i totally agree with that. >> okay. >> i'd just like to drop a couple -- sorry. i would just like to add a little bit to that. i think in addition to adding cost, it could create some unintended consequences. we could discourage a recovering market with forestry. we don't need those regulations because this farm bill had the wisdom to realize that voluntary incentive-based programs are really more effective than the hammer of legislation, and i think that the bill, i think it was the sieve have i cultural regulatory act would be a good solution to remove the uncertainty that now hangs over the head of forest landowners. i don't think the regulation is needed. i think clarification of the statute would be appropriate and i fear that if it were enforced

as some think it might under the 9th circuit, we could clearly have an unintended consequence of discouraging forestry. >> indulge? thank you. i just -- it's hard for me to believe that this issue is an issue that, you know, is really causing a big, major problem, sediment contamination. obviously on forest roads when there's maybe timbering going on in that area there would be more traffic. lots of times those are dormant. i think the vegetation grows up. can you just quickly let me know if there's a big deal. and how big a deal is this or should epa or whatever be focused on other areas? >> i candidly think they should focus their attention elsewhere because a properly managed forest road is a nonevent with respect to water quality. under virginia's bmps that's going to manage the water

quality in a voluntary way. on our farm, for example, we re-establish any roads that have been disturbed. a road by convention is to avoid random compaction. you put your roads in a smart place, you design them properly with water bars, you use the roads when you need to, then you promptly re-establish a cover on them and if you do those things, and that's what most good stewards do, that's what the bmps encourage, we've got a non-issue as it relates to a point source and epa. >> thank you very much, and thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, gentlemen. now recognize the gentleman from colorado, mr. tipton. >> thank you, mr. chairman. you're running a brilliant senate hearing here. i wanted to have it happen twice. i want to thank our panel for being here. you speak to something that speaks to my heart. on the western slope in color o

colorado, 70% of the land is federal, state, or tribal lands. a lot of the forest, the 100,000 trees per day that you mentioned are falling in our forests right now are creating an incredible challenge in terms of maintaining healthy forests, in terms of the fire threat. could you maybe speak to -- because we're talking -- mr. burke was noting a little bit about water quality issues, if these forests burn, what type of impact is that going to have on water quality? >> that's absolutely devastating, sir. if you look at what happened after some of the big fires in colorado to the denver watershed in particular, the costs are astronomical. those are individuals paying a great deal more in the city of denver because they're relying on water from other parts of the state to be clean and healthy. the fact of the matter is, when these trees burn and the soil is scorched, it doesn't hold the water, it doesn't filter the water, and we have tremendous impacts on our reservoirs

because they fill up with sediment. >> would it be accurate to be able to say that it we do not follow some of the prescriptions that mr. burke and some of the others are speaking to now to manage healthy forests, we can literally sterilize the soil with high fire going through these areas and when we're talking about protecting our water, protecting our watersheds in the west where we have maybe 12, 14 inches of rainfall that comes in a total year, it is in best interests of this country, the environmental protection agency, our states and our nation to actively manage these forests? >> there's no question, sir. absolutely. that is absolutely what we should be doing today, and i would actually ask the congress and this committee to even take a look at could we clarify parts of the healthy forest restoration act to ensure that the forest service can get this work done on an emergency basis as well. >> so would you agree, we just held a subcommittee hearing that

i chaired out in colorado trying to get an actual answer to the point, is the bark beetle an imminent threat? >> there's no question. >> no question that it is an imminent threat. so in the interests of this country, the forest service, the blm should be allowing the flexibility to be able to address this properly. >> absolutely and they have the skills to do it. the problem is the process. >> and the process. that leads me back to mr. burke when you're talking about some of the regulatory compliance. and you'll find this shocking, but across the board we continue to hear about over regulation, duplicative regulation which is inhibiting our ability to be able to make common sense decisions, increasing costs. when we're talking about the forests, don't they actually filter water for us? isn't that one of the clean sources coming out? >> that's correct. excuse me. that's correct. if you think again of the forest

as our watershed, it's accomplishing several things. it's allowing the water to proceed to streams and rivers gently and carefully but also filters it. on our farm, for example, under crp we have filter strips that are grassy areas that filter the nutrients before they reach the streams. on our forested areas in compliance with many of the farm bill programs, again, not regulatory compliance but incentive-based voluntary compliance we are leaving forested buffers under the bmps which protect the water quality, and i'll second your concern about fire. even though we speak for a group of private landowners, the health of the forest on federal lands is very important to us because we are your neighbor and if a bug outbreak gets to roaring or there's improper forest management on adjacent property, there can be fire risk

to us as neighbors to federal property. forest health is important across the board and these programs are set to do that and should continue. >> great. i appreciate that. mr. schwab, you have some counterparts in colorado that share your concern when it comes to some of the forest contracts. colorado we have one mill remaining in the state of colorado and it's under receivership. we have 100,000 trees falling every day creating a fire threat into our areas. biomass plants, they're ready to go if they can just get the approval out of the forest service to move forward. do you have kind of a recommendation in regards to how to be able to structure those contracts so that you can make your business work so we can make healthy forests and we can be working with some common sense in terms of forest management? >> i personally have worked with the stewardship contracting system and it works really, really well so, i mean, the easier you can make it to where

your contractors are willing to place a bid on it as close to your markets and other things, the better off you are all the way going to be. but to simplify the contracting process, to make it work for everybody would be super, but really the biggest hurdle we experience as loggers bidding on federal contracts is getting the timber sale approved to begin with and to go through all the environmental studies and the ar key owe logical studies. the bureaucratic red tape that everybody has to deal with mord to put this valuable resource that this country owns on the marketplace to be able to get it to be sold is a nightmare. and so if you could somehow increase efficiency through the governmental bureaucracy side of it, then i think we could be moving forward. and stewardship contracting is a great way to do that because you're taking in essence two

contracts and folding them into one and you're taking a resource over here and applying it to needs over there, whether it's road building, or fire line creation, or even if it's a cost situation of getting beetle kills down, buffer strips around those beetle kills, you can fold that right on into stewardship. so making it simple and giving your foresters on the ground the ability to be able to make a decision and follow through with those decisions will be crucial in being able to solve these problems. >> just to jump in very quickly. you know, in many cases on the federal side it can take 18 months for them to get a project done in some of these beetle areas. mr. burke has pine beetle problems in virginia, and we were talking just a little bit earlier. he told me the trees that i have with pine beetles are -- were at the mill before the beetles woke up before the winter. that's what we need to do on our federal lands as well. >> thank you, gentlemen. >> thank you, gentlemen. i'll recognize the gentleman from florida, mr. sutherland,

for questioning. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. schwab continuing on the note from my good friend from colorado, you had mentioned in your testimony our nations' loggers are in trouble. in a recent study completed by the wood supply research institute indicates we have lost close to 40% of logging capacity here in the united states. i personally know many of these small family-owned businesses and know that they contribute greatly to communities where unemployment is still hovering between 15 and 20%. the united states is the world's largest consumer of forest products, and we would prefer promoting job creation and economic stability here in the united states. could you quickly elaborate on the major challenges you face, you know, today? your industry? because i know your family business. i know the impact you have on your community and i know it's a sacrifice for you to be here and i certainly appreciate your

presence. so just what are maybe one of the top two things that you feel are the biggest threat to you and your livelihood. >> today it's overregulation. we in the logging side of the forest industry have tremendous amount of capital investment in our equipment. today to buy a new piece of equipment we're spending anywhere from 20 to 50 more thousand dollars per unit per piece of equipment just to comply with epa air regulations for our new diesel engines. and what that's doing is increasing the cost of my equipment but not just that, but i'm not getting any more production out of that piece of equipment because of that in cost. uncertainty. you know, with the 9th circuit court ruling on water runoff on forest roads and calling that a point source pollution, which is assanine, that is causing

uncertainty in our industry where we have possibly new business development coming along or new markets being developed, they're wanting to know, okay, what's this increased regulation going to cost me? what's going to happen here? so that's uncertainty. so -- and then the other thing is access to the resource. the congressman from colorado mentions that he has beetle problems in his forests. there are regions in this country where 80% of the land base in rural america is owned or managed by the federal government. we do not have access to those forests today as timber harvesters. to be able to manage that resource that doesn't cost this country anything to grow. it should be putting money into the coffers. i heard another congressman mention the first panel about where are we going to get the money from? how are we going to pay for these federal programs? gentlemen, you have the money growing in the forests right now and it's time for us as americans to be able to go out there and harvest that resource that god put on that ground for

us to harvest and enjoy and be able to put that money back into the could have fers. most of the men at this table right here are not standing here with their hand out asking you for money. we're wanting to put money into the treasury. we want to create jobs. so if you eliminate regulation from stifling our industry and you eliminate bureaucracy on trying to cut our timber, our timber on federal lands, i think our industry could have a great chance of recovering in a quick way. >> touche, mr. schwab. mr. holmes, i am familiar with your neck of the woods. you have some pretty nice deer hunting up there in the blackbelt, and so my family enjoys your area. let me ask you, being from alabama, we've talked about the 9th circuit and what has occurred. it seems to me that the epa in

many ways is -- produces solutions that are looking for problems and so tell me about your area. i know you're a couple hundred miles north of us, relating to that issue and piggyback off of what mr. schwab has said. >> yes, sir. one -- one of the other things that i would like to address that mr. schwab said that i think would be beneficial to you is in the south we also have a pine beetle. we have the southern pine beetle in the south. >> right. >> and it has devastated us back in the '80s. really devastated us. >> yes, sir. >> and he was talking about the cost of his equipment and getting things done. we used to have -- in florida we had a little pulpwood trucks and in alabama we had little pulpwood trucks running around with people who would get out and take care of these small areas of southern pine beetle,

and i'm just wondering what's going to happen because we've already missed one cycle of pine beetles in the southeast. we're due for another big slam. and what's going to happen when you call up mr. schwab that's got to bring a half a million dollars worth of equipment to come in and cut 20 acres of pine beetle infestation? he's going to laugh at you. >> right. right. >> and i'm very worried about what's -- you know, what is going to happen now because we had -- we had small bases that could go in and cut out these areas and tend to that and we don't have that now. and it's going to be something to look at. but as mr. burke said, you know, our log roads, i have 4,000 acre of timber on my farm.

the whole family's got about 18,000 acres of timbered land. we maintain our own roads. when we -- when we cut timber, we try not to have large timber sales. it is -- we take out a retainer up front. they pay us an amount of money to make sure that our roads are re-established, our water bars are put-back in. if there are any stream crossings that were disturbed, they're to be put-back the way that they were. we -- we can handle this in -- and i -- being in soil and water conservation districts, we really speak a lot about being locally led. this is locally led. it's also a volunteer movement. with us having best management practices having smz guidelines to go on, i see this as a non-issue. >> right. many of us do as well, sir.

is that okay, mr. chairman? >> just very briefly to echo this point. you have a he all made excellent points about over regulation in this sense. the nation's chief forester has said that voluntary and in some cases mandatory bmps have done the job. i have the research information to back that up and would be happy to provide the committee that information. >> without objection. >> i would ask that that be added to the record. >> absolutely. and i think the real -- the real issue here is the national alliance of forest owners estimates that the costs could be almost $6 billion if this was a regulatory action that came down from epa. we know it's not necessarily epas faults. the courts are over zealous, etc. but $6 billion that we could be spending on improving forest habitat for wildlife, improving it for people, improving it for water quality. there's much better use of money than on this regulation. thank you. >> no, thank you.

i yield back. >> thank you. one final question actually for all the panelists who would like to weigh in on, you know, we -- you know, the purpose of regulation, and the role -- the impact of overregulation, i guess, is what my question is about. you know, we -- we talk about healthy forests and we talk about, you know, you have to manage a forest for it to be healthy. that means timbering. that means dealing with the fire load. that means preventing wild fires. that means managing the invasive species that have been mentioned here today. you know, so whether it's over regulation as related to being declared as a point source, regulation in terms of road -- the 9th circuit rolling with roads or just overregulation in general, you know, we've talked about jobs. we've talked about economic impact, those types of things. i just want to focus with my final question, with a healthy forest that has to be managed to be healthy.

how devastating is over regulation to having healthy forests in this country? >> mr. chairman, it's very devastating because we have proven, this inbe dus stri as a whole nationwide has proven that we can create our best management practices ourselves. we can police ourselves. in florida where i'm from, we're at 99% compliance to the best management practices that we put in place ourselves. we don't need the epa to come m and tell us that our air quality coming out of our equipment that we're using to harvest the forest where the area is the cleanest is too dirty. we don't need the epa or the 9th circuit court coming in and telling us that our roads that rain -- that rain is a point source pollution running off a road. it's insane. and it is -- it is -- what it's going to cause is the economic advantage of going in here and doing the first time thinning or

doing a clear-cut on a stand that needs to be clear-cut because it's beetle infested or whatever it is to regenerate new growth, it's not going to be economically advantageous for us as an industry to do this so the forests will continue to fall into disrepair, fire hazards will happen, then your water quality will go down. overregulation is what is stifling what we're doing as an industry. >> go ahead, mr. holmes, please. >> just to follow up again on what mr. schwab said. you know, about 30 years ago i was in pierre county with an 8-year-old child and we were going through a logging road. i had a piece of ground flagged. my son says, daddy, what are you going to do -- what's going on? i says, well, son, i said, we're going to clear-cut this -- this

track of timber right here. and we were having infestation of bugs. we lost a good many of the pine trees. a lot of them were over 100 years old from old fields that had grown back up into trees. so he starts crying, because that's one of the places he liked to hunt. he killed his first deer there when he was 8 years old. and i said, you know, son, i said, trees are just like people. and i said, we all have a lifetime. and to maintain a healthy forest and to -- and to maintain the beauty and the aesthetics and the wildlife that you want to see, sometimes we have to remove some of this. and i've seen it -- i've been to alaska and i've seen the beetle outbreaks there. i've been to colorado and i've seen the outbreaks there. and if we -- we have got scientific proof, research done that shows that if we can keep the understory removed out from

under some of this forest and we can keep a thinning on some of these trees, that we have a healthier forest that provides abundance of wildlife, water quality, air quality, everything else. i agree with mr. schwab. why can't we do something about using those monies that we as americans all have to take care of the needs that we have taken -- that needed to be taken care of and also have a healthier forest? >> very good. go ahead, mr. burke. >> let me just share an example of where i think regulation with respect to roads would be negative as opposed to a more positive approach. if you required a road permit, the cost would be significant. it would not benefit the land directly, and you'll see why in a minute. it would simply be an additional cost which would make the cost

on the landowners and the cost to the loggers more to conduct healthy forest harvesting and thinning. compare that to the voluntary incentive-based leverage, if you will, when farm bill money is put into the hands of private landowners. the private landowner adds his or her own additional money, they add sweat equity, and then they do practices which will last for a long, long time. those benefits get a significant leverage effect and provide much better forest protection, they provide better water quality protection, better fire management. so that's a much better approach than to regulate. >> thank you. mr. dye, did you have comments? >> regulations are meant to protect us from something, but if you look at the list of activities in the forest and what is regulated, it has gone 180 degrees the other way. because of regulations we have

increased forest fires, increased bug outbreaks, a worsening economy, uncertainty for those that want to invest in businesses which leads to declining employment. so regulations to protect ourselves from -- has -- has gone 180 degrees of its actual intent. >> very good. i want to thank all the members of the second panel. i want to thank you for your expertise. thank you for your experience and thank you for your endurance for joining us today. the -- as you -- hopefully you saw from the interest and even i would say the passion of the members of the subcommittee, this subcommittee takes this responsibility very, very seriously. today we've had the opportunity

obviously in this kind of final subcommittee hearing on the energy and forestry titles to get some excellent input and information. our next step really is to write a farm bill using the information that we have here. so we will be under the leadership of chairman lucas. he will be starting that process. certainly any additional resources. we'll look forward to the data you talked about. open invitation to -- ?

watch for book tv and american history tv in wichita on cspan ii. live now to capitol hill for a senate homeland security subcommittee hearing on the shortage of foreign language speakers in the federal government with officials from the fbi, the defense and state department, and the department of education. they'll be looking at how language skill deficiencies affect national security and the ways to increase the united states' language capabilities.