SFAC/RF/Reps Meeting

SFAC/RF/Reps Meeting

Sacramento

April 23, 2014

Minutes

Participants:

SFAC / Affiliation / Political Representatives
Bill Wickman and Laurel Brent Bumb / SFAC Spokesperson's / Senator Feinstein
John Hofmann / Amador Co / Jessica Hartzell Glass
Lori Simpson (Phone) / Plumas Co Board / Congressman LaMalfa
Marcia Armstrong / Siskiyou Co Board / Mr. LaMalfa
Gerry Hemmingsen / Del Norte Co Board / Lisa Buescher
Leonard Moty / Shasta Co Board / Brenda Haynes
Sean Curtis / Modoc Co Farm Bureau / Tim Holabird
Joe Laurence
(Phone) / Douglas Co, OR, Co Commissioner
Melinda Fleming
(phone) / TuCARE / Congressman McClintock
Erin Huston
(Phone) / California Farm Bureau / Mr. McClintock
Dave Eggerton / ElDorado / Rocky Deal
Pat Kidder / CA Fire Safe Council / Kimberly Pruitt
Frank Stewart / State Fire Safe Council / Brittan Specht
Ross Branch / El Dorado County
Mike Wood / Carpenter Union – Chester/Quincy / US Forest Service – Regional Office
Sylvia Milligan / ROC / Randy Moore – Regional Forester
Dick Wright / Shasta Co Coord Council / Barnie Gyant- Dep Regional Forester
Roger Jaegel (phone) / Trinity County / Deb Whitman
Mark Luster / SPI Community Relations / Stephanie Gomes
Eric Carleson / Assoc CA Loggers / Deb Whitall
Bruce Courtright / NIECW / Sherry Reckler
Rayne Pegg / CA Farm Bureau
John Sheehan / Quincy Library Group
Tim Bordges / Bordges, Inc
Don Yegge (phone) / Sierra County
Paul Roen / Sierra Co Bd
Rick Farinelli / Madera Co Bd
Mike Applegarth / El Dorado Co
Warren Jensen / CSU Chico
Mike Brown / N Lake Tahoe Fire
Ben Sharit / Tahoe Douglas FPD
John Roen / Sierra County

This meeting emphasized the important role that the SFAC plays in trying to bridge the gap between our Political leaders and Agency leaders. The first two hours of the meeting were led by Mr. LaMalfa and Mr. McClintock and focused on their desire to have the Regional Forester and staff be responsive to the needs of the local elected officials and their constituents. Their main talking points centered on;

1. Increasing Pace and Scale

a) The Region provided handouts that were sent out by SFAC prior to the meeting.

b) Discussion of economics of projects in relation to amount of sawlog versus biomass material. The SFAC encourages both parties to work together to find ways to work with the State to address this vital issue in the formula of accomplishing restoration and landscape fuel break designs. Currently there are many groups working on the biomass issue and just this week AB2363 was introduced and will have a hearing on Monday. Our Regional Forester and Federal representatives must work together with the State to highlight the critical situation our public lands are in and the benefits that biomass energy can offer in reducing fire risk/loss, increasing water yield, protecting communities, assuring recreation and species are maintained by reducing the impacts associated with wildfire and reducing the GHG emissions associated with wildfire that are now a dominant part of the States annual emissions.

1. Restoring Domestic Animal Grazing

a) There was a general discussion on number of permits and the permits that still require NEPA to address allotments that currently do not allow use.

1. Recreation on the NF

a) Mr. LaMalfa and McClintock voiced concern about some segments of the recreation community, specifically motorized access. This continues to be an issue. The other concern involved the use of public lands and the permitting process as well as agencies lack of response or, what is felt by some, to be barriers that are commonly found to not allow use.

1. Nevada Fire Safe Council

a) There is a continuing issue with payment to contractors and others who did legitimate business to reduce the risk of wildfire within the Lake Tahoe Basin. This now involves OIG and Office of General Council and mingling of funds as well as bankruptcy proceedings. The voiced concern was over the amount of federal dollars that will go into this issue versus the funds still available to pay the remaining outstanding obligations for work completed.

1. Fire – There has been discussion within the House on changing the funding for fire suppression to allow payments to come out of national disaster funds. At this time there is not progress with this proposal. As funding now stands, when the fire suppression annual appropriation funds are depleted, then the agency must transfer funds from other budget line items, such as timber, hazardous fuels and veg management. The appropriated fire funds now are over 50 percent of the regional budget and thus greatly reduces the ability to get project work done and funded. Then when a larger fire season happens, the agency stops funding into the critical work areas that address ecosystem restoration projects.

The SFAC recognized the importance of the work we have taken on with both our political representatives as well as agency in trying to identify and offer solutions to most to the issues discussed at this meeting. Specifics from the discussions above can be centered on the following legislative items that provide the regulations that our agencies must follow;

1) Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA)- The SFAC has highlighted this specific piece of legislation as the key to increasing the pace and scale of ecosystem restoration and reducing the upfront appropriations used to implement work on the ground. This meeting again brought this issue to the front with questions relating to why the Agency has fallen short in specific areas. Specifically, the Shasta-Trinity, Klamath and now the Modoc NF. Congress and Agencies have devoted at least $40million for the last few years to support individual collaboratives and prescribe that collaboration is the key to reducing litigation. What is also evident from our discussions was that no matter how much money and time is used to put viable projects together, outside groups are still litigating to nullify all of the good that was done. Specific pieces of legislation have identified various ways to change the current language of the EAJA, to no avail. Many groups are recognizing and adapting to the need to thin our over-crowded forests in order to return our public lands to their once natural state. However, the general public and ecosystem still bears the brunt of the current liberties of EAJA. The SFAC will continue to discuss reasonable change with our representatives.

2) NEPA – Current NEPA Mr. LaMalfa and Mr. McClintock asked for specifics on areas of NEPA, if changed, could lead to maintaining the intent of the law while reducing the time, expense and size of current documents. This same topic was discussed by the SFAC sub committee with Regional Office staff at our February 19th meeting in Willows. The SFAC can be a lead for proposing changes if some specifics were offered. SFAC feels that if a more definitive description of “major” federal action was provided as well as using the ability to reference past NEPA documents instead of always creating new are two possible avenues to look at. Again, the feeling of the agency and OGC is that because of litigation, it is not feasible to use past NEPA documents and decisions to speed current related projects and reduce the size and expense. A current study by the Society of American Foresters showed that in Region 5,

3) ESA

4) EPA

We discussed various pieces of proposed legislation which were outlined on the day’s agenda (HR 1526 and S 1966). In general, SFAC feels current or future proposals with emphasis in the following areas could benefit the ecosystem as well as the human element:

1. Identification of priority areas for management and a set acreage to increase the pace of treatment to address the stated issues above.
2. Realization that in implementing the needed treatments, more products will be created that will increase the revenue return to counties and thus lessening the appropriation needs to meet the obligations set in the Act of 1908 as well as obligations set through the Oregon and California Railroad Act.
3. Realization that because of current NEPA direction and litigation, project environmental documentation encumbers approximately 70 percent of the budget for environmental projects to address ecosystem restoration. There needs to be some relief in this process when projects are repetitive in objectives and purpose and need.
4. Support for individual agency specialists and scientist being accountable for species oversight and not having to be reviewed by additional regulatory agencies.
5. A need to review and update the Equal Access to Justice Act.

A re-occurring question that arose during the discussion did center on litigation. The concern was that many managers and deciding officials might alter projects and reduce them in scope to lessen the potential for litigation. In addition, the agency has moved the financial burden to this same level which also weighs in making the necessary decisions that would increase the pace and scale of ecosystem restoration. The SFAC would recommend that the current burden for litigation fees be moved to the legal branch of the agency or to the Department of Justice which represents the agency. This would encourage those groups to better prepare and defend the agencies.

Individual discussion items were:

1) Stewardship contracting and 25% funds.

1) With the Farm Bill passage of permanent Stewardship authority, there was discussion on the continuing need and concern over the language not allowing the collection of revenue from the sale of products that would contribute to the 25% return to counties. With the emphasis more and more on the use of Stewardship contracting, there is also a growing concern over how the counties will fall further behind in the amount that they will receive from the public lands and loss of tax base. If current proposed legislation is not passed to address this issue, as well as only a one year extension of SRS, at reduced funding, then our counties will continue to see their 25% revenue shrink even further. It was stated that when Senator Feinstein's office asked various Counties about this issue, there was a mixed response. Some Counties stated that it was not an alarming issue because the use of Stewardship contracts brought jobs and work to the county. The SFAC still feels that with the greatly reduced budgets and lack of increase in actual project work, Stewardship contracting is not providing the needed off-set for the lack of 25% revenue funds.

2) USC579c.

1) There was a general discussion on the possibility of acting on the SFAC and Plumas County Economic Recovery Committee proposal for a language change to USC 579c. This language and proposal are specific to fire settlement dollars and the fact that our counties are closed out of any of these funds. I will assure that all information, past and present, will be posted on our sfacoalition.com web site. The questions centered on if the counties would lobby for lawsuits for fire settlements if there was a language change and if there would be a budget impact if this went through. Our response was the counties would not likely become involved in the fire settlement issue, but it is impossible to say this with a hundred percent certainty. The fact remains, that in many instances, fire settlements are determined on resource values impacted and related restoration needs. What the counties are losing in many cases is the potential revenue flow from timber and recreation that is lost due to wildfires. In these cases, lost are the decades of potential revenue return from timber and a shorter return from potential recreation use of the same burned areas.

2) In relation to the question, “if the language was changed and the counties received a share of the settlement dollars, would there be a future budget impact?” The SFAC stated that currently, in many instances, the fire settlement funds are not being used in a timely manner and often individual forests ask outside groups how to spend the funds. If this is the case, then we argue that more funds are typically collected than what are spent. If this is the typical case, then any percentage of the upfront settlement funds would not have to be replaced by appropriations.

There was discussion on how and who does SFAC engage from various Conservation groups. It was recommended and emphasized that to be more effective with our efforts and proposing legislation, the SFAC needs to work with various groups who also want to see necessary changes made to accomplish ecosystem restoration. We need to identify these groups and begin to build a working relationship with them. It was also recommended to work with local coalitions such as fire safe councils, RAC's and build legislation around these local coalitions.

Notes taken and submitted by Bill Wickman, Co-Spokesperson