mr. mcguire brought this up, the concern with the avalanche services and i think mr. mcguire you said there are 13 throughout the forest service but they are under funded by half. so, mr. french, i am curious your thoughts on that and how senate bill 1723 the ski area fee retention act will help address that issue? >> thank you for the question. we agree if you look at the overall capacity of the agency to deliver nonfire work it has dropped by almost 40% in the last 15 years. you're seeing acute symptoms in places like this. this bill will directly help provide capacity into managing the ski area permits and that provides additional capacity we might use toward those areas to help in other areas such as the avalanche centers. so it is a direct help. >> when you talk about the work that you're doing in avalanche safety do you also talk about, and will this help you with education as well? is that a key piece of what you do when you address the avalanche services? >> the key focus of our avalanche services is about prevention and then safety and in preventing avalanches

mr. mcguire, to go back to the vision zero and the declaration of a pedestrian safety emergency, you're right, we did have a very good presentation to peg on the red light cameras. thank you for that. i think all the members really dug into that and asked a lot of questions. i'm not sure that that really satisfied the public from what i've been hearing. we got people to talk about it more. i'm not sure what the answer is there to get the information out more broadly and to help people understand about that program, sort of when we use it and what the steps are. the presentation was fantastic, so i'm not sure how we can roll it out at this board meeting or maybe there is a good blog post on it, but something. i think it raised more questions than we answered. >> we can look for ways to get that out. >> because it was a good presentation. i certainly do understand a lot more about the red light program. i worry that we have let the public think that that is our gold standard of what we do and wnl one of the things in our toolbox. there are many things that we presented that achieve measurable r

mr. mcguire about how this will impact the ski industry, i want to mention we have two ski areas in west virginia that use forest service land. unfortunately the third area had to close early this year and is now for sale. but it will be back up and running. i look forward to the discussion about ways we can be better partners with the ski industry. the appropriate use of revenue from fees and a fair return to the taxpayers. we also will be discussing a bill that would provide assistance to those leading backpacking trips on federal land. and senator wyden's bill which proposes to establish a system of national recreation areas. west virginia was actually home to the first national recreation area designated in the united states in 1965. these bills all have common themes, facilitating people's ability to enjoy public lands while supporting jobs and the local economies. following this hearing, chairman murkowski and i will get to work with our colleagues on a recreation package to report out of this committee. the heart and soul of that package will be the same as the bills we're discuss

mr. mcguire said the following, quote, we must protect those who demonstrate courage to report alleged wrongdoing. the inspector general is properly protecting the complainants' identity and will not permit the complainant to be subjected to any retaliation or adverse consequences for communicating the complaint to the inspector general, unquote. yesterday in floor remarks, the junior senator from kentucky compared the whistle-blower to edward snowden and argued that the current concerns about the safety of the whistle-blower are nothing more than, quote, selective outrage, unquote. to be clear, edward snowden broke the law. he abused his security c clearance and position of trust to leak classified information to the press. he sought safe haven in russia, and we're unaware of any other information that he may have shared that could further jeopardize national security. the current whistle-blower has strictly followed the appropriate channels of reporting at confirmed by director mcguire, and the individual deserves the full protection under the law. the senator from kentucky referenced edward sn