chairman bishop and ranking members of the committee. my name is dan gibbs from summit county colorado, former state

senator as well as the wild land fire fighter. some of the been experiencing the concerns. over the last ten years the transformation over the forest resulting in 126,000 acres which were killed by the mountain pine beetle epidemic. as a result, we now have a major challenge to respond to these conditions. i appreciate that congress enacted a healthy forest restoration act does hfra. however, there is much more that can be done. as can be seen from the fire that destroyed 133 homes and cost 40 million in suppression costs in 2002 and many like it, the cost of the suppressed five years vastly exceeded the cost to treat forests. some accounting for over 80% of which the national land 146,000 acres of dead trees that are near communities need to be thinned. the german finding the resources for projects and the work of an existing regulatory system to

some accounting we've treated 3,800 acres in the urban interface currently under hfra an additional two undertakers of treatment projects have been approved for future work. however we still of tens of thousands of acres that need urgent treatment within the wild and urban interface. as a result we have had to find additional resources. in 2008 some pass the measure with all dries the tax levy from wild fire protection which can generate up to 500,000 per year. in 2012 the county was able to apply to reinjured thousand dollars from the funding source from the 12 projects under 140 acres of private land within the wild and urban interface. in the position the restoration act the bill which it has established a grant program that made available $1 million annually from state revenue for local fire mitigation and watershed protection. these funds are available for needs statewide and grand up petitions far exceed the needs.

the tone in the county was a recipient of some of these grants that reduce the tree for is the theory is a long the state creek and major drinking water supply for the town. the town was rightly concerned that a five-year in this area would greatly impact its watershed. these grant funds were used to treat 64 acres so long as hfra and the tax levy and the state would grant program we've been able to get into projects done but again we still have thousands of acres to address in areas like to creek and near homes. that's why we are interested in what more county risk can provide. the bills before the committee today have provisions would help in this regard. generally speaking the projects i mentioned would be enhanced by these provisions. let me highlight these concepts. first, we need more funding removing hazard and fired trees is daunting in state and local communities can only make it in this effort. i understand the bills you are

considering in this committee are not primarily about funding by urge you to make this a priority. second, designating the areas of the national forests of impacted by the disease would allow the forest service to focus attention on resources in this area we would welcome areas as emergency critical need and apply the streamline hfra provisions to these areas and appreciate being consulted in the designation process. third we strongly support the good neighbor authority which allows the state forced to perform essential treatment work on federal land and urged congress to reauthorize the program and make it permanent and expanded across the state's. we support permanent law authorizing stewardship contracting, the stewardship contracting mechanism helps make the project more economical for the entities to bid on them especially in the partnerships with private contractors. these provisions would provide tangible and important assistance to reduce the emergency threats and help promote a healthy more

sustainable forest. we need the assistance of these policies to augment the state and local efforts. in conclusion we have undertaken a vigorous efforts to mitigate the thread with limited resources three number of collaboration's to state and local governments, private industries and landowners. still we are not able to address the infestation without further assistance. we urge the bill's sponsors to come with a single bill that includes these concepts through negotiated compromise that could garner wide support and give past with a single side into law. the condition of the forest threat to the communities and resources especially water and the extreme drain on the treasury to the ever-increasing wildfires demands that congress come together for the nation's well-being. thank you. >> thank you commissioner. i appreciate that. mr. romm i set it right this time? >> members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify. i'm a physicist, former acting

assistant secretary of energy and climate expert who runs the blogger climate process. seven years ago our grandfathers and grandmothers were enjoying life in the 20's. now imagine that you are in congress back then and imagine that the nation's leading scientists are warning that human activity in the years of bad land management practices has left our top soil vulnerable to the forces of the wind and the next time a major drought hits much of our farm land will turn to dust to dust in the wind. you would take action. over the past two decades the nation's leading scientists have issued a stronger warnings that human activity burning fossil fuels and deforestation would lead to longer and stronger drought the drawing of topsoil and timber creating the conditions right for multiple blight decade dust bowls and wildfires. in fact we are already topping dust temperatures and the earth has about 1 degree fahrenheit

since the 1930's dust bowl. did we are poised to some 10 degrees fahrenheit. this century alone if we stay on our current path of pollutant emissions. studies now projected though 10 degrees fahrenheit if we don't act that is the average warning of the globe. much of the country would see far higher temperatures. the recent heat wave would be considered cool. another study looked at the warming of just 2 degrees fahrenheit. wild fire damage in many of the home states already themselves dakota, nevada and washington would double, triple or even quadruple from current levels. imagine how the big government would have to be to deal with the rampant wildfires and the dust bowl choking the breadbasket of the world. a lot bigger government and today for sure. so of course this great deliberative body is deliberating bills to this

catastrophe by slashing carbon pollution. except we are here discussing bills aimed fuel treatment, euphemism for cutting down trees and controlled burns. ignoring of the carbon and focusing solely on fuel treatment to address the epidemic of the bark beetles, the epidemic of drought, while the fire is like rearranging chairs on the titanic or more precisely burning some of the deck chairs and removing the umbrellas on the titanic. second more time wasted. as the journal nature last year what we are discussing here today as the single most important question facing the nation. can we prevent the extreme drought and wild fires ravage in the country today from becoming the new normal, but the real question, and i am addressing myself to the members of the majority now is how you want to be remembered. do you want to be remembered as a herbert hoover who sat by and

did nothing in the face of calamity or abraham lincoln who took every measure to save the union? lincoln said at gettysburg the world will little note or remember what we face here but it can never forget what they did here. that of course wasn't true of his speech but after testifying to congress nearly a dozen times since 95 wires principal deputy assistant secretary of energy i'm quite convinced nobody remembers what we say and in the case of these bills everyone will forget what you did hear. are you neville chamberlain or winston churchill who worked to ward and prepare britain for what was coming and told the house of commons in 36 the era of procrastination of half measures of soothing and baffling expedience of delays is coming to its close and we are entering a period of consequences. the consequences are here now just as climate scientists predicted. if we fail to take action many

scientists predict ruin for large parts of the country for large parts of your districts ruin that lasts 50 generations. americans have fought for generations to defend the government of the people, by the people and for the people in the hour of crisis we need the government to do its job. thank you very much. >> commissioner jankovsky, did i say that properly? garfield county. welcome. five minutes please. >> tom jankovsky, garfield county commissioner, garfield county colorado -- >> can i get you to make sure that is on and buy your mouse. >> tom jankovsky, garfield county commissioner, garfield colorado. i've also worked in the ski industry for 40 years and general manager of sunlight mountain resort which is a local ski area in colorado. in those years have been on the forest and colorado. i've traveled here to speak in support of h.r. 69.

this bill addresses the color of forest strategy improves safety and strengthen storch of on the forest and provides benefits for the local communities. first the health of the forest is at risk. carvel forests are already dense because what is misguided management practices currently 50% of our forests or 80 to 100% kanaby which a healthy forest as a 30% kanaby. also the bark beetle epidemic has deteriorated the evergreen forest and drought conditions have impacted the forest. the nation's watched the recent tragedies in colorado at the hyde park fire is the amount on that i saw in the denver post yesterday was $450 million in private property lost as well as loss of lives.

current federal regulations fail to recognize the importance of the forest regarding water conservation, water supply, wildlife habitat, recreation economic benefit and multiple uses and environmental health. h.r. 6089 improve the safety and strength and stewart ships. this bill extends stewardship beyond the current healthy forest restoration act and has a 20 year life and gives the ability to expedite and improve the hazards fuel reduction also gives us the ability to manage and restore the forests. this bill empowers the government state and local communities to designate and cooperate with federal land managers to the emergency hazardous fuel reduction project and also gives a benefit to our federal land managers and other tools for them to work with our local communities. the bill supports an emerging

forest restoration industry which we are starting to see an industry which provides tools and manpower for the forest restoration and this bill through this we also see an increase in natural resources from lumber mills, furniture making, firewood sales, biomass energy and wood pallets. and so, this bill also doesn't say that directly, does provide some economic impact as well to the communities. h.r. 6089 owls creative funding as well as private partners, a private public partnerships to address hazardous fuelled mitigation. also, i would like to -- federal land managers know the high risk around the areas and i mentioned this earlier but it gives them another tool in working with local communities to address

those risks. one thing that isn't in the bill but i would like to talk about i think it's important that we continue to educate the public on defensible space. we have a lot of communities and homeowners associations that are open to the forest right now in colorado citizens can be reimbursed up to 50% of the cost for the improvements to the sensible space. local doctors regarding public land use is extremely important for us nearly 70% of the land in garfield county colorado are owned by the federal government. it really helps for us to have the ability to talk to and be in power and the strength of the united states is closely tied to the health of our public land and for those reasons garfield county colorado supports h.r.

6089. thank you. >> appreciate that. mr. kashdan from the association of forest retirees. estimate on behalf of the association of the forest retirees, we appreciate being here. our comments are specific to h.r. 6089 delphi forest management act of 2012 but we do want to acknowledge the attention given to all three bills is important in bringing attention to the continued degradation of america's forests lands caused by drought and other areas. this is to the communities on those lands and infrastructure. as retirees we clearly feel action is needed and rapid, efficient, collaborative and which pushes the envelope in terms of procedures and authorities. we all know that increasing budgets is not a fix and we also

accept the potential for the budgets to be decreasing, so in a legislative approach, they're has to be a focus on public-private partnerships, reduced process and much greater recognition of this crisis. we think that h.r. 6089 supports this approach. i do want to acknowledge the excellent work of the agency so far in address and thus the forest service approach with bark beetles strategy, the landscape restoration project and use of the integrated budget pilot should go a long way towards increasing the accomplishment the forest service blm work on the contracting for the national cookies of while strategy are important. these are steps in the right direction but we think more is needed a major 6089 will help in moving the process forward. with exception of a minor reservation we strongly support this legislation for the steward of contacting extension to 2017

let me say thank you. that toole is an essential part of future accomplishments and working with communities. the contract term extension to 20 years we think is helpful and incentivizing the investment of business capital and in building long-term community participation decisions about the adjacent watersheds. the good neighbor authority being made permanent is a critical need. the inclusion of the categorical exclusion for the projects within 500 feet of infrastructure is important, and we like the governor's authority to designate high risk areas. now, we understand there is reservation on that part. i remember distinctly when the good neighbor authority was implemented back in the late 1990's, there was some concern about what i would call a shared authority if you will. well, that concerns about that have not come to pass with excellent authority and as we

look at the expedited procedures that are called for in this bill with a healthy forest restoration act regarding analysis of appeals and judicial review, we think of the governors high-risk designation making those procedures applicable is a good part of this legislation. we also very much appreciate the application of the same procedures to them on a wild interface land to addressing the situation. i mentioned one reservation. let me just say this provision calling for implementation within 60 days of the governors designation even in the case where the secretary may not have a designated area as high risk. we are concerned that might raise a false expectation that the national resources in terms of money in the budget will be shifted to those projects. across all public lands there is very good work being done by the

agencies and being done with a very limited funding level. to think there will be a shift like that is probably not realistic, and where it has been it has been met with very little success. as we do think of retaining the federal agencies authorities over the program is important. i might also note one technical correction dealing with a section six prohibition on the clearcuts relative to the action is the species that requires openings to effectively regenerate we think that might be something that should be considered in the final bill. with that, let me conclude my remarks and we will look forward to any questions. >> thank the witnesses for giving the testimonies and staying within the level i'm aware of all of the trends people have not here. we are going to get it done in time. i realize you have the first plane out, so i'm going to yield

my time and ask the panelists if they would refrain -- let their questions to 5060 and 6089 and once we have a round of those questions if other witnesses talking abut 5744i will bring them up and then we can ask questions on that bill by itself. representative if you would like to take my time first i will yield to you. >> thank you. i have plenty of time for this because it is an important issue. thank you for yielding and allowing me the opportunity to ask a few questions and make an opening statement. my question would be for this wagner. you know, remind me again how many acres specifically of the bark beetles impacted since the epidemic has begun clacks >> i know the number in your testimony was around 18 million. >> i have corrected information for that. across the nation and packed the bark beetle on all jurisdictions

did over 43 million acres on the national forest system alone over 30 million acres. >> you also discussed in your testimony that 55 million are at high risk for wild fire so that is the number that not necessarily all are infected white pine beetle epidemics but that is a high number even if you took the 18 million number i was running some numbers here while i was sitting it appears to me that what has actually been treated and address on a land is less than 2% of the land that you have jurisdiction over the fact of the don in and have been dealt with and treated for fiscal year 2011. is that an accurate statement? >> the strategy that we created and began to the employment in fiscal year 2011 we treated over to hundred thousand acres to increase resiliency, reduce public safety issues relative to the size of the impact of the pine beetle i agree that is a small amount of acreage. over all we are trying to upscale the treatment of a landscape address priority areas

and that is where the 3.7 million acres restored in fiscal year 11. >> that is a very disappointing percentage. we have obviously a lot of the testimony has been here today that we have a critical situation on our hands, and when the federal government has jurisdiction over land, it is my anticipation that they would be responsible for maintaining and taking care of those land when especially private wives are not risk and in jeopardy. this is an incredibly important issue for states across the west including south dakota and i know you have had conversations with me in my office regarding this and how south dakota is impacted. this is one of the hottest summers on record. the jobs have been declared in several states. forests across the west returned to the tinderboxes every heard testimony today. one fire in the buckles claimed the lives of four national guardsmen of north carolina's my heart goes out to those families as well in fighting these fires

that have been going on. the ought to give the people has changed a landscape. .. >> it underlies the importance of this issue that we have people on both sides of the aisle that are looking to find solution, that it's not a republican, it's not a democrat issue, that it impacts all americans who care about our forests and the livelihoods of thousands of people across the nation. so one other question, um, for ms. wagner as well. have you been out to, um, colorado or to the black hills

to visit and to see this with your own eyes yet? >> i've not personally. >> okay. >> i know the chief has spent time in the field. our regional foresters have spent time with members. i've not made the trip -- >> i'd love to personally invite you to come to south dakota. chief tidwell came to my office, and i appreciated that, but there is an urgency on the ground, and i would love to bring you out to south dakota and host you doing that. um, if they say something about, um, you know, we certainly have cooperation that is potential there, and so i certainly would love to have you envision that and see that together where how this could work and how these bills could work on the ground for the benefit of people living there. so with that, i'll yield back. >> thank you, representative. blue wood is very pretty, isn't it? yeah. let me turn to the ranking member, mr. splum? >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. let me start with ms. wagner. almost 15 year ago the forest

service began the process of reviewing the management of pristine forests or rural areas. in 2001 then the force, the chief mike dominic issued regulations to protect these areas and recognized as one of the most far-reaching -- [inaudible] by federal government since the wilderness act was passed in 1964. um, after litigation, 60 million acres or our rests and water are protected from harm. our entire national forest system -- [inaudible] does this waive the roadless area in every other state? >> the position of the administration is we support the roadless area conservation rule as enacted and reviewed by the courts. so there are 58 million acres

under that management strategy identified across the nation and then specific roadless area conservation in the state of idaho and one underway for the state of colorado. in the case of high priority need for fuels treatment and fire risk, the majority of those acres are outside of roadless areas adjacent to wildland/urban interface. so we think we can abide by the provisions of the roadless area conservation rule and work on forest restoration where it's needed in priority landscapes. >> okay, but let me get back to my question. >> sorry. >> does the declaration, section 3 of h.r. 6089 declares national forest system in imminent threat. does this declaration, section 3, waive the roadless area protections in colorado and every other state?

>> i believe it would. >> yes or no? yes? >> i believe it would. >> it does, all right, thank you. um, mr. roberson? are you, your testimony points out two -- [inaudible] make it difficult for the public to engage with federal land managers. can you give us an idea, and make it short, of how many hazardous fuels projects the bureau of land management implements every year and how many of these projects are appealed? >> we have treated in the last ten years, we've treated 23 million acres with fuels and hazardous fuel reduction projects, stewardship contracting and good neighbor authority. and in -- >> [inaudible] i can't hear you. >> okay. over the last ten years, we've treated, um, 23 million acres of land. we've restored range land health and forest health in those

acreages using fuel projects, fuel reduction projects and other veg treatments. we've also in the last year as an average we've treated 400,000 acres. and we have less than 1%, half of 1% are actually protested and appealed. these are projects that the community support that we've worked on with the community, and they have not been appealed and protested. >> thank you. mr. kashdan? good morning, sir. let me ask you this, do you think all 193 million acres of the national forest system lands are in imminent threat to health and safety so that roadless area protections should be suspended? >> well, let me address that this way, and i'm more speaking on my own behalf because we haven't, we haven't taken a position as a retiree group.

the concern is that roadless lands are, essentially, lands in limbo, and we need to ultimately make some determination as to how to properly assign those to some type of either management or nonmanagement status. that'd be as far as i would go on that. >> all right. and so in your testimony on h.r. 6089 you raised concerns about the requirement for agencies to implement projects admitted by governors within 60 days. do you or why don't you have the same concerns with the requirement to implement projects by the agency within 60 days, and quickly, please. is that a realistic time frame? >> yeah, if i'm following your question correctly, let me just say that i think that that provision although it has, it tends to get a lot of attention,

although it tends to get a lot of attention and is precedential, 99% of the benefit derived from this bill is not germane to that issue. >> thank you. i appreciate that. mr. tipton. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to give particular thanks to mr. jankovsky for taking the time to be able to be here out of my home district. tom, can you maybe give us a little idea, county commissioner, how much time do you spend dealing with issues relating to land management? >> well, land management in general, that's -- i'm a new county commissioner. i've been in the office for two years, and i thought i had a pretty good idea of what i was going to be doing as a county commissioner. but i'm spending 50% of my time or more on federal issues concerning our county. and there are numerous -- this is one of them. but -- >> should federal agencies engage county commissioners a little more in terms of -- >> there is no doubt. i think the benefit to this bill

is that there creates a working relationship between local communities and federal land managers, and i think that's very important. and i have the highest regard for our federal land managers in our area, but i think there could be great improvements. >> great, thank you. mr. roberson, i'd like to ask you does the healthy forest restoration act of 2003 require public input with respect to projects carried out under the terms of the act? the -- >> yes, sir. >> they do? okay. those are authorities that we're using here, so you don't need to worry about the public input that you were concerned about in your testimony in opposing the bill. we provide for that public input. so thanks, sir. mr. kashdan, i really want to be able to visit with you f i may, just a moment. i appreciate your candor with respect to section 6e1 in 6089,

and i recognize some of the fiscal constraints faced by the agency. with that said, with your extensive experience in the forest service, do you believe that there are efficiencies within the agency that could be pursued that would help prioritize the approval of hazardous fuel reduction projects and to be able to actually help meet those fiscal needs? >> yes, sir, i do. and i also think the provisions in the 6089 specific to the healthy forest restoration act of 2003 regarding appeals, analysis and judicial review will greatly enhance that. so you combine those, those efficiencies, you apply them to nonwildland/urban interface, and you use some of the existing tools with stewardship contracting. we're going to go a long way towards improving the accomplishment. and i think there are examples of how far you can go when you're encumbered by minimal analysis. i think burned area agency rehab is an example of a program

that's rapidly executed, delivered with good results, and it's done with a wide demand on the part of the public regardless of where they stand on the environmental spectrum to get work done to stabilize areas after a catastrophic wild fair, and it's an example of how far dollars can go when you're not encumbered -- >> appreciate that. because if we bring some common sense to the process, allocate the resources with common sense to be able to address the problem, we'll be able to achieve an actual win/win. so i appreciate that, sir. ms. wagner, had the opportunity to be able to go out into a county in colorado to be able to tour an area that was actually being treated that congresswoman noem was talking about. we're seeing a healthy forest emerge. we were talking about water table increases of 15% by giving in to being able to actually thin the forest. healthy trees that were then being able to survive and to be able to grow. is it pretty much your

estimation that when we see the tragedy of these fires moving through areas like south dakota, colorado impacting our watershed, impacting wild life habitat, impacting those streams and endangered species when that ash hits the rivers, that it's a good, sensible approach to be able to bring together tools and that local commitment of working with county commissioners, working with our local governors, working with the tribes, the people who live there and love it most to be able to make those sensible determinations of where the real risks are at? >> yes. we are keenly interested in working in this ca -- in that kind of environment and doing our part to sustain our nation's forests. >> great. thank you very much for that. mr. kashdan, in your testimony you mentioned some of the great success of the good neighbor policy authority that the forest service has accumulated in collaborative efforts that are going on. given this, do you believe it

might also be beneficial to expand this applicability to blm land as well? >> definitely. i think the good neighbor authority as well as some of the other efficiencies modeled similarly -- there are some similar authority in oregon and even some of our hazardous fuels money is authorized to be spent in a similar nature -- it works. and to apply it to the other federal agencies is a good thing to do. >> thank you. mr. kashdan, i apologize for cutting you off twice, but you were able to answer in nine seconds or less. that's very good. i'm doing another audible here. the ranking member of the full committee is here and has marks of his particular bill. i have two other witnesses the that need to talk about the bill that also have planes to catch here. can i just ask, mr. go star, do you have any questions related to 6039? and if -- 6089, and if not --

>> [inaudible] >> all right. mr. gardener, i'm assuming you're here for 6089? and when i turn to you for questions on that, we'll finish the questions on 6089, allow our two witnesses that are here specifically for that bill to be excused, bring the ore two up for 5734 and let mr. markey give his opening remarks for that bill. we can do it that way? corey, you're up. >> thank you, mr. chairman and members of the house resources committee for allowing me to join you today and participate in this. thanks in particular to congressman tipton for his work on this legislation and the work that he's doing to help protect colorado and the western united states, one of the most incredible resources this nation has to offer. and also want to welcome the witnesses from colorado. thank you, commissioners and commissioner gibbs, good to see you. we served on the state legislature together, and i thank you for your work there and here. i am stunned by the callousness of the department of interior's

objection to the healthy forest bill, 6089. we have a situation once again where washington is fiddling while our states are burning. in your testimony you state that governors can require blm to manage federal lands and resources to meet the governor's objectives without regard to national interests or a fair return to the american people. a fair return to the american people? i have over 200 homes burned in my district. tens of thousands of acres are burned. you want to protect wild and scenic rivers? what about the river that now has ash and debris flow contaminating the river? drinking water systems that are overwhelmed, and you're going to oppose this legislation because it gives the governor the authority to save his state?

blm's ability to manage for resources protected by federal law. do you believe that bark beetle, beetle-killed areas are high risk? >> yes, congressman. >> do you believe we ought to give the states the tools they need to protect their citizens and their state? >> we believe, we believe that we and the states should work together along with the local counties on this problem together -- >> do you believe you know better than the state? >> no, sir. i wouldn't substitute my judgment for that of the states'. >> then why would you oppose a bill that gives the state the ability to protect its citizens? >> we're managing national public lands, and we're trying to do that to achieve ecological balance across the nation. >> ecological balance. >> we believe -- and to provide for jobs and opportunities as

well. we, we believe in the principles that were outlined, um, that congressman tipton just raised and that mary wagner just agreed to. we believe that we should work in concert, and we do that at the state and local level with the governors. our cohesive fire strategy will allow us to continue to work on building resilient landscapes and working together on fire preparedness -- >> is 90,000 acres of burned forest a resilient landscape? >> not on that landscape, sir. >> 260 homes that have burned resilient? >> we have -- >> is what you're telling me, are your forest policies, are they working to prevent this from happening? >> we -- the bureau of land management has approximately 1.3 million acres of beetle-killed trees out of the 58 million acres we manage. we are focused on that issue, we

have a plan for beetle kill infestation in colorado and other area, and we are working through our local planning efforts with county commissioners, state foresters and other land managers to address the issue including the state governments. and our plans are reviewed by the governors of the states when we complete them. >> you mentioned the bill provides that high-risk areas will be designated for 20 years, and you object to that. are beetle-killed areas going to be around for 20 years? >> twenty year ago, in my experience, we did not anticipate the level of beetle kill that we have now or some of the other changes -- >> i'll ask again. are those beetle kill areas going to be around for the next 20 years? >> i can't project, sir. >> you're telling me that -- >> i'm saying that -- >> -- you can't guess that a stand of dead trees won't be there in 20 years? >> pardon me, sir. my statement is that 20 years as

a designated high-risk area is too long, we believe. we believe that you can focus -- >> how long does it take to recover from a catastrophic wildfire? >> pardon me? >> how long does it take to recover from a catastrophic wildfire? >> i have no idea. >> twenty years or less? or more? >> i can get back to you on that. >> i yield back my time. >> thank you. i have just one question on this particular bill. do others have other questions on this bill? let me just ask mine, and then we're going to make the switch, and i think some of the other questions also deal with representative gosar's bill or they can fit in that concept as well. mr. roberson, i just have one bill with respect to this, you said 60 days is not enough time. how much time is enough? how much time do you need to make that designation? >> we would, we would normally do that through our local working with county commissioners and the state and

the state foresters, we would work with them to designate high-risk areas if -- >> 60 days? >> i'm not sure how long it would take. i think the level of the problem that we have, the magnitude of the multiagency landscape that we deal with, um, i have no estimate, sir. >> okay. and i will say my frustration simply not just with you, but with almost every agency around here. i'm a schoolteacher which means you had nine months to do it, and it was over. if my principal came to me and said the final test was on tuesday and i simply said, look, i can't cover all the material by tuesday, i'll get back to you when we are ready to actually take the test, you can imagine what would happen to me. in my profession i was trained that you have to get it done when the deadline is there. yesterday we had another hearing, same situation. no one could say when they could actually get it done. we had another hearing when they said it would take an agency four years to do a study on land

swap. those are frustrating to those of us who are not inculcated into the climate of washington d.c. so if 60 days is not enough, that presents an illusion of a problem that is difficult for me to wrap my mind around it because i'm used to hitting deadlines, and i had no choice in that matter. with that, i appreciate that. let me close this. i want to thank -- oh, do you have a question? i'm sorry. mr. markey for this particular panel on 6089? okay. >> thank you, mr. chairman, very much. do you think that climate change or climate variability is influencing the frequency of fires in the united states? >> mr. markey, can i interrupt? i asked a very good and legitimate question, it applies to the other bills as well. if i can do just 6089 so i can get these two witnesses on their way and then bring the other

witnesses up, i would appreciate that. >> i see what you're saying. no, i do not have any questions for those two bills. >> okay. then commissioner jankovsky, i appreciate -- mr. kashdan, i appreciate your attendance here, appreciate you flying all the way out here. you will do -- you can be -- you can go back and enjoy yourself at this particular stage in the game, and i can invite david cook from the arizona cattlemens' association -- i'm sorry, the national cattlemens' association, and doyle shamley from the national resource -- i'm doing this without glasses -- coordinator from apache, arizona, can join us on that panel. and while they're coming up, mr. tipton, i'll give you the last comment on your bill, then, mr. markey, let me give you time to introduce your piece of legislation, we'll have the other two witnesses open their testimony, and then we'll open it up again. mr. tipton. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i just wanted to make sure the list of organizations, concerned citizens in colorado and

throughout the united states are supporting 6089 to be able to submit their letters of support for the record. >> thank you very much. without objection, it will be so ordered. once again, i apologize for shifting gears on everyone here, but i'm trying to get everything to move in the proper order, and we will -- one of you, i know, has a flight going out this afternoon. we will get you there on time, so i appreciate that. mr. markey, we have not had a chance to introduce your piece of legislation. can i give you five minutes to address your legislation? >> i appreciate it, thank you, mr. chairman. very much. and i first want to address congressman gosar's earlier comment about the ability of people who live in the concrete jungle of massachusetts to be able to understand wildfire and forest issues because that's an ironic comment coming from a gentleman who lives in a land-locked, desert state voting in this committee just two days ago to authorize drilling for

oil and gas off of the ocean, off of the coastline of massachusetts. so the gentleman should probably square up where he thinks, you know, he has expertise to be able to vote because of a desert state member, obviously, should never be able to vote on anything to do with the oceans in the country. [laughter] although, let's be honest, our job is to vote on everything. we're here to represent everybody, so making those kind of artificial distinctions is absolutely inappropriate. it would rule out most members from most subjects because their state would not be the center of the issue. um, we're here because it's the taxpayers of america who fund it all, you know? including the response to wildfires and the response to what happens after the wildfires are completed. it's a national issue, and the taxpayers of massachusetts help out the taxpayers of arizona and colorado and the taxpayers of colorado and arizona help out the taxpayers of massachusetts when they need it.

that's the essence of what this institution is all about, e pluribus unum. out of many, one. that's what the whole revolution was about, including the civil war, to finally resolve that. that it's not separate, isolated states, but rather all of us working together, and i just wish the gentleman appreciated that. and i want to thank you, congressman bishop, for -- chairman bishop, for holding this hearing to consider legislation to combat wildfires. i am glad that the full committee will be holding an investigative hearing next tuesday. today we are considering a bill i've cosponsored with mr. lieu hand, ms. napolitano, ms. decosta and congressman polis. we have a very serious problem, and i'm willing to name it. the problem that we have impacting our lands across this country is climate change. if you think storms and drought conditions and catastrophic wildfires are just random, freak

events, then you're in deep, deep denial. when sigmund freud studied denial, he suggested when people are forced to face unpleasant facts they are prone to, one, deny the reality of the fact outright; two, minimize the seriousness of the issue; or, three, project responsibility of the unpleasant situation on someone else. this is a apt analogy to how the climate deniers have chosen to deal with severe weather events, drought and wildfire. for months the majority has denied that there was a problem. now the majority apparently is willing to accept part of the reality that we are approaching dust bowl-like drought conditions and fires are becoming larger and more severe, but they still deny the root cause of the push to the extremes is actually caused by climate change. instead, they're going to project the responsibility of wildfires onto environmental

laws, land management agencies, litigation, endangered species and even immigrants. if we are serious about reducing catastrophic wildfire, we first must admit that there is a link between climate change and wildfire. the undersecretary of agriculture, harris sherman, has admitted this link exists. the chief of the forest service has admitted this link exists. scientists around the world have proven this link exists. earlier this week a massive chunk of ice twice the size of the island of manhattan broke off the peterman glacier in greenland, and scientists point to warming ocean temperatures as the culprit. i have suggested that we remaim it denier island where those who question the science behind global warming can spend the summer cooling off and escaping the heat waves, the brought and the wildfires that that have bet the united states. and today two of those bills seem to be legislating from denier island.

the goal that i have is to introduce here legislation that will make it possible to recognize that we have a problem with our forests. it also recognizes that we don't have the type of scientific certainty to lock in logging and grazing projects for 10 or 20 years like the other measures proposed. instead, my bill allows the forest service and the bureau of land management the flexibility to do thing in areas impactedty thinning in areas impacted by insects and disease without waiving environmental laws and forcing federal agencies to make decisions on projects in unrealistic time frames. my bill also recognizes our constrained fiscal environment and gives the federal agencies additional authorities they desire to stretch their federal dollars further. as we will hear from both the forest service and bureau of land management, stewardship contracting authority is very helpful by allowing agencies

to -- [inaudible] trees for thinning work. i thank you, mr. chairman, for the opportunity to make an opening statement, and i appreciate the panel that will be here to discuss the subject. >> thank you. all right. let me, mr. shamley, i understand you have the first flight that has to go out. >> [inaudible] >> all right. can i ask you if you can make your statement first for the record and then, mr. cook, and then we'll open up questions to mr. markey's bill as well as mr. gosar's bill. so, mr. shamley, if you would, please. [inaudible conversations] >> apache county, arizona, i'm the natural resource coordinator for the county there and also do work for many other agencies like the state legislature, other counties, etc. the need for sweeping and massive reform and the mechanisms to expedite forest management projects to reduce hazardous fuels, increase forest health and economic development cannot be stressed enough. the current system in place is heavily laden without a date along with unclear and

conflicting mandates on the land management agency slowing down a cumbersome system even more. stewardship activities by counties along with pre and postfire activities need to be addressed and removed as well, and there is no doubt in the minds of apache county and elected officials around the western regions that something drastic has to happen. because unless we have drastic and sweeping changes made to management practices, we will lose our great western timber stands. it will effect the very cultural and historic uses of the people, the people's ability to derive economic benefits, recreational abilities, strategic capabilities along with the loss of of massive amounts of habitat and wildlife. and h.r. r. 5744 can go a long ways in getting that because we are at a point where emergency measures are needed now. having this week just attended the strategic planning meeting for the national institute of

the elimination of catastrophic wildfires, it's completely evident that multiple entities with decades of experience on the land see the threat to our nation and heritage. the bulk of the participants were prior land management agency people who have come together alongside multiple ph.d. scientists, research professors and college deans that were present to address these issues. ..

the necessity of the roadway networks. they cannot be neglected. those roadway networks proven time and time again after the fire, and remember we just went through that last summer, 838 square miles destroy it. and those roadway networks are a critical part of that while a fire prevention. those have to be in trouble with our future plans including with this bill and mr. gosar. 3g changes are necessary to the steward share of our land and the model of county stewardship by apache county arizona needs to be replicated throughout the united states. h.r. 5744 would allow county stewardship and others to more easily move forward with wild fire prevention safety and welfare and all of those areas under our jurisdiction. coast fired at cities almost next to none of you to know the truth being on the ground the zero if you will.

post fire recovery programs are often so shortsighted mismanaged or misguided as to the very people and resources they were meant to be helping. multiple programs came down and many of us have to ask after going through the conundrum of red tape and seeing no outcome. agencies after agency dollar upon dollar was waved in front of the victims of the fires with no outcome whatsoever. where did the money go when you have? millions of dollars and absolutely and usable by anybody affected. almost the very fabric and core of the management practices and conservation of natural resources in this country are reviewed the best available science one of the greatest losses in the history will occur. in these times to call for immediate actions. unfortunately in these bills and questions can begin that attack upon these problems. we need to remember too that this is the catastrophic wild

fire are just a symptom of the disease, and that is to a great extent mismanagement by federal land management agencies of our land held in trust for the public. with that, i would like to remind everybody available historical note that we need to get both back in control, the government and fire. and george washington and loaded to that when he stated the mechanization of government how they were like fire and was a dangerous servant and a fearful master. >> thank you. appreciate your testimony. mr. cook. >> chairman bishop and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify on the house resources bill 5754. my name is david cook and i may rancher from arizona where my wife and i along with our son and daughter run a operation on public and private land. i'm vice chairman of federal land committee for the national cattlemen's beach association, and today i am also representing the public plan council on the

category association. livestock grazing represent the earliest view of western land as the nation extended westward. today those lands and resources found on them continued to be essential for livestock, wildlife habitat, open space and rural economies of the west. however, a hands-off management approach by the federal agency has led to severe damage of the resources. by all but shutting down logging and continuously reducing the grazing on public land multiple use industries are suffering. this mismanagement is causing a buildup of fuel that leads to catastrophic wildfire. win catastrophic while fire breaks out, there are no winners. not the wild life, not the rural communities are the taxpayers. that is why we are here today to discuss real immediate relief to the dangerous situations on and near the public for slants. last year in arizona, alone we had more than 1 million acres

burned up impacting on hundred families and displacing about 18,000 head of cattle. as of this week only 1.5 million acres have burned this year in the west alone. the overall cost of wildfires range from three to ten times fire suppression cost, not counting property loss, personal-injury zandt def. for the ranchers, the cost includes displaced cattle, loss of infrastructure and death of livestock. what is the cause of the destruction? we should start by looking at nepa. agencies face a tremendous workload of our early bird in some nepa and alice is regulations. the plan, study come get sued, plan and a study for months and even years on end creating backlogs. extreme antilogging and antigrazing environmental groups wait in the wings to file suit on procedural points like missed deadlines oftentimes collecting attorneys' fees.

in doing so, they add to the agency workloads and further worsen the backlog. the result is tremendous economic uncertainty. we estimated current backlog of 2600 grazing allotments i've personally been involved in an age your process to renew a simple 55 head permit how is this remotely acceptable? we should also take a look at another environmental law that's add greatly to the problem of the endangered species act. while fire poses a huge threat to many species yet the bsa is often used to limit activities such as timber harvesting and grieving. the activities that should be used to reduce the load and diminish the threat to wild life. the spotted owl has all but wiped out the industry in the west and drastically reduced grazing. by the way over half of the mexican spotted sides are destroyed in the fire alone. how long do we have to watch

everything from wildlife habitats, subdivisions to natural resources the weapons mode on the nightly news before the country wakes up and calls for a stop to the mismanagement of these public lands? the catastrophic wild fire prevention act goes to the heart of the problem. regulations that have led to overgrowth of fuel will expedite the grazing of the projects and encourage the enterprise solutions on federal land the reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire. ultimately reducing threats to communities, the landscape and endangered species. it is a special focus on the two priority areas. the wilander robin chase and the endangered species habitat. if the agencies is a deadline and automatically deems those projects compliant under nepa. while fired doesn't wait for high risk situations and neither should we. still the bill allows a full review and comment per go along or radical environmental groups deal to hold off until the last minute to bring a project to its

knees to i finally, the bill requires the use of existing emergency provisions which allow for informal consultation. this bill is just common sense and will put people to work and held countless communities while improving the health and safety of the forests. again, thank you for the opportunity to testify and i look forward to your questions. islamic thank you. i appreciate how both of you hit the mark right there. that's very kind. we now are opening questions mr. markey, mr. gosar's phill. i will yield my time mr. gosar because i know you are probably on the same airline mr. shamley is going on about how you should be using delta later on. mr. gosar, let me yield my time to you. >> i appreciate it. ms. wagner and mr. roberson, the deals are failing us. let me mention for the contract to get the private industry for

large swaths through the initiative keeping six months and we knew it was coming. this is inappropriate and i am very aware that the chief had to fly into albuquerque to even oversee these types of contracts. this isn't rocket science and i know we have to get it right. do you disagree with the timetable what are you familiar with? what would you like to see clocks six years, five years? it is inappropriate what we're doing so give me a timetable very quickly. >> what i would like to say is i appreciate the leadership of the elected officials in many cases they are the hearts of the successful work we're doing on the national forests states are playing a very similar role. we agree there is more work to be done. we would like to work with you to find all of the right tools to be most expeditious. >> unlimited on my time so give me a timetable, when you look at as a timetable. we said 60 days. give me a timetable.

estimate for the governor is to identify the high risk areas. >> tell me what's wrong with this. >> there's nothing wrong with it. i believe it would be advantageous to look at the state action plans and identify priorities. >> you actually said again you were not in favor of this timetable i want to hear your specifics very quickly to the estimate by an agreement with the chief wagner. i believe that we need to look at our local plants. we are looking at the plans to rid our cohesive fire strategy plans on the state's coming and i believe together we identify those high risk areas and go out and work on them. >> i don't see a problem of 60 days. let me explain to you i see a lack of trust by the federal government with counties and states. i actually see that and that's got to stop. trust is the series of promises

kept and i don't see the federal government keeping their promises one iota. there's limited finances be can do and when we are starting to get these widespread swaths to take care of its going to have to reinvigorate the private sector so that you are returning money on investment. mr. cook, give me your experience. we just saw this qualifier disaster, an absolute disaster because the forest isn't returning anytime soon, is it? >> only is it of returning some, it is affecting the families of the large $56 million. i would give the total to the revenue and economic growth in the communities. >> and you have a kinship and the stewardship with the environment, don't you? you have to watch this very carefully. >> communities and public land ranchers want the land to be the best shape it possibly can. we are the stewards of the land.

the agency's hand tie ourselves to what we can do one reading a biological was that now where the number one threat to the catastrophic wild fire according to the recovery plan and the lila just doesn't even mention that they want to reduce grazing and it doesn't address it whatsoever. >> amazing. increasing private enterprise actually creating money and royalties goes to i think our education system is it not? >> i agree in fact i was speaking becerra salles the information in those secure rules act for one more year it's been in the west in the rural areas we want to be put to work. we want industry and jobs, we don't want government handouts. we want to put loggers back in the forest and cattle back on the land and manage those things within our state the way we want to do so. >> mr. shamley, i just -- i know you've got back from a conference on the west coast and you've got some amazing information do you not?

do you want to share with us? >> one of the key things to note is there is a growing movement about academia, former employees of the agencies, and i am in full agreement of it. one of the long term fix is at the disposal of the forced back to the stage of the public land because there is no feasible way to manage the forest as the system is now and we are meant to keep losing millions come keep destroying the habitat as we saw in the fire and we are hamstrung and enable to do anything about it. the county stewardship program is bold, it's working and we are the ones protecting. i don't see the lead against cutting along cited. you are blazing the trail that is pretty much common sense is it not? >> we've created a lot of jobs for a lot of people already. >> i appreciate that.

>> my experience recently as i flew to the island down south near florida and using half of the island is green and the other half is bear and the dominican republic and he there must be something wrong. i'm not going to argue with you because you know your business better than i do but apparently it looks like nepa and the spotted owl or the reason for the problems here. but we also look in the world where we can see the consequences of the lack of regulations or lack of control over natural resources and i don't understand the fact as well on the issues of climate change, anyone that wants to see evidence of climate change, i would invent you to the islands where i'm from and you will see coconut trees inside the water

because of the rising. and i yield my time to mr. markey. >> thank the gentleman very much. >> in 2012, we are beginning to emerge from the great recession. but a new drought for the new era is threatening the majority of the country. the dust bowl was surely due to an actual park state, but it was man-made had sapped the strength from the soil leading it to turn to dust as the rain and dried. this flash drought of 2012 is also mandated but not because we failed to learn the lessons of the land. we did. it's mainly because we failed to heed the warnings from nature.

the drought of 2012 is yet another data point in the ever-growing cannon of climate catastrophes. mr. romm, the frequency, the intensity of these fires and the west. how much of it do you think that it should be down to this rapidly changing climate here in the united states and on a plan that. >> i think that is the question of the day and i had an article in nature i would like to enter the record the next dust bowl betting the drought is the pressing problem caused by climate change. let me frame it this way. i think we know global warming makes extreme weather more likely and many kinds of extreme weather more destructive. the analogy people have used is a baseball player on steroids. you don't know that any individual home run was caused by steroids but if you see so

many home runs in one season breaking records never broke before, then you know that this is what is going on in the atmosphere joost on warming. scientists knew that there were three reasons that global warming was going to make wild fires worse. whenever it's hotter it's a dry year. based on soil moisture so it is driven by how much evaporates, how much comes down and how much evaporates so when it's hotter you get more evaporation so global warming makes the journal it's worse and wander. the second thing that was known as you will get earlier snow well and there was never any doubt about that. obviously as spring -- we had no winter it was like spring this year. spring was like summer and summer is like hellishness and

that's the global warming. when you have spring becomes summer, the snowmelt goes, colorado had a staggering loss of fais, and effectively interesting. i live in the district mr. markey and i lived in your district mr. tipton. i worked at the rocky mountain institute, and so i know what the place looks like 20 years ago and now and when you get your early snow melts, many of the western regions including colorado where i lived doesn't get a lot of precipitation. it requires the streamflow from the reservoir of snow and ice that is the reservoir and so the second impact of global warming causes wild fire is you lose the snow mass as the immelt earlier. a third come is the global warming change is the climate that's why it's called climate change. it shifts the subtropical dry

bulk and unfortunately, when you expand the subtropical dry belt, that hits the southwest. we are going to see less precipitation and that is the double whammy the states like colorado are going to be hit by. more soil moisture evaporation and the bark beetle. the bark beetle -- >> the gentleman yields the time is expired. >> okay. i can hear you. >> thank you mr. chairman. to get the focus back on the topic of the hearing, simple question. is the bark beetle a threat just yes or no i think covers at. ms. wagner, can we start with

you? >> there is concern for the impact the bark beetle has had yes. >> congressmen, yes, and i brought a few folks to see how small it is -- >> it's not a yes or no question. it's a long-term threat. the species that has become invaded because the climate change. and the climate is granted keep changing and the dating so it is a threat 20 years from now. >> yes, absolutely. you know, the senator from our state in colorado had a requisition to study, can at the request to the u.s. forest service and said that the primary reasons that we are

seeing the bark beetle infestation is because of the actions regarding the printing of timber harvesting active management, lack of active management, drought and allocation of resources timber management, lamented access to areas due to the inability to be able to provide access routes, federal land designation which includes forced treatment. as the primary contributing factors to the rampant bark beetle outbreak. so, ms. wagner hon i guess i would like to ask the question this was a report that came out in the service which i think help identify the problems. you believe that it expedited the approval authority and can help us to that given the information that we've received out of the services of a scholar of that by actually getting in these devastated areas we increase the tool and the health trees. >> we will lead to more on the bark beetle restoration. >> thank you. i would like to yield the

balance of my time to mr. gosar. >> so, ms. wagner, whatever is a pandemic. it's not just about the bark beetle, what we do it's like somebody here that has the measles and we are all stuck around here so they're much more contagious to everything else around here. we have different species that have different requirements like the ponder koza plame. we want to see ten to 25 trees per acre instead of the 600. so we have a problem. we have to address and by allowing them to stand we are just aggressively creating the pandemic are we not? >> yes, we have serious concerns about insects and disease and they're prevalent because it's hot. >> so, with a little jar that the gentleman showed us, it's just a focal point for the disease if you don't get rid of because what you are doing is if there are areas that continue to create the infestation, true?

>> yes, conditions are right. >> the longer it stands the bigger the problem. >> on a ranch in the ponder rosa panaria at isakson doesn't fit in elevation and i see what you're talking about and what i don't understand is when you have people talk about the drought, you have all these trees competing for the same drop of water, soap the forest needs to be thin. i don't know why we can't agree with that and move forward and have a much healthier forest if we would just do so. >> would you agree with that? >> i can't take anybody that wants to see the tours so whole entire hillside and the forest service personnel are the ones that indicated that do to it being too thick of a tree stand and the lack of activities the became weak because they were competing for water. at that point is when the people moved in. >> want to take us back what we

saw is litigation by the tribes which is very interesting because we of the same problem on the tribal land as we do in the public land? >> not at all. >> why not? >> because they are treating the lands and thinking about conservation, not preservation. >> so, they are thinking about conservation and treating the forest? this is an oxymoron. >> our fire as you know well as anybody, came to a halt when it hit the taxi reservation where the deutsch treatment. >> let me ask one more question, a dynamic force to solve over the trees or is it old-growth trees? >> it is a full mixture. >> thank you. >> i appreciate this. before i turn to mr. markey i have more questions. before i do that, mr. shamley i don't live mr. cook is on the same flight, do not think it is meant to be offensive if you leave to go to the airport when

you need to go to the airport. we are happy to have you here as long as you can stay, but when the hour hits, please, feel free. mr. markey, did you have any other questions? >> just going to come back to you, mr. romm. i think you are trying to be reflective of what is happening in explaining the law bark beetle and it's now reproducing not once a year but twice a year by the changing temperatures causing that to happen. why it's expanding its footprints and getting in larger and larger areas because of climate change and the changing temperatures you're just trying to explain that scientifically as a reality that has led to the metastasis winters are 4 degrees warmer than they were in 1970 comes of the massachusetts and vermont maple trees are not

going further and further heading towards canada and that is just the change in the temperatures. we barely have a winter last year. so all you're doing is pointing out the fact that the maple trees are going further and further north and the bark beetles or reproducing and able to cause more and more damage and the climate is of the heart so it is a big change that is occurring so i don't know why we can't just agree on that because it is doing well. it's a common problem we have to deal with the consequences first of all you can put a band-aid on it here and there and put together policies but you have to step back and look at the larger kind of climate cancer that's out there and say what can we do to reduce the longer-term impact that are going to be profound? and i think that is what you are bringing to the discussion and

we thank you for that. commissioner gibbs, can you tell us how effective the air tankers are in addressing wildfire situations like we saw recently in colorado springs? >> congressman, i do think that the utilization of the air tankers is important. i think it's most effective when you put resources on the ground for the defensible space around the community's first of all but if there is a large scale, utilizing the single-engine air tankers of course they can carry more the the single engineer tankers definitely have more versatility. they are easier to get around. quite often they cannot fly of course when it's windy and the single engineer tinker's tend to be dumping more versatile but you can get up into the air as

well. >> thank you paray whether it is a flash flood or drought or flash of lightning igniting wildfires, climate change is increasing their risk to all parts of the country. what happens in the midwest does affect massachusetts and it does affect arizona because there is an extreme weather food tax with high prices for food coming because of this drought. at $7 a bushel we are looking at real consequences. can you talk about that, the economic impact mr. romm on every american? >> certainly every american is very concerned about the explosion of the wild fire but i've read much of the literature ever done a great many articles on i believe that it is through

the food prices many people are going to experience climate change because people can at that. we can go into an air-conditioned room, but a far missed just out there exposed to the weather and food prices have been stuck at levels that we haven't seen in 20 years, and we project food prices are going to double or triple. >> can i go to mr. cook are you concerned with the impact of the drought on corn and other places in terms of the impact it's going to have on your business? >> desolate the cost association directly reflects the cattle prices and the move together and that opens up a whole nother discussion but of course any agricultural producer in the met west or midwest is concerned with drought. >> do you think the changes playing a role in this expense of drought? >> my thoughts are of little

different than probably yours, congressman. with all due respect our timeline now what you're speaking of since the 70's is about a pebble on the size of the sand on the beach somewhere. >> is it a pebble in the sand? >> not at all. i don't think there is any question that climate change is making it worse. i think it is very important and i don't know if there will be another round of questions, but people have to understand there is a difference between just warming the average temperature and changing the climate and there have been two or three major studies in the last several months that say when you lose the arctic ice you weaken the jet stream and when you weaken the jet stream weather patterns get stuck. there's been two or three. to study if you ask why are heat wave is lasting longer and highest the kirov longer, wider the drought's longer, climate change driven by carbon pollution -- >> i'm sorry to interrupt you.

it's under because you have one second left. >> no, i appreciate it. thank you. .. >> ms. wagner, could you just describe some of the research that your agency has done with respect to the effect of fuel reduction on wildfire behavior? >> two specific research publications i can cite from the angora fire in california and from the wallow file in the southwest. we've had our research

scientists look at pre and postfire impacts. we've seen a fire as recently as this summer on the teton national forest, the font knell, and through visual pictures as well as science you can see the difference that a stand that is thinner, that has had ladder fuels removed and how fire behaves when it encounters that environment. i'd be happy to provide some of those research publications to the committee. >> thank you, i appreciate that. mr. roberson, just let me ask one specific question from your testimony about 5960, it said in your written testimony that it adds mountain pine beetle infestation as areas eligible for applied culture assessments under the healthy forest restoration act in section 404. it does authorize the secretary to provide assessments on federal lands that the secretary fears is at risk of infestation

by forest-damaging insects. can you simply define forest-damaging insects? >> i believe that the term defines itself, sir. >> actually -- >> i would say that the mountain pine beetle would qualify. >> actually, you're correct. it does define itself in the statute, it's already there. forest-damaging insects does include the mountain pine beetle, so i guess the question i'd have to ask is how is this new authority that would be given to you if it's already in statute? >> we believe some of the authorities were specificically for the forest service, and this may have been one of those. i can get back to you on that though. >> yeah. i think this one needs to be clarify inside that particular area. >> i can get back to you an answer, sir. >> thank you. let's see if there are another second round of questions. mr. gosar, do you have any questions you'd like to ask? i'll recognize -- >> ms. wagner, when we have these heavy canopied forest

fires, they're intense, are they not? >> yes. >> so in many cases they actually sterilize the soil, do they not? >> postfire we do an assessment, and we're able to determine the intensity of the fire, and in some cases, yes. we are seeing impacts to the soil. >> so is it easier to mitigate that, or is it tougher when you sterilize soil? >> it's tough to recover from. >> and our topsoil out in the west is much thinner than it is probably back east, are they not? >> there are soil types that are definitely of concern when they're impacted by fire. >> okay. so let me ask you a question. so, you know, we also have these inabilities for roadless rules that impact our harvesting process. i mean, they're a core part of how we're going into the forest. tell me what part of a road mitigation is tougher to do than sterilize soil. >> i'm sorry, i'm not following your question. >> okay. so when we do a road, an interim

road to go to log, how is that mitigation worse than sterilized soil? the answer is not. >> i think that we have the ability to design roads and place roads so that they're low impact. >> i would agree definitively. mr. shamley -- >> where yes, sir. >> tell me some of these other things that you've been doing out, um, that drew so much attention out in your local or your most recent speech. >> well, one of the big things, of course, was the multiple counties and the scientists, actually, there were reveled to hear about the county stewardship. you know, we had to use all the force that the county possesses to protect the health, safety and welfare of the residents and pass drastic resolutions and bring the fight all the way to to washington, which we did in january, to move on to the force that, look, either get something done, or we're going to fix it.

now, at that point after tidwell ditched the meeting, our locals, though -- and they're the only ones i can give due credit to, not the agencies as a whole -- local fire and fuel teams and our local supervisor, they're the ones who worked with us and said, yes, you're right. that area needs to be treated and, yes, you are right, the west side of greer, which we're targeting, was completely left off any target plans by the u.s. forest service for treatment. now, this town already tried to half burn down in the wallow fire, or not try, it did half burn down. the other half that we're treating to protect the residents and mainly our watersheds and the only actions that are protecting the mexican spotted owl pac, there was no plans by the agent i. they completely left it off any plans or maps. >> mr. cook, i know there's an example of this integral aspect that we're talking about. we kind of really mimic this, that actually shows that you can

mitigate and take care of the forest, and you can also have increased grazing, and you can also have a number of different proprieties that you're increasing endangered species. i think it's a ranch in utah, and it may be in mr. matheson's, if i'm not mistaken, the ranch that shows everything being built? but there's a proper balance, is there not, that actually shows this working? >> absolutely. and speaking to myself, you know, we monitor the spotted owls on our own ranch. we pay for the monitoring ourselves because the agency fails to do so. they'll go in consultation with fish and wildlife service, we find that doesn't happen. so in fear of litigation and losing our permits, we actually hire the biologist who does the monitoring for the agency ourselves. what we have come to find out is that the owl is, in my opinion and what i'm seeing in the research s that the owls do not where'd and reproduce on the years that cattle are not present in that thick-wooded

forest. so we have a lot of data, a lot of science that we show the grazing impacts when done in the proper methods nothing but benefit is endangered species. >> so i'm going to get back to the organism. i'm a science guy, and i'm very astute about botany as well, sir. so when we have an unhealthy situation, it endangers everything. you know, you don't have enough light going to the canopy bottom, you don't have a diversification of different species, and what it actually does is it hurted the spotted owl, it hurts the whole different plethora of species within that environment, does it not? >> it absolutely does. and that's the discussion we've been having with the forest service and the fish and wildlife service today is cattle grazing creates transition zones. and around these transition zones in these overgrown, steep forests, the zones around the wildlife drinkers and the salt blocks and stuff, that's what benefits the species, actually the cattle being there. >> thank you. >> thank you very much.

assuming you were talking about deserea? i'm claiming that. mr. sablum do you have other questions? mr. markey, do you have other questions? >> yes, i do, please. this discussion about steroids, i just love it. i just happen to have a chart. it's now four years old, but it still works for the purpose of this discussion. and so what i had was my staff go back about four years ago and track the number of players in in the major leagues who had more than 40 home runs per year. and over a period of 1920 from babe ruth's first over-40 home run period all the way between 2009 the average was 3.3 players per year averaged more than 40 home runs. mickey mantle, willie mays, you go through every -- ted williams. then all of a sudden in about 1995 it started to spike.

up to eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen players getting more than 40 home runs. and it stayed very high until major league baseball, after congressional hearings, finally decided they were going to test for steroids, artificial substances put into the bodies of people. no longer better diet and cork bats and smaller ballparks and bigger players, but let's just check for the steroids. and guess what? it went right back down to 3.3 players per year who were averaging more than 40 home runs per year. and by the way, this chart looks exactly like the spike in the amount of co2 in the atmosphere as the rising temperatures on the planet since the dawn of the industrial age when human beings started to inject additional

carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. and, you know, it will take a number of congressional hearings, ultimately, before we'll finally come to realize that it's not sun spots, it's not these other ingredients that the climate deniers want to attribute this dramatic rise to in the same way that major league baseball did all the way from the commissioner down to the lowliest ball player who all had a stake in this phony system that was put together. but rather, the reflection of the reality that once we get the artificial, additional chemicals out of our system, then the climate will start to calm down, the wildfires will start to calm down, the droughts will start to calm down. but until we get the steroids out of the climate, until we admit that we're playing a role in this, then all of the other issues are just band-aids trying

to deal with the harm that is being done both to the players, you know, and to the game, the whole planet on an ongoing basis. mr. rome, what do you think about this? it's an eerie correlation, is it not? >> yeah. and it's moved beyond correlation to causation, and you can move beyond correlation to causation when you have an underlying theory. we know that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels traps heat. we know -- they call them greenhouse gases for a reason. they didn't make up the term greenhouse gases because the gases don't act like a greenhouse, they do. and if there were no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the planet would be 60 degrees fahrenheit colder, and there would be no civilization as we know it. i'd just like to make a point. i've leshed a great -- learned a great deal at this hearing. i'm kind of an expert on the medium and long-term of forest management. there's no question that trees compete for water, and there's

no question that the drought is a big problem for trees, and it also exacerbates the bark beetle problem because trees kill bark beetle by releasing sap. but i've now heard this theory that the solutioning to the drought -- solution to the drought problem is that we thin forests so that trees don't compete so much. the problem is we're on a track where your districts are going to see levels of soil moisture in the coming decades that are worse than the dust bowl which was a -3 on the severity index. which means that you're going to thin, there's going to be more drought and wildfire, and another congressman from your district in 20 years will come and say we've got to thin some more. and then 20 years after that we'll thin until there's nothing left. the thinning to deal with drought is not a sustainable solution, it's the end of all trees in all of your districts, and as someone who has skied in your district and live inside your district and hiked in your district -- >> mr. rome, mr. rome, i thank

you. in the same way that we knew that utility infielders and substitute outfielders somehow we knew they weren't mickey mantle and willie mays and something must be wrong and the extra weight lifting they were doing wasn't making them mickey mantle and willie mays. i think most people know that there's something wrong and we're contributing to it, and as soon as we admit i think -- and i mean the beef industry and every other industry, i think, we'll get to the heart of the solutions we have to put in place. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. let me just ask one last question, and i hope i think this'll be the end of it. you have planes to catch, we've got -- bobby richardson was probably the best second baseman in the history of the world. i loved him. [laughter] casey tech el once said, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink, he doesn't stay out at night, and he still can't hit. >> although he was roommates with mickey mantle for 50 years.

>> it was the perfect -- that was billy martin. no, i'm sorry. it was the, it was the perfect non sequitur that not smoking, not drinking, not carousing can help you live longer, but it doesn't help you hit a curveball. so i appreciate that. unless there are other questions from any members, i want to thank our witnesses for being here. there may be additional questions from members that will be sent to you. if you do, i would ask you to respond in a very timely manner with that. i thank you. i hope you make your flights. i appreciate your chance to visit with us. i do appreciate all the testimony that was given here today. thank you very much. and this committee will stand adjourned. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the ap reporting at this hour that the death toll from the shooting at that colorado movie theater has now been revised to 12, down from the originally reported number of 14. more than 50 people said to be

injured. a number of statements coming out this morning in reaction to the incident, from president obama, quote: >> the president also speaking just a short while ago in florida, canceling his campaign schedule for the rest of today. republican presidential candidate mitt romney saying, quote: >> that from republican presidential candidate mitt romney. we expect remarks from him about 12:20, about an hour from now, and we'll have those for you on c-span when that happens. members of congress taking to

the twitter pages to offer reaction. florida congressman vern pew can chan tweets: >> that reaction, again, from twitter. we have more live coverage coming up here today on c-span2 at 1:00 eastern, cleveland clinics president and ceo dr. cosgrove will talk about that city's health care policy in the wake of the supreme court's health care ruling. that event at the national press club here in washington. dr. cosgrove also explaining the challenges the cleveland clinic faces in delivering high quality

health care while holding down costs. again, live at 1:00 eastern on c-span3. >> this weekend on booktv, from new york city the harlem book fair. live coverage starts saturday at 12:30 eastern with a panel discussion on the future of african-american publishing. that's followed at 2 with a look at public education. at 3:30, cornel west sits in on a panel examining the next presidential election. and at 5, no urban painter joins a panel celebrating the 150th anniversary of the emancipation proclamation. and sunday authors including john fund and phyllis schlafly. the harlem book fair, part of booktv this weekend on c-span2. >> and quickly a quick reminder that event with dr. cosgrove right here on c-span2 at 1:00.

raj dante, the deputy director of the consumer financial protection bureau, testified before the house financial services subcommittee on consumer credit yesterday. the hearing centered on the impact of the dodd-frank financial regulations on consumer choice and access to credit. this is 90 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> well, i'd like to call the committee to order, and i would like to inform members that we do expect a series of votes, and mr. dante, this afternoon between 4:30 and 5, be a long

series of votes, and it's my intention to complete this hearing by the time votes are called. and i'm sure you're okay with that. i know. anyway, this afternoon's hearing is the second installment for the financial institutions of the consumer credit subcommittee contribution to oversight committee. today we're joined by mr. raj dante, and i appreciate him coming back again, who is the deputy director of the consumer -- financial consumer protection bureau, and he will provide members of in this subcommittee with an update on the operations of the cfpb since the designated transfer date of last july. many of my colleagues like to highlight the number of times the cfpb has testified as proof positive of congressional oversight. this will be the 24th time a representative from the agency has testified before either the house or the senate. so just for the sake of comparison, how does that compare to the other financial

regulators? the treasury and federal reserve each have appeared 45 times, the sec has appeared 47, and the ftic has appeared 26 and the occ has appeared 22 times. testifying at hearings is a central function of a federal regulatory agency, but i think that, um, it does not necessarily equate to congress having sufficient oversight. republicans have offered common sense proposals that provide for greater congressional oversight of an agency that will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year without compromising the core mission of protecting -- a shared vision, i might add -- of protecting consumers, and i surge the senate and the administration to accept our good faith offering and place these final reforms into place. i'm especially interested to hear mr. dante's thoughts on two rules before the cfpb's purview. the credit card availability to pay rule, we had a hearing that cfpb inherited that rule from the federal reserve, and the second is the qualified mortgage

rule that is pending. last fall the federal reserve finalized rules to determine a borrower's ability to pay. when drafting this rule, in my view and i think it's borne out in the actions, the federal reserve clearly misinterpreted the statute and required all borrowers to provide proof of an individual income even though the statute clearly intended that requirement to apply only to underage students seeking credit. the practical effects is we are hearing more and more anecdotal stories about stay at home spouses being denied credit because they do not have an individual income. this is a clear example, i think, of washington regulations that have gone wrong, and i've asked the cfpb to fix this inequity, and they've assured us in the committee that they're working on this. this summer i have a resolution by this summer. we are working on a legislative solution in case, to restore parity in case that doesn't come about. last week we heard from many

witnesses about the importance of clarity as the cfpb promulgates the qualified mortgage rule. again, the actions of this agency could determine that availability credit for borrowers across this nation. and i would urge the cfpb as i did in a letter with mr. sherman that i'm sure you received to have a broad definition for the qualified mortgage and provide a strong legal safe harbor for the loans that fit these criteria. we need to insure this rule does not overly restrict credit for consumers and increase the cost of credit for borrowers. again, i would like to thank mr. dante for appearing before the committee, our members are very interested in the actions. we must assure that agencies strike the appropriate balance between protecting consumers and insuring there is sufficient access to credit. with this, i would like to recognize, um, the ranking member, the gentlelady from new york, ms. maloney, for the purposes of making an opening statement. >> i thank the gentlelady for calling this hearing and thank her for pointing out that this

is the 24th time that the group has testified before congress, but it's always with good news of how we're protecting consumers and how we're moving forward. and just yesterday, and i'd like unanimous concept to place in the record -- consent to place in the record a report, really, from the american banker that shows that the cfpb hit a financial institution with their first-ever penalty. and i was waiting to see in what area it was going to take form, and it took form in the area of credit card reform. so i was pleased to see that the bureau is being serious about cracking down on unfair, deceptive and anti-competitive practices. just yesterday they announced its first enforcement action finding deceptive marketing of credit protection products to consumer with lower credit scores. these practices were uncovered during the supervision process,

a critical authority we gave to the cfpb, and it will put $140 million back into the pockets of two million cardholders. this case in point is why the bureau is necessary, and i applaud the work that was done in the months leading up to this announcement. um, we need to put this in perspective. not only is in the 24th hearing, but there have been 50 bills and amendments that have been introduced to either gut, slow down, block or defund the financial reforms including the repeal of this bill. there have been numerous legal challenges to dismantle the cfpb as well as other important aspects of financial reform. and the very agencies who have been task bed with implementing -- tasked with implementing financial reform are facing drastic budget cuts.

the sec is looking at a 12% cut, the cftc would get a 41% cut, and if my colleagues get their way, it pales in comparison to what americans lost in the financial crisis. it is merely two-tenths of a bay bit point of the -- basis point of the 19 trillion in household wealth that americans lost. we lost 8.7 million jobs and 6.3 million more americans are now i in poverty because of the financial crisis. if we had prevented those abuses, then we would not have had these drastic losses. the cfpb is a pillar of the financial reforms that we enacted two years ago in the consumer protection, in financial products. it is its first and only mission. that was not the case when consumer protection authority was housed in many multiple,

different agencies whose chief mission was safety and soundness, not consumer protection. and that's important. too often consumer protection was a secondary thought, a third thought or not even thought about at all. now the system has changed, it is safer safer, stronger, more transparent. and there are new tools to monitor and mitigate threats that consumers face and to protect them. these reforms are helping to build a sound foundation to support economic growth, and we do see signs of that growth. we have added 3.8 million jobs, and business lending has increased 15% according to the bureau of labor statistics after these reforms went into place. cfpb has leveled the playing field for consumers and financial institutions. and i for one do not really understand why there is such great opposition to it. the know before you owe is really very important so

consumers can see and assess how much they owe. they have simplified credit card contracts, introduce new student loans assessment tool, highlighting rates and eliminating cob fusing rhetoric -- confusing rhetoric so people know what they're getting into. and i really don't understand why some of my colleagues are opposed to it for giving consumers disclosures that will clearly state their obligations under the mortgage, under their mortgages, their interest rates, their payments, their fees, other important information. and for all the talk of limits to consumer choice and restrictions in credit, none of that has materialized. and for all the talk about unacceptable agencies and unaccountable and not transparent, the cfpb has been unprecedented in its transparency. just go to their web site. they have been forthcoming with members, with the industry and with consumers, and i look forward to hearing their report

today. i hope there have been more advancements to simplify information, to level the playing field and to strengthen our overall economy and consumers' understanding of their exposure and abling them to better manage their own financial life and their own risk. i thank the gentlelady for calling this hearing, and i look forward to the gentleman's testimony. thank you. >> mr. duffy, for two minutes. >> thank you, chairman cap toe, for holding this very important hearing. here we are a year after the cfpb took over responsibility for promulgating federal consumer protection rules, and many questions still remain on the potential future actions that the bureau may take. as you know, i have been following the cfpb developments ever since being elected to congress, and my focus has been particularly targeted at how the cfpb actions impact small financial institutions. many of them in smaller, more rural parts of america.

almost daily i continue to hear from community banks and credit unions in my district and throughout wisconsin about the increasing regulatory regime that these institutions are now facing. many of them tell us it's not making their life easier, the small institutions are telling us it's making their life far more difficult. we've had numerous hearings discussing this important issue, and we had one recently in was saw, wisconsin, where the chairman was at, and we've also had many hearings in this room as well talking about the impact on small community institutions. this hearing will hopefully highlight some of those concerns. today we'll be discussing the impact of dodd-frank on consumer choice and access to credit. and as we have this conversation on consumer choice, i want to make sure that we do not restrict financial institutions from providing consumers with the power to choose the products that they want and the products that make the most sense for them. i would also like to ask for unanimous consent to offer a letter into the record from the

national association of federal credit unions that addresses the regulatory burden and the issues that are arising with regard to consumer choice. >> without objection. >> thank you. and i want to thank mr. dante for coming in today, and i look forward to his testimony. >> mr. hand hose saw for two minutes? >> thank you, chairwoman cabito and ranking member maloney. and i also want to thank you, mr. dante, for once again coming before this committee to speak out about the progress of the consumer financial protection bureau where once again evaluating the cfpb and marking the two-year anniversary of the dodd-frank wall street reform and consumer protection act. two years later i still hear my friends and leagues on the other side of the aisle complain about the so-called strangling red tape which the law has

supposedly imposed. the national journal on monday published a story titled gripes and laws from gop on dodd-frank. by next month the cfpb will have testified before congress 26 times during their 18-month existence. i'd like to point out that according to a poll commissioned by the aarp and other organizations taken earlier month, most americans disagree with the negative characterization of the cfpb that my republican colleagues have embraced. in fact, two-thirds of voters and 69% of independents agreed that the cfpb is a necessary institution. i repeat, that it is necessary to have it. no wonder they feel this way.

while the big banks are complaining about the red tape, we're being inundated with new scandals and evidence of malfeasance by the major financial institutions. starting with the jpmorgan exotic derivatives loss that may reach up to $9 billion, there have been several instances which reflect poorly on the financial services industry and beg for more oversight and protection for our consumers. just yesterday the cfpb announced its first enforcement action against capital one bank which will have to refund $140 million to -- rather, $140 million to two million consumers and pay a $25 million penalty. it has also, it has also

recently come to light that hsbc bank has been looking the other way while terrorist organizations and drug cartels launder money with their institution. last week the chairman of peregrine admitted to 20 years of financial extortion. in a conspiracy to report false rates. it boggles my mind that instead of seeking to regain public trust if only for self-preservation, these institutions continue to evade the law and point at the cfpb and the dodd-frank act and cry foul. in closing, i want to say that rather than continually trying to hamper the work of the cfpb, we should be encouraging the bureau and the other regulators that hamper these wall street banks from evading laws and

putting our economy at risk. we do need the consumer financial protection bureau, and the recent scandals only underscore this point. with that, i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. mr. canseco for one minute -- or, two minutes. >> thank you, madam chair. you know, the number i am keeping in mind today is 1100, and that's how many pages the cfpb's recently-proposed rule regarding mortgage disclosures is. even though the disclose yours themselves -- disclosures themselves will be less than ten pages in length, many of us have expressed skepticism over the argument that the creation of another unaccountable pure bureaucracy would somehow reduce red tape and compliance costs and make financial decisions easier to understand for consumers. the cfpb's biblical-length rule seems to have validated our worst fears about this agency. with this proposed rule, the

cfpb has shown us the path they have chosen to take, and i'm afraid that for financial institutions, families and consumers the outlook isn't good. i yield back my time. >> gentleman yields back. mr. scott for three minutes. >> thank you very much, ms. chairman. in addition to forming the cfpb, the dodd-frank act also imposed a risk retention requirement for lenders that i think we really need to take a good look at as we discuss this today. risk retention requirement for lenders who securitize mortgages that they originate. under dodd-frank there's a requirement that lenders must retain 5% of the credit risk of any asset in order to encourage sound lending practices. the law currently exempts qualified residential mortgages

or what is referred to as qrms from this risk retention. and on that note as many of you may know, i'm the co-sponsor of the consumer mortgage choice act which would simply amend the calculation within dodd-frank determining whether a mortgage loan is compliant with the qrm requirement. this is necessary. our legislation would exclude so-called points and fees as long as they are reasonable. so i'm going to be interested to know what mr. dante's view on the legislation might be and how it might effect consumers' access to credit in order to obtain mortgages. because it seems to me that any expansion of charges to be included in the finance charge could very well cause vast numbers of mortgages the to fail. to meet the standards required

of a qualified mortgage. and, obvious, if the cfpb counts all originations and title charges as part of the points and fees, then a huge part of the mortgage loan market in my state of georgia and elsewhere will not meet the requirement to be a qualified mortgage. and lenders will not be able to make the loan, and moreover, there could be an especially negative impact on the consumer's ability to choose mortgage companies if affiliated fees are included. and so it could be that by expanding the range of charges that must be included in the finance charge, it could make it almost nearly impossible for the average consumer to obtain a qualified mortgage. and so i'd like for us to look at this and to get your opinion on that as we move forward and

look forward to the hearing. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. that concludes our opening statements. i'd like to welcome, again, mr. raj dante to our committee. he is the -- i already said what you are, so you can -- >> deputy director. >> deputy director of the cfpb. welcome. >> thank you, chairwoman and members of the subcommittee for inviting me back to discuss the cfpb. the last time i was before this subcommittee, it was back in november, and the cfpb had been in existence for just over 100 days. today as we look forward to the one-year an verse on july 21st, i'm glad once again to have the opportunity to discuss the important work that we are doing. as you know, before the dodd-frank wall street reform consumer protection act, no agency was solely responsible for protecting consumers of financial services. now, after the dodd-frank act, one agency is solely

responsible, and that's the cfpb. congress equipped the cfpb with a range of tools to reform the consumer finance marketplace, tools like research and supervision and enforcement and rulemaking and consumer education. i'm pleased to report that we have been using these tools. we've been using them to deliver tangible value to american consumers. in addition to supervising the country's biggest banks, we've also begun our supervision of nonbank businesses in two markets, residential mortgage and payday lending. on monday of this week we announced the addition of credit reporting companies, and over time we will continue to build out our nonbank supervision activities. many of these nonbank products and services have never before been supervised at the federal level, so these are important changes for consumers. and yesterday we resolved our first enforcement action. during our supervision of a major credit card issuer, our team identified deceptive marketing practices used to pressure or mislead customers into paying for add-on products

when they activated their credit cards. yesterday's consent order requires the credit card issuer to refund $140 million to two million consumers and to pay an additional $25 million fine. other work that we've been up to, evaluating overdraft protection and helping students to better understand their financial options and working with the prudential regulators to help struggling military homeowners who have received permanent change of station orders. in most of what we do, we have had the benefit of an ongoing and productive dialogue with the consumer finance industry. so we are, for example, working with one of the largest credit unions in the country to figure out if shorter, more transparent credit card agreements can make a meaningful difference to consumers' understanding. the place where we are spending most of our time, as you might imagine s the mortgage market. mortgage reform is appropriately at the top of the bureau's policy agenda. from shopping for a mortgage to closing on a mortgage to paying

for a mortgage, we're working towards restoring trust across the system. over the next six months, we'll be proposing and finalizing rules to address problems consumers often face in buying or refinancing a home. let me start with shopping for a mortgage. markets don't work if both parties to a transaction don't understand what it is they're getting into. with our new loan estimate form, we're saying no more to costs and risks being buried in the fine print. not only are we integrating the federal mortgage disclosure forms, but we're simplifying those forms too. the idea is for borrowers to have a better chance to actually understand the price and the risk of their obligations in a way that's better for everyone involved. when it comes to closing on a mortgage, the bureau is proposing rules that would require lenders to provide the most critical information three days before closing instead of at the closing table. this means consumers will have the time to review the costs and ask questions about anything that they don't understand or just doesn't seem right.

we're also trying to put an end to mortgages that as a practical matter or destin consumers to fail.. lenders paid too little attention to whether consumers had the ability to repay their loans. the results were disastrous for the broader economy. be by the end of the year, we plan to finalize a year to have lenders make a good faith determination as to whether consumers can pay for their loan. for example, we're considering whether service should be required to give borrowers better information about how much they owe every month. we're still at the early stages of these service and rule makings, but i'm optimistic we can find a common sense path forward. in the end, we want to craft sensible rules that work for the market throughout the credit cycle, but we also want to be mindful of just how fragile andd risk averse the market seems to be today. throughout all of our efforts, we want to minimize compliance

burden to the extent possible. we want to encourage a competitive market where consumers and honest businesses can both thrive. again, thank you for inviting me back, and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. i would like to say in reference to the comment that you made about whether you're going to recommend that everybody send out a statement monthly on what they owe on their mortgages, i get that. i get that from my own lender every month. so i think it's probably good business practices, and i think you'll find a lot of people are already doing that, which i'm sure you already know. anyway, i brought up two rules when i was mentioning my opening statement. let me go to the one that gayle hillen brand came to our committee and spoke about, and that is the stay at home spouse issue with the ability to repay in order to get credit in their own name. can you tell me what the status of that is? i'm hoping you're moving quickly towards the resolution of this. >> yes. strangely, chairman capito, i'm not sure i have that much to add

beyond the issues associated with the ability to pay the card act and how the regulation may have the unintended consequence that you discussed on nonworking spouses. associate director hillband had discussed our approach to it, that remains our approach which is to try to move from the admittedly merely anecdotal evidence today to a more systematic understanding of the magnitude today of the problem, its trajectory and to think about potential solution that is we might be able to move forward with. she had talked about the end of december being the point in time where we would have a good sense of what the right path is, and that remains our plan. >> [inaudible] >> well, i mean -- let me go ahead and finish because i've just got three minutes. my understanding on her, on our testimony is that this is a real problem. i mean, i'm a former stay at home spouse myself, i understand the issues and how important this issue is to folks who are staying home with their children to raise their families both, as i said, male and female.

so my understanding is that the resolution to this issue was going to be reached by the end of the summer, not just an analysis there actually is a problem. so i would encourage you to keep moving forward quickly on this. it's extremely important to these families that we have a resolution to this sooner than later, and that was the crux of what she said when she was here, the way i understood it. let's go to the bright line. we had a, mr. cordray has shade a bright line is exceedingly important in the criteria for a qualified mortgage. i have a article here from "the wall street journal" yesterday, it said the feds' new mortgage disclosures are a bust. i guess they could say the cfpb -- in the his opinion. i don't want agree with some of what he's saying here, the nitpicking of the norms. i looked at 'em, looks fine to me. he's complaining about having the apr on the third page, i think that's, you know, that doesn't bother me as much, but he does say that the unintended

consequences -- and we did discuss this in our hearing last week -- would be a tightening of credit and an inability -- if you can't get a qualified mortgage, you're out of the game. everybody on our panel said nobody's going to write a mortgage that's not a qualified mortgage. it needs to have bright lines in terms of the legal protections. so do you agree that the safest way to insure that standard is to not, not overly litigate it, to get the legal safe harbor on this, or what is your position on that? >> well, i mean, as always, chairman capito, thank you for raising the set of reforms around mortgages because it's the top of our policy agenda for a reason. it's the one that we have the most impact on. the ability to repay provision with respect to mortgages which most people call the qualified mortgage rulemaking is a pending rulemaking, so i'm a little con trained in -- constrained in terms of how i can talk about

it. but it is difficult to find a lot of dissenting voices to the core notion you're saying, which is that bright minds matter. to the extent that the qualified mortgage is meant to be at the time of origination to provide some manner or of presumption, either irrebuttable or rebuttable in some way, well, then that's not especially helpful if no one knows whether or not the loan -- when made -- is, in fact a qualified mortgage. so i think most of the commenters throughout the two comment period on the qm rule have made very similar arguments. there are related issues with respect to the degree and magnitude of litigation risk that we recently reopened the comment period to get more perspectives on. i know that your letter -- and thank you for it -- takes a point of view on that question. i would characterize the point of view in that letter as being quite solidly within the spectrum of the wide diversity of perspectives on litigation

risk as evidenced by the comments we've received. we are trying to move forward on the timetable we've laid out. >> i would also bring up and caution you that in this article that was written in "the wall street journal," opinion article that raises some questions and we've heard this in our office of habitat for humanity and other nonprofits that try to get nonqualified borrowers to be in a home, sweat equity, those kinds of things. i would hope that would be taken into consideration for these really valuable programs to move forward. i guess my other question, my final question -- i don't have time for a final question. maybe i'll come back afterwards. ms. maloney. >> thank the gentlelady, and i would like to add my voice with concern on the stay at home moms. it was certainly not the intention when i authored the bill to in any way roll back rights of women. and just on my own calls that i hear in my district from stay at

home momses, this has been quite a challenge. so i look forward to your report, and i hope that you can make accommodations that are in line with the spirit of the law. and this is something we agree on. thises something that we both -- this is something we both support wholeheartedly. we're having a day on the floor next week on regulatory burdens, and many people or some people on the other side of the aisle have criticized the cfpb claiming that it has too much of a regulatory burden on smaller institutions and businesses, yet i do note that in the financial reform we made a point of requiring that the bureau convene panels during the rulemakings process to assess the effects of proposal vote small businesses k. you report on how this process is working, and very importantly in your data-driven research has it been

any type of a burden in any way? also some have claimed that it has insured the end of free checking. would you agree with that statement, or could you give your analysis of that particular complaint, shall we say? i do want to say i'm very proud to have been one of the authors of dodd-frank and worked on the conference committee, and i feel this is a centerpiece, an incredibly important reform. i support it completely. but it's also very important to answer any types of criticism that come our way, so i look forward to your response, thank you. >> thank you, ranking member maloney, and why don't i take those questions in the order in which you proposed them. first, with respect to burdens on smaller institutions. sometimes lost and perhaps it's my own fault for not being as clear about this as maybe i can be, the cfpb does not supervise

or enforce the law with respect to small banks. there are 15,000 banks, thrifts and credit unions within the country. our supervision authority extends to call it the biggest 105. second are any punitive burden associated with abiding by regulations that are promulgated by the cfpb. although conceptually i understand that notion, the fact of the matter is that we have finalized two, two substantive rule makings since being in business for a year, one of which by its terms kept in place the status quo, the transactions act to rulemaking, and the other is not yet effective and, indeed, we have publicly said we are considering means by which to provide exemptions for smaller providers. so the burden argument, with the smaller institutions i think we've been quite attentive to. >> what was the second rule you

came forward with? >> the remittance rulemaking. it is not yet effective and, second, we are now considering means by which to provide exemptions or different requirements we -- you know, i am essentially quite a conservative person. i tend to be slightly fearful and anxious about things that are new. and we are the first financial regulator to conduct small business review panels. there are only two other federal agencies that do them, that's osha and the epa, and so i will confess to a certain amount of anxiety a year ago about how this would work out. i have been very pleased, personally, with how it is we have been able to convene panels of small community representatives, the diligence that the representatives have taken to the task at hand, the feedback we have gotten. and as i think you probably have already seen in a couple of our proposals and will continue to

see, for example, when it comes out, we have been able to listen to quite right-minded concerns and adapt to them where we can. t been a real benefit to us, and i'm proud of the team that is responsible for that at the bureau. finally just briefly on the notion of free checking, the federal reserve board had a not-insubstantial change to overdraft fee opt-in a couple years ago. we have said that we will evaluate how it is that the marketplace has changed since then. we haven't actually, we don't actually know how the marketplace has changed until we do the work, and as a result the notion that somehow the cfpb has either promoted or prevented free checking, i think, is just factually inaccurate. second, i will just point out not just from this particular job i'm in, but from years prior there is no free anything. one way or another products that provide value like institutions tend to charge for one way or

another. >> my time has expired. thank you. >> mr. reface si for five minutes. >> thank you, madam chairman. thank you, many date, for being here -- mr. date, for being here. on june 28th, the cfpb will assert that the pure bureau's transfer does not waive privilege. how do you address the concerns raised by the american bar association because the proposed rule is based in part on an assertion of the bureau's authority to compel production of privileged materials, the proposed rule may not protect the privileged status of the information? >> i understand the, i understand that concerns have been voiced, and, you know, it is a concern that caused us to propose and then finalize exactly the rulemaking that you're referring to, congressman. supervision of banks and nonbanks is core to what we do. i would argue of the many policy tools we have, it is the

singlemost central, it is the singlemost flexible, it is the one that makes everything else better. supervision depends on confidential information being shared with regulators, full stop. you cannot create a supervisory relationship that is going to be meaningfully additive to the system unless institutions can count on that. which is why we proceeded with and finalized the rule that is you discussed. >> again, i appreciate the intentions of the rule, but i share some of the concerns of the american bar association. i believe the statutory change is preferable. in fact, in recent congressional testimony, director cordray also stated that legislation would be helpful in removing all doubt. it is for that reason i supported representative zynga's efforts in 40314 -- 4014. many nonbank financial institutions are now subject to the cfpb. many of these nonbank institutions are also regulated by the consumer finance regulators, not state bank

supervisors as currently defined under the fdi act. regardless of how an institution is regulated at the same level i believe they should be extended the same protection when they and their regulators share information with the cfpb. so i would ask you, can you envision a scenario when the cfpb will collect information from a nonbank financial company? >> certainly, congressman. nondepository supervision while given the nature of them, the number of them, the diversity of their models, that process may not look identical to say a process with respect to a $150 billion bank, it will rely on the exchange of information, absolutely. >> sure. can you envision a scenario where the cfpb might share or collect information with a state consumer finance regulator as opposed to a state bank regulator? >> with we have loom all gated our -- promulgated our point of view on when it is and i believe

that that, that that takes account of that possibility where there's a shared purpose and confidentiality is assured. so, again, there is -- i understand and appreciate the analogous situation that nondepositories are in versus depositories. >> so there is a possibility that there'd be -- >> and i guess i would say core to the question is to the extent that confidential information can be important to enabling an effective supervisory regime, we will insist the confidential information be shared. and we'll be, obviously, quite careful with it. again, our point of view is that, is that that does not waive somehow attorney/client privilege for the supervised institutions, but to the extent that there is doubt out there -- and i'm not quibbling with whether or not there is, in fact, some doubt -- then statutory remedy is something as director cordray's pointed out, something that we would welcome.