Legislative hearing on: • H.R. 184 (Rep. McClintock), “Action Versus No Action Act” • H.R. 2785 (Rep. Leger Fernandez), “New Mexico Land Grant-Mercedes Historical or Traditional Use Cooperation and Coordination Act” • H.R. 7695 (Rep. Hageman), To provide that the final rule titled “Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation” and issued on January 12, 2001 (66 Fed. Reg. 3244) shall have no force or effect and require the Secretary of Agriculture to construct certain roads on National Forest System lands, and for other purposes. • H.R. 8682 (Rep. Downing), “Accelerating Forest Management Act” • H.R. 8686 (Rep. Gosar), To amend the Military Land Withdrawals Act of 2013 to withdraw and reserve certain public land in the vicinity of Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona. • H.R. 8688 (Rep. Hurd), “Forest Health and Wildlife Risk Reduction Act” • H.R. 8735 (Rep. Panetta), “American Sovereignty and Monterey Historic Military Site Study Act”

The Subcommittee on Federal Lands will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the subcommittee at any time. The subcommittee is meeting today to consider 7 bills: H.R. 184 By Representative McClintock, 2785, Ms. Leger Fernandez, 76-95, Ms. Hageman, 86-82, Mr. Downing, 8686.

Mr. Gosar, 8688. Mr. Hurd, 8735. Representative Panetta. I ask unanimous consent that the following members be allowed to participate in today's hearing from the dais. From Arizona, Mr. Gosar.

From Wyoming, Ms. Hageman. The gentleman from Montana, Mr. Downey. From Colorado, Mr. Hurd. Welcome. Gentleman from California, Mr. Panetta, and from Oregon, Ms. Salinas.

Without objection, so ordered. Under Committee Rule 4F, any oral opening statements at hearings are limited to the Chairman and the Ranking Minority Member. I therefore ask unanimous consent that all other members' opening statements be made part of the hearing record if they are submitted in accordance with Committee Rule 3-.

Without objection. So ordered. I'll now recognize myself for an opening statement. Today's hearing comes at an important moment for the future of our public lands and the communities built around them. Across the West and increasingly across the country, Americans are watching wildfires become more frequent, more destructive, and more expensive, all while federal land management becomes slower, more bureaucratic, and less responsive.

Responsive to on-the-ground realities. For decades, Washington, D.C. has treated active management as controversial and delay as harmless. The results are now impossible to ignore. Millions of acres of federal land are at high risk of catastrophic, catastrophic wildfire. Communities that once viewed wildfire as a seasonal concern now live under year-round threat.

Insurance markets are collapsing in high-risk areas, watersheds and wildlife habitat are being damaged beyond repair. Rural economies tied to forestry and public lands continue to struggle while valuable timber is left standing dead or burning in preventable fires. The bills before us today reflect a different approach, one rooted in the idea that responsible management is not the enemy of conservation. In many cases, it is what makes conservation possible. Representative McClintock's Action Versus No Action Act addresses one of the core problems within the current NEPA process.

Too often, agencies spend years evaluating endless hypothetical alternatives while conditions on the ground continue to deteriorate. In many cases, the greatest environmental consequence is not the proposed action, but the failure to act at all. This legislation recognizes that when forests are overgrown and communities are vulnerable, Endless delays carry their own very real cost. Similarly, Representative Hageman's legislation repealing the 2001 roadless rule similarly recognizes that forests cannot be managed from Washington through blanket prohibitions and one-size-fits-all mandates. We also can't lock our forests up and throw away the key and then be shocked when they turn into tinderboxes ready to explode.

The roadless rule has restricted access and active management across millions of acres, often in areas already facing elevated wildfire risk. 15 Million acres of roadless areas are located within or adjacent to the wildland-urban interface, stymieing both proactive management and wildfire suppression efforts. There are more than 46 million homes at risk in the wildland-urban interface. We need reliable road networks and defensible space in these areas, not overgrown thickets ready to level entire neighborhoods. Healthy forests require management, access, and the ability to respond to changing conditions on the ground.

Without roads, that's simply impossible. We will also examine two important bills from Representatives Downing and Herd that would codify categorical exclusions for salvage and thinning projects on BLM lands. Dead and dying timber does not become less dangerous while paperwork is shuffled between desks in D.C. In many cases, delays simply guarantee larger fires, greater environmental damage, and higher costs to taxpayers down the road. These high-risk forests must be thinned, and if a wildfire does burn, must be salvaged immediately to remove fuel for the next fire.

These are practical tools designed to help land managers respond more quickly on— after wildfire, insect infestation, disease, and other disturbances, while also allowing proactive thinning to reduce future risk. Yet alarmingly, the previous administration removed these tools from the Department of the Interior's toolbox one year after one of the worst wildfire years on record. I'd like to commend the leadership of Secretary Bergum and Deputy Secretary Kate MacGregor for restoring these important flexibilities ahead of what is expected to be another historic fire year. Underlying each of these important forest management bills I've discussed is a broader question about whether federal land management agencies are empowered to solve problems or simply manage processes. Americans expect forests to be healthy, communities to be protected, and public lands to be managed responsibly.

Increasingly, they are frustrated and endangered by a system where litigation risk, procedural delays, and bureaucratic inertia prevent common-sense management from moving forward. Today's discussion is an opportunity to examine policies that move us toward a more proactive and functional approach to public land management, one that prioritizes healthy forests, safer communities, reliable infrastructure, and practical stewardship over analysis paralysis. This is the exact vision that President Trump has put forth in his executive orders on empowering common sense wildfire prevention and response and immediate expansion of American timber production. In addition to forest management, today's hearing includes legislation from Representative Gosar related to the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Yuma serves a critical role in testing advanced military systems that support American readiness and force protection.

This bill would give our military the space they need to safely conduct high-altitude delivery system testing, which is essential to preparing for evolving threats and maintaining America's military advantage. I want to conclude by thanking all of our witnesses for being here today to provide your valuable expertise. I will now recognize the ranking minority member of the full committee, Mr. Huffman, for an opening statement. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome everyone.

Our nation's public lands are under attack these days, and the bill we are considering today to roll back the roadless rule is high on the list of those threats. It would— and it's a monumentally bad idea— it would wreck prime hunting and fishing areas, it would harm the outdoor economy, and it would actually lead to more wildfires. So it's a bad idea. Meanwhile, Trump administration is proposing to administratively roll back the Roadless Rule, which safeguards 44 million acres of the most pristine and treasured forests across our nation, protecting them from clear-cut logging and road building. And so we're seeing a full-spectrum assault on wilderness and public lands these days.

And I want to start by talking about the risks we face if the roadless rule goes away. The breathtaking part of California that I call home is filled with national forests, and in my district there are 33 inventoried roadless areas totaling 450,000 acres. Those areas protect some of the most important wildlife habitat, intact watersheds, and recreation opportunities in Northern California. For example, the Six Rivers National Forest, the Underwood Inventory Roadless Area there offers opportunities for hunting, angling, whitewater sports, and hiking. Its old-growth forests include critical habitat for endangered salmon and owl species.

Outdoor recreation, of course, is a massive economic engine in my district, and roadless areas alone generate an annual $506 million in value for my district. Rescinding the roadless rule risks putting that at risk. But let's talk about why, uh, this effort to repeal the roadless rule is happening. Last summer, when Secretary Rollins originally announced her intent to repeal the roadless rule, she cited wildfire response. As a main reason, and we hear that frequently.

We'll hear it today a lot, I'm sure. I want to be clear that our wildfire crisis is serious. It's a real threat to those of us that live out west, especially in my district, and working to address it is a top priority. But using the threat of wildfire to overturn hard-fought conservation protections is disingenuous, and in this case, a very dangerous excuse to use. The Roadless Rule expressly includes exemptions that allow wildfire response, prevention, and mitigation.

Forest scientists have determined that it's actually the opposite of what Secretary Rollins says. More roads will create more fires. 78% Of human-caused fires in national forests start within a half mile of a road. Repealing this rule has never been about forest health or wildfire response. It's about The Trump administration clearing the way for corporate profits over the long-term health of our public lands and the communities that depend on them.

The American people are strongly against this, if anyone cares across the aisle. Time and again, communities across this nation have opposed the sell-off of their public lands, and that goes for the roadless rule as well. Now, there was a very short comment period after last year's initial announcement, but 99% of people who wrote to the Forest Service said they opposed repealing this rule. And during the original development of the roadless rule in 2001, the Forest Service conducted a very robust public engagement process— over 600 public meetings across the country, more than 1 million comments submitted in favor of the rule. The same standard is not being followed this time.

In fact, communities have had to take it on themselves to organize their own public meetings because they want a record. Of their strong support for the roadless rule. Despite this public sentiment, the Trump administration is purposely hiding the ball from the American people because they know how unpopular their policies are. Now, shutting the public out of decision-making these days seems to be the norm, and it's unfortunate. I'm encouraged we're having a hearing today, but let's not confuse this cheerleading session for repealing the roadless rule with a robust and meaningful public process.

We need to deal the public back in to this kind of policymaking. Congress has to shine a bright light on Donald Trump's attempts to rebrand Washington, D.C. as his own personal playground, for example, so that the American people can see what's really going on. And that's why I've joined with 17 of my Democratic colleagues on this committee to request that the chairman fulfill our oversight responsibility by holding public hearings on the president's proposed billion-dollar ballroom, his vanity arch, and all of his other pet vanity projects in Washington, D.C. My letter to the chairman is right here. If my Republican colleagues support all of these dramatic policy changes, they should at least be willing to have a meaningful public conversation with the American people. And in the case of these vanity projects, And with billions of dollars being lit on fire, taxpayer dollars, they should be willing to do some serious oversight and investigation.

I yield back.

The gentleman yields. I now recognize Representative McClintock for 5 minutes on H.R. 184. Well, thank you. First, Mr. Chairman, listening to the ranking member, I remembered my visit to the command center, the King Fire, the day that it exploded, the firefighters were absolutely certain they'd lose the towns of Forest Hill and Georgetown.

There was no way they could stop it. One of the senior firefighters came to me and with tears in his eyes, he says, "Congressman, I can't even get to this fire on the ground. We used to have good timber roads. I could get equipment out there." He says, "All I can do now is drop stuff from the air and pray to God the wind shifts." Those prayers were answered, but Listening to the foolishness that we just heard on the roads issue, I felt it important to recount that story. But I'm here to speak about the Action Versus No Action Act.

I want to thank you for holding the hearing today. An untended forest is no different than an untended garden. It will grow and grow until it chokes itself to death, and then it will fall victim to disease, pestilence, drought, and ultimately catastrophic fire. That's how nature gardens. She doesn't care that it takes centuries for a forest to regrow.

Nature has all the time in the world. We mortals do care. So at the beginning of the 20th century, we set up land management agencies to do the gardening. We sent foresters out every year to mark off surplus timber, and then we auctioned it off to logging companies that paid us to remove it. A quarter of those revenues went to the local communities and the rest went back into the forests.

The result was healthy, fire-resistant forests, thriving local economies, and a steady stream of revenues. Then in the 1970s, we began passing laws that have made active forest management endlessly time-consuming and ultimately cost-prohibitive. It now takes an average of 5 years to complete an environmental review before we can even begin to remove excess timber. Timber harvests off the federal lands have fallen 80%, the number of mills have plummeted, and fire has returned to remove the excess. In the last 10 years, we've lost a quarter of our national forests to catastrophic fire.

One of the hallmarks of this bureaucratic paralysis by analysis is requiring every conceivable alternative to be painstakingly evaluated. The current NEPA process too often rewards delay over action. Agencies spend enormous amounts of time and money trying to bulletproof environmental documents against lawsuits instead of carrying out urgently needed management activities on the ground. The result is that projects become trapped in an endless cycle of analysis, objections, appeals, and litigation while hazardous conditions worsen year after year. Doing nothing is not a neutral decision.

It is a management decision, a choice, And increasingly, it's the most destructive decision possible. Every year we delay treatment, forests become more overgrown and stressed. Every year of delay means hotter fires, larger fires, more destruction, and higher suppression costs borne by taxpayers. This bill addresses this problem with a straightforward and common-sense reform. This bill simply says that for certain hazardous fuels reduction and forest management projects, agencies should focus their, their environmental review on two alternatives: the proposed action and the no-action alternative.

Instead of forcing agencies to spend years studying endless permutations of management options, this bill restores NEPA to what it was originally intended to be: a decision-making tool, not a procedural weapon used to indefinitely obstruct projects through delay and litigation. This legislation does not eliminate environmental reviews. It does not waive environmental protections. It does not silence public participation. What it does is to establish a more efficient and focused review process so agencies can respond to the wildfire emergency before another community burns to the ground.

It applies only to projects located in high-risk wildfire areas or projects developed through collaborative community-based processes. These include projects proposed through resource advisory committees, collaborative partnerships, or community wildfire protection protection plans. The opponents of active forest management will undoubtedly argue that streamlining review somehow threatens the environment. But the greatest threat to our forests today is not responsible forest management, it is catastrophic wildfire. There is nothing environmentally responsible about allowing millions of acres of forest to incinerate because agencies were trapped in procedural delays.

The choice before Congress is clear. We can continue down the current path, studying forests until they burn, or we can restore common sense and give land managers the ability to act before disaster strikes. This represents a practical step toward restoring active management to our federal forests, reducing wildfire risk, and protecting communities increasingly under constant threat. I yield back.

Thank you, Representative McClintock. I now recognize recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Neguse, for his opening statement. Well, thank you, Chairman Tiffany. I am glad to see that we have more bipartisan bills on our agenda today. I want to briefly highlight two common-sense, community-driven Democratic proposals that represent a great approach to land management.

First, H.R. 2785, Introduced by Ledger— Representative Ledger Fernandez, which rightfully strengthens and clarifies the vital relationship between federal land management agencies, uh, and land grant, Mercedes. And this bill honors historic traditions and ensures local communities have a meaningful voice. Grateful to her for her leadership in bringing this forward, this bill. Also, I want to express my support for Representative Panetta's bill to study the potential inclusion of the Lower Presidio Historic Park in Monterey as a unit of the National Park System.

These are the kind of collaborative, forward-looking proposals this committee should be championing. I do want to express my concern regarding two bills that seek to codify rigid categorical exclusions for stand density projects and salvage logging. While we support increased efficiency, these bills could sidestep the open, transparent processes that lead to better decisions and outcomes. The BLM's categorical exclusion under the first Trump administration, as as we all know, was previously tossed out because the first Trump administration didn't even bother to justify it through the necessary review. The BLM just proposed this expanded CE again in April.

Now we're being asked to codify it. It would be irresponsible, in my view, for Congress to rubber stamp it, given its history and its background. Secondly, the effort to sideline science, compounded by H.R. 184, Which forces an arbitrary action versus no action constraint on NEPA processes. By severely limiting the number of preferred alternatives that can be reviewed, the bill intentionally cuts out scientific rigor, strips the public of its right to weigh in on landless— on land management decisions.

This centerpiece, of course, as we all know, unfortunately, is H.R. 7695, A bill to completely rescind the 2001 roadless rule. We are opposed to this measure, and it must be a major focus of our scrutiny Today, that rule is one of our nation's most successful and enduring conservation legacies. Rescinding it with minimal public comment flies in the face of the historic, rigorous rounds of public meetings and millions of comments that shaped the rule when it was first incepted. Dismantling these protections, in my view, is out of step with the American people.

A vast majority of Americans support the maintaining roadless rule protections. And so I'm certainly— look forward to debating that particular issue here today. Finally, I want to say I am grateful to my colleague Representative Hurd for his leadership with respect to the bill that he's introduced regarding wildfire prevention, and certainly an issue that I care deeply about and that I know we both care deeply about, given the parts of of our wonderful state that we represent. Finally, I want to say thank you to the witnesses for being here, and also just want to say in particular to Associate Chief French, welcome you back. And I want to say thank you to the Department of Interior.

My understanding is that they are working to schedule a briefing in response to the letter that we sent to your agency just a few short weeks ago regarding the terrible wildfire risk that my constituents in Colorado and across the Rocky Mountain West are facing and some of the steps that we'd like to see the Interior Department take around prepositioning aerial resources, just by way of example, so that we can get on top of what is going to be a very difficult fire year. So I look forward to that briefing. My understanding is that was just— or is in the process of being scheduled. And so I look forward to that getting on the books here in short order so that we can figure out how to work together to ensure that our communities are prepared. With that, I will yield back.

The ranking member yields, and I now recognize Representative Leger Fernandez for 5 minutes on her bill, H.R. 2785. Thank you, Chairman Tiffany, and thank you, Ranking Member Neguse. I really do appreciate the inclusion of my legislation today, H.R. 2785, The New Mexico Land Grant Cedes Historical or Traditionally Used Cooperation Coordination Act.

I'm also grateful to Senator Lujan, who has championed this legislation for years, and we hope to see it passed in both the House and the Senate. I want to begin, though, by noting that the hearing comes at a time of sorrow for the land grant community after the sudden death of Mr. Steve Polacco just 3 weeks ago. Steve served as a council member of the New Mexico Central Land Grant Council, and the Presidente de la Merced de los Pueblos de Tierra Amarilla. He was a tireless advocate for protecting our land and culture. Steve's legacy will live on through every acre of land and every acequia his sweat touched.

It will also live on through this bill, which his work supported. I hope to pass it in his honor. Land grants, or Mercedes in Spanish, are a unique part of our herencia and cultura in New Mexico, but I think they're a unique part of America. And I am glad that we're able to speak and talk about them today. Today, they are also recognized— land grants are actually subdivisions of the state.

They are recognized as governmental entities. My own ancestors lived on land grants, which Spain and later Mexico granted to those living in what we now call the American Southwest between the 17th and 19th centuries. These land grants were often community and sometimes individual grants. They included tracts of land essential to survival in arid New Mexico landscape. After the Mexican-American War, Mexico ceded more than half of its territory to the United States.

Under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, The United States promised to honor and protect the land and recognize and honor the property rights of those now living in the American Southwest. Sadly, that didn't always happen. The federal government confiscated millions of acres of private land, land that belonged to tribes and New Mexicans. The Mercedes, the Languedoc heirs, lost their land to the United States. These significant tracts of land then became part of the United States Forest Service, the BLM, or the federal holdings.

But even though the federal government went back on its word to honor the property rights of those in the former parts of Mexico, the land grant heirs continued to take care of the land for centuries, even when it was on Forest Service land, right? They saw that responsibility because they knew they had to rely on it for their way of life. My bill helps to preserve and sustain that beautiful way of life and our culture for generations. The bill is for the young Langra heirs who are learning how to work the land in the acequias. It is for the generations of New Mexicans who will come after them.

The relationship between land grants and the federal land agencies have improved over time. I want to thank you, Associate Chair, for your own— for your own— Associate Chief, for your own recognition of how you learned about the land grants and came to respect the role that they played in the communication that needed to exist between your agency and the land grants. But it all depends on who happens to be, you know, in charge of the Forest Service at that time, or the that particular area. So we want to make sure that we actually codify it, right? That we codify an ability to increase the participation, the communication.

The bill directs the BLM and the Forest Service to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the New Mexico Land Grant Council. Once again, political subdivision. Under this MOU, the federal agencies will clearly lay out the types of non-commercial historical and traditional uses that land grants are allowed to practice on federal lands. It would also describe the processes for obtaining permits and land use authorizations, as well as fee requirements. This uniformity and consistency would help Nuevo Mexicanos continue historical traditional uses like grazing or gathering wood or piñón nuts.

My bill does not grant new powers or authorize new uses of of federal land. Rather, it creates the process to improve the communication about existing, existing authority. And this is extremely meaningful and powerful for those who rely on the traditional uses. Importantly, the bill requires DOI and USDA to consult with tribes when it enters into or changes the MOU. The bill also requires DOI and the USDA to evaluate impacts on historical traditional uses in land use planning.

This could prevent timely and costly conflicts or lawsuits between the federal government and local communities. I look forward to working with my community and the agency on getting this bill across the finish line. And with that, I yield back, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Representative Ledger Fernandez.

I now recognize Representative Gosar for 5 minutes on H.R. 8686. Well, I'm looking forward to a spirited conversation today. I'll vote on this. So especially after the Wallow Fire and the North Rim Fire.

So I think there's some things we can really get to the bottom of with this roadless rule. So thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the members of the subcommittee for allowing me to wave on. It is my pleasure to welcome Major General Patrick Gaytan and Mayor Doug Nichols of Yuma, Arizona, to testify on behalf of my bill today, H.R. 8686, The Yuma Defense Readiness Act. Name, name the most patriotic city in Arizona.

Yuma meets the needs, meets the needs of today and tomorrow's warfighters. My bill withdraws almost 22,000 acres of federal lands to support the mission of the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Grounds, strengthening national security and supporting military readiness. H.R. 8686 Ensures both our service members and civilians remain safe YPG, test— as they test innovative defense technologies. With withdrawal— this withdrawal carefully considers the ongoing protection of wildlife habitat, cultural resources, recreation, and the management of local wild horses and burros, building trust and ensuring whole community engagement.

It originated under the previous administration's Proving Ground— YPG's Proving Defense needs that are not partisan but critical to maintain the United States leadership in the global defense theater. Arizona is proud to support the men and women who defend our nation, and our— my bill strengthens that mission for decades to come. I look forward to this hearing and I yield back.

Thank you, Representative Gosar. I now recognize Representative Hageman on H.R. 7695. Thank you for allowing me to waive on I'd like to move on to discuss my bill, H.R. 7695, To repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule.

The United States Forest Service office created an environmental catastrophe when it issued the Roadless Rule in the final 10 days of the Clinton administration. The lame duck decree, which has now been in effect for over a quarter of a century, unilaterally locked up 58.5 million acres of federal— 58.5 million acres of federal lands from effective management and realistic public access, including 3.2 million acres in Wyoming. I was hired by the state of Wyoming to file suit against the roadless rule because it violated NEPA, taking just 18 months to evaluate the long-term implications of locking up 1/3 of our National Forest Service lands. It also violated the Forest Management Act, the Wilderness Act, FACA, the Wyoming Wilderness Act, Wilderness Act and others. At the time the roadless rule was adopted, the Forest Service and the Department of Justice knew that the roadless rule would be destructive.

The U.S. attorney that handled the case actually said during one of our hearings, quote, we recognize that in certain areas the roadless rule is going to be ecologically devastating, but it is more important that we have one rule and one regime coming out of Washington, D.C. to manage these acres rather than protecting local particular areas. This despite knowing that there was a blowdown in Routt National Forest in 1997 that felled 13,000 acres of trees in one night, leading to the, the advent or the beginning of the horrific insect infestation that we have suffered from for the last 30 years, in large part because of the Roadless Rule. The 2000— the 2000 GAO report, as well as the comments submitted by foresters and land managers during the original rulemaking process for creating the Roadless Rule, warned that limiting road access would hinder active management for fuels reduction, insect and disease control and ecological restoration in the interior West. If you look at the administrative record related to the adoption of the roadless rule, the— probably the largest number of comments came from career Forest Service employees, almost all of whom said, please do not do this. This is a bad idea.

It is going to prevent us from being able to manage these resources. Our prediction that, that the roadless rule would devastate large swaths of the interior West have in fact been confirmed by a 2021 Johnston study showing that roadless areas have burned at disproportionately higher rates despite being cooler and moister. 25 Years later, the Forest Service and USDA report that 28 million acres of inventoried roadless areas. Nearly half of the total lands the Forest Service has— half of the roadless areas are now at high or very high wildfire hazard potential.

That is why I introduced H.R. 7695 To repeal the roadless rule. 9 Of the 10 most catastrophic forest fires that we have suffered have occurred since the adoption of the Roadless Rule. Over 8 million acres have burned to the ground since 2001. The Roadless Rule has been devastating to the interior West.

The Roadless Rule has been devastating to Wyoming. So when I hear people say that repealing the Roadless Rule is going to create the conditions for more forest fires, you are absolutely wrong. And the science and the facts and the history demonstrate without question that you are absolutely wrong. We predicted this in 2001, and sadly, what we predicted has come true. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

With that, I yield back. Thank you, Representative Hagerman. I now recognize Representative Downing for 5 minutes on H.R. 86. 88.

Thank you, Chairman Tiffany, and, and I appreciate you allowing me to wave on. I appreciate you hosting today's hearing and bringing attention to my legislation, H.R. 8682, The Accelerating Forest Management Act. Effective forest management is vital for protecting rural communities across the West, including my home state of Montana, where a nation-high 29% of our homes are at risk of wildfire fire damage. Without routine removal of dead and dying timber, our forests and surrounding homes are at risk of devastation.

Over the past 3 decades, forests across the western United States have experienced large-scale die-offs caused by fire, insect infestation, infestations, disease, and drought. These impacts have significantly heightened wildfire risks, with BLM lands now seeing an average of approximately 240,000 acres burnt by fires each year. Now, we've seen the consequences of ineffective forest management with devastating impacts, but the Trump administration, on the other hand, has acted swiftly to implement policies to properly manage our forest lands. In April of this year, the Bureau of Land Management proposed two categorical exclusions from NEPA permitting requirements for timber salvage and thinning projects below 5,000 acres. If codified, these exclusions will provide critical tools, tools for BLM to quickly remove potential fuel from our forests before wildfires break out.

I introduced HR 8682, the Accelerating Forest Management Act, to permanently enact BLM's proposed permitting exclusion measures specifically for timber salvage projects. This legislation also includes language reauthorizing the Forest Ecosystem Health and Recovery Fund, which supports BLM efforts to quickly respond to wildfires and restore forest damage by fire and disease. Bypassing time-consuming permitting processes will allow for BLM and its partners to do necessary wildfire mitigation work in a timely fashion. Reducing these barriers will expedite removal of dead and dying timber from our forest and ensure fire fires on BLM lands don't get out of control. Today we'll hear from Acting Montana State Forester Wyatt Frampton, who will provide insight into the current state of wildfire management in the West and how the passage of this legislation would allow states like Montana to more effectively partner with BLM on wildfire mitigation efforts.

The Accelerating Forest Management Act is a common-sense measure that will allow BLM to effectively manage its land protecting both our environment and surrounding communities. I encourage my colleagues to support this measure, and I appreciate Chairman Tiffany for hosting this hearing. And on that, Mr. Chair, I yield back. Thank you, Representative Downing.

I now recognize Representative Hurd for 5 minutes on H.R. 86. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start by recognizing committee staff, especially my fellow Coloradan, Brandon Miller, on the Federal Lands Subcommittee, for invaluable work done to prepare this much-needed legislation. My bill, Mr. Chairman, H.R.

8688, The Forest Health and Wildfire Risk Reduction Act, codifies the Bureau of Land Management categorical exclusion proposed earlier this year under the National Environmental Policy Act. The purpose is straightforward: speed up review of targeted forest thinning projects on public lands. On BLM lands alone, an estimated 36 million acres have been identified is facing high or very high wildfire risk. Increased fuel loading has contributed more frequently to catastrophic fires and poses a growing threat to rural communities like those I represent. It also presents a threat to watersheds, wildlife habitat, property, and human life across the West.

H.R. 8688 Establishes a targeted and limited categorical exclusion focused on projects under 5,000 acres while maintaining operational safeguards as well as disclosure requirements. Importantly, this bill specifically excludes clear-cutting, even-aged regeneration harvest, and the conversion of forest to non-forest uses. Catastrophic wildfire is itself environmental destruction. Catastrophic wildfires damage watersheds, increase erosion and sediment runoff and threaten long-term water quality across the West.

Delayed management harms watersheds, wildlife habitat, air quality, and rural communities. In the West, forest health and water security are directly connected. The choice is not between management and no management. The choice is between proactive management and catastrophic fire. Watching forests burn catastrophically because management cannot occur In time is not conservation.

I look forward to hearing our witnesses' testimony today and advancing this legislation through the House. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With that, I yield back. Thank you, Representative Hurd. I now recognize Representative Panetta for 5 minutes on H.R.

8735.

Uh, oh, I press—. Thank you, thank you, Ranking Member. Uh, and thanks to all the members of the Subcommittee on Federal Lands. I really appreciate this opportunity to speak today and of course your consideration in support of my legislation, H.R. 8735, The American Sovereignty and Monterey Historic Military Site Study Act.

Now I'm proud to have authored and introduced this legislation because it is a critical first step in recognizing, retaining, and protecting a place that tells such an important story about our nation's history, the city of Monterey's history, our military history, and the history of American sovereignty on the West Coast. There's 25 acres of this area which we are hoping to have studied to be a National Historic Park. The area is called the Lower Presidio of Monterey. Let me make one thing clear: it is not related to to the Presidio in San Francisco. Let me make that clear, okay?

That's a common name throughout many of these sites in the— on the West Coast. This one's not related to the one in San Francisco. That is a very important distinction. Thank you, sir. I understood that, and that's why I said that.

Thank you, Chairman. Um, this area is often described, though, that I may say, the most historically significant site on the West Coast. And that's not hyperbole, it really is fact. First, it was home to the Esselon and Rupson tribes, that served as a hub of trading throughout the Americas prior to any modern exploration. Then in the 1500s, Spanish explorers found the area and started to settle there.

In 1770, Father Junípero Serra officially found the Royal Presidio of Monterey, which then became a base for the mission system in California. A few years later, Monterey in this particular area then also became and served as a capital of Alta California. But it was in 1842 1946 when American forces seized the city of Monterey and Commodore John Sloat planted the flag of our great nation at this very location, which opened up the West Coast to American settlement, enterprise, and prosperity. Now realizing how important Monterey was to our national security, the United States then established the first major U.S. Army fort on the West Coast in this exact location, a fort where tens of thousands of American troops have trained, including the Buffalo Soldiers from the 9th Cavalry Regiment. In the boom of the sardine fishing area, which contributed much to the economy and culture of Monterey, fishermen would then use this area to lay out their nets.

The US Army continues to be involved in this area with the Defense Language Institute, with its language training that is a cornerstone of our national security. Now, currently, the city of Monterey operates the 25-acre Historic Park based on a long-term lease with the US Army. I have to say, at the center of this historic park is a beautiful 30-foot-high marble monument that is topped with a soaring eagle that looks out onto the Monterey Bay, a monument that was constructed in 1910 and dedicated to Commodore Sloat. It stands on top of that hill overlooking the bay, right next to the site where Sloat planted the United States flag. Now, I also admit it's a special place for me.

It's a location where growing up, after church, my dad would take me and we'd share a salami sandwich from Troia's Deli and overlook the Monterey Bay. It was just that special time of on a Sunday afternoon when we could do that. Now I realize that, um, it back then that this monument, these 25 acres, really is an area where everybody not just myself, not just my father, but everybody can appreciate the beauty, the bounty, and the history of our community and our country. The monument has withstood the test of time and is one of the most widely photographed attractions in Monterey. But beyond this monument, a federal designation would ensure that everybody has access and that we can preserve the rich and diverse American history of our land.

As the members of this committee know, passage of this bill bill would not automatically designate a new historic park. Instead, it begins the responsible process of gathering facts, engaging stakeholders, consulting with local communities, and determining the best path forward for preservation and interpretation. Please know that this effort has strong local support. We have worked closely with the City of Monterey, as demonstrated in a letter of support for this legislation from the city, which has been shared with committee staff, and I'd ask for it to be entered into the record with unanimous consent. Without objection.

We've also worked with a number of other leaders, including military, local, and tribal leaders. The legislation gives us that opportunity to preserve the significant chapter of our Central Coast, but more importantly, our country's history for future generations. I look forward to working with this committee, uh, with the overall committee in the Department of Interior, National Park Service, to move toward federal recognition of the Lower City of Monterey. Thank you again, Mr. Chair— Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity and for your full consideration of this legislation to protect a personal piece of local history and preserve a part of our nation's history for our progeny. Thank you, and I yield back.

Thank you, Representative Panetta. We're now going to move on to our second panel. I want to remind the witnesses that under committee rules, you must limit your oral statement to 5 minutes, but your entire statement will appear in the hearing record. To begin your testimony, please press the on button on the microphone. We use timing lights.

When you begin, the light will turn green. At the end of 5 minutes, the light will turn red, and I will ask you to please complete your statement. First, I'd like to introduce Mr. Patrick Gaiden, Commanding General at the Army Test and Evaluation Command. General Gaiden, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Thank you, Chairman Tiffin.

Good morning, Ranking Member Neguse, distinguished members of this subcommittee. My name is Major General Pat Gaiden. I command U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss a matter that's important to our national security and to the readiness of our armed forces. The legislation under consideration would withdraw approximately 22,000 acres public land adjacent to Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona.

This action is critical to enhancing the Army's test capabilities to ensure that we provide the most advanced capabilities to our warfighters. This legislation is the result of extensive coordination with the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Arizona Fish and Game Department, Native American tribes, and the public. For more than 80 years, Yuma Proving Ground has been part— has been the Army's premier natural environments test center. At Yuma, we test artillery, armored vehicles, drone and counter-drone capabilities, but most relevant to this request, we test cargo airdrop parachute systems for the Army and other federal entities like NASA.

The purpose of this land withdrawal is to expand our high-altitude airdrop testing to support advancements in Global Positioning System guided parachute systems. Modern combat requires airdrops from higher altitudes at greater offsets from the targets so that we can protect our air crews, our aircraft, from enemy air defense systems. And testing these advanced systems requires a larger surface safety zone on the ground to contain any potential system failures during testing. The 21,783 acres adjacent to Yuma Proving Grounds Cebolla Range provides the necessary safety buffer to do this. Our current altitude ceiling for airdrops is 25,000 feet.

This land withdrawal would allow us to drop from 35,000 feet, and without this expansion, we cannot test advanced air delivery systems to their full operational limits, which would impact our nation's readiness— our military's readiness. The legislation also includes the withdrawal of 249 acres at the adjacent Howard Containment area, which has been part of Yuma Proving Grounds operations since 1955, with infrastructure already on it. We are committed to our role as responsible stewards of the land. We would manage the withdrawal area through our established integrated natural and cultural resource management plans, which includes provisions for conservation, hunting, and access by the local population and tribes, and we would work this in close coordination with our federal, state, and tribal partners. We also fully acknowledge the continued use of the Parker-Blazedale utility corridor, which overlaps with a portion of the requested area.

In summary, the requested land withdrawal is essential for the Army to advance our military capabilities and ensure our warfighters are equipped equipped to meet future challenges. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to working with this subcommittee and taking your questions. Thank you, General Gayden. I will now recognize Mr. Chris French, associate chief at the U.S. Forest Service.

Associate Chief French, welcome back, and you are recognized for 5 minutes. Thank you, Chairman Tiffany and Ranking Member Neguse and members of the committee. I appreciate being back here to present the views of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on the 3 bills under consideration today that pertain to the U.S. Forest Service. As Associate Chief, I've worked for the agency for more than 34 years. A lot of these issues we'll talk about today and the different views that are presented on them, I hope to provide some clarity, some data, some facts for us to, to move forward.

I defer to the the U.S. Department of Interior for its views on the elements of bills that would affect federal lands under its jurisdiction. But under the leadership of Secretary Rollins, the Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service have taken significant steps to alleviate regulatory burden that affects forest management. By maintaining the flexibility needed for efficient permitting and faster delivery of critical service, the Forest Service is empowering our people on the ground to make better decisions to protect people, communities, and resources based on local conditions. These efforts align with two of the bills on the agendas today, on today's hearing: H.R. 184, The Action Versus No Action Act, and H.R.

7695, Which would nullify the 2001 Roadless Rule. H.R. 184, The Action Versus No Action Act, would limit the scope of certain forest management activities conducted under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, to only two alternatives: one, the proposed agency action; two, the no-action alternative. By narrowing the scope of environmental reviews for certain forest management activities, focusing solely on action versus no action, HR 184 would streamline decision-making for collaborative forest projects. This focus on NEPA as procedural statute parallels recent actions by USDA to align NEPA with its congressionally mandated dimensions, reflecting guidance given by the president and the Supreme Court, and making NEPA reviews faster, more flexible, efficient, and effective.

The department supports the goals of H.R. 184 And would like to work with the committee on technical assistance to ensure that we meet the intent of the legislation. H.R. 7695. Would nullify the 2001 Roadless Rule and prohibit the Secretary of Agriculture from proposing, implementing, or enforcing any substantially similar rule.

In June 2025, Secretary Rollins announced USDA would be rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule, and in August of 2025, the Forest Service published a notice seeking public comment on its intention to develop an environmental impact statement to analyze the proposed rescission of the 2001 roadless rule. The Forest Service is currently in the process of analyzing the more than 220,000 comments we received and anticipates issuing a final rule and draft environmental impact statement for public comment in the next final month— coming months. H.R. 7695 Would build on USDA's administrative actions by codifying the repeal of the 2001 Roadless Rule into law. We support the rescission of the 2001 Roadless Rule and would like to work with the committee and bill sponsor to provide technical assistance that would aid in the implementation of the legislation.

The department also supports H.R. 2785, The New Mexico Land Grant Mercedes Historical or Traditional Use Cooperation and Coordination Act. We'd like to work with the committee and the bill sponsor sponsor and some technical assistance that directs the Department of Agriculture and Interior to enter a memorandum of understanding with New Mexico Land Grant Council to enhance cooperation and coordination between federal agencies and qualified land grant or state A's. I would finally like to draw the committee's attention to the administration statement of support in the Department of Interior's testimony, testimony on H.R. H.R.

8682, The Accelerating Forest Management Act, and H.R. 8688, The Forest Health and Wildfire Reduction Act, for expanding categorical exclusions proposed in these bills to include the National Forest System lands managed by the Forest Service. Thank you, Chairman, Ranking Member Neguse, members of the committee. I look forward to your questions. Thank you for your testimony, Associate Chief French.

Now we're going to turn to questions from members. I will start out with 5 minutes of questioning. Associate Chief French, you see this large stack of papers which half the room you cannot see me because of the stack of papers that are sitting here in front of me. These are environmental documents produced for the Stonewall Vegetation Management Project in the Helena Lewis and Clark National Forest. The Forest Service first proposed this project which covered less than 5,000 acres or 0.17% of that forest in 2010.

11 Years and 2,250 pages of documents, one lawsuit, and two wildfires later, this project was finally approved in December of 2021, just 143 months behind schedule. Associate Chief French, what happens to the health and resiliency of the the nation's force when it takes the agency 11 years to implement a single project like this one?

Well, I think first of all, we lose trust with the communities and the towns that we're working with in terms of being able to be responsive to protect their communities from wildland fire. I think the second thing is too, is the costs associated with this are incredibly high. And in the case of the Stonewall project, and I didn't realize you were going to bring that up, but I mean, I know— and I don't know the exact acres— I believe, and we'll come back with final numbers, but I believe actually in those projects, before we could even implement them because of the delays of litigation, we had wildfires burned through them and we couldn't even offer most of the projects associated with that. I'll get back with you on the specifics, but I believe that's the case. So you can provide an estimate how much it cost?

Sure, we can do that. But I mean, in general, I mean, if you look at the, the amount of time that it takes for us to do many of these projects, especially in heavily litigated areas, the costs are extremely high compared to, let's say, doing CEs or areas where we're not litigated. You talked about a lack of a loss of trust. Um, is that accurate, that the people living in this specific area, Helena, Lewis and Clark National Forest, Stonewall Project, that they have been very frustrated, I take it, by the lack of action or the action that took so long to complete? And then having a wildfire— or was it two, two wildfires fires happen during that period of time.

Is that what you're referring to as the lack of trust? I am, and it's, you know, I can't speak specifically to the individuals of that, but this is something that I hear often. You know, anytime we do any sort of action in a forest, there's going to be people for and against it. But I will say that the majority of folks that are part of our collaboratives and others that design these projects, it is an often held criticism of the agency of how long it takes for us to actually implement and move through litigation on projects they've all agreed with. Is there an impact on home prices and home assurance— insurance availability?

I don't know the specific on home prices, but I do know that in many areas and places like the state of California and others, there are major issues of people insuring their homes homes in wildfire-prone areas. And in some instances in California, is it almost impossible to get home insurance? That's my understanding. But again, I don't have the specifics on that. Um, so for everyone, here's the evergreen chart that I use whenever we talk about this.

All you have to do is—. I view the watershed year as 1988. When forest management went away in America and it was purely preservation that was happening rather than management. And you see the impact, the impact of the number of fires that continue to go up as a result of timber harvest going down. And there's some documents that I want to enter into the record if if that's acceptable to the committee, that highlight the closure of mills across the western states, in particular Montana, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

And those documents are right here. They were just presented to me last week. But you look at the state of Washington, which has had dozens of mills mills that have closed during this timeframe. You look at Idaho, dozens of mills closed in the great state of Idaho, and we wonder why we can't have affordable 2x4s for building homes. You take a look at Montana, uh, where roadless areas are now 6.3 million acres, mills closed across Montana.

And the one that was most striking to me is I did not realize that Oregon had been hit this hard. You can see the mills, and we heard about the corporate profits and things like that. Many of these are family-owned mills that were closed over this whole period of time through the '90s and into the 2000s. That's the devastation that's been wreaked on America, all under the guise of saying we're going to environmentally protect while our country, while our country in the West burns down. And it is time for us to take a different approach here, and I appreciate the bills that have come before us today.

I yield back, and I now recognize Mr. Huffman for his 5 minutes of questioning. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to put a little bit of context in this proposal to build a whole bunch of new roads in the backcountry.

Nearly 370,000 miles of Forest Service roads already crisscross our national forests, and if you line them all up end to end, it would take you to the moon and halfway back. This is a massive road system. And it has resulted in a multibillion-dollar backlog of road maintenance. And so, Deputy Chief French, uh, I want to ask you about that. What is the current dollar figure of road maintenance backlog for the roads already there?

Uh, I think our total deferred maintenance across the agency is over $10 billion, and I believe the road piece of that is somewhere around $7 to $8 billion. Thank you. How much of the backlog is composed of roads, bridges, and other transportation assets? Maybe you just answered that. I did.

Okay. Yeah, I appreciate that. I, uh, my understanding is your entire, uh, maintenance backlog is comprised of more than 50% of, of this road infrastructure. One of the most, uh, one, one of the many reasons the Roadless Rule was adopted 25 years ago was to stop the excessive and fiscally irresponsible road construction that was happening all over our national forests. And I want to give you an example of what I mean.

In the Tongass National Forest alone, over the past 4 decades, the agency spent nearly $2 billion—taxpayer dollars—preparing and administering timber sales while bringing in only about $227 million in revenue. That is a net loss of $1.73 billion to the taxpayers. You can imagine what the enormous cost would be across the entire National Forest System. Now, this matters because national forests are not just tree plantations. In fact, a new study found that 30 million acres of roadless areas across 35 states generates $24 billion in benefits each year.

That's money that could be at risk or even lost if the Forest Service were to repeal the roadless rule. So, Mr. Chair, I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter this new study into the record.

Without objection. Thank you. And Deputy Chief French, these seem to be pretty significant numbers that should not be ignored. Will you commit that your agency will include an economic analysis, a cost-benefit analysis of the roadless rule that will examine these kind of economic losses in your final rule?

Congressman, we're required under the Administrative Procedures Act to produce a cost-benefit analysis on any regulatory action we do. It's also a requirement underneath the as we look at preparing a draft environmental impact statement. So you will include losses to the outdoor economy and the other economic benefits of roadless areas? We certainly will. I'd also say that it's important to recognize that the high severity and rating of fire risk in those areas, when that entire area burns up, there are catastrophic loss to recreation uses as well.

We'll look at both sides of that issue. Right. That's why it's great that the existing roadless rule allows for treatment and mitigation to protect us from wildfire. So it does, but it limits the effectiveness of those treatments pretty significantly. The majority of treatments we do in roadless areas, nearly 75%, are usually naturally caused fires that we allow to be managed to burn.

25% Are prescribed fires. Our Our science shows, and I can name 5 studies now, in areas where you've interrupted the wildland fire cycle and you have overgrown areas, that mechanical treatments plus prescribed fire is the effective way to reduce that wildland fire risk. Just doing one or the other does not. Will you include an alternative, um, that allows the Colorado model, for example, of states to come forward with their own flexible roadless rule? Any state can petition the Secretary right now for developing their own roadless rule.

But you won't include that kind of built-in flexibility in your rule, or will you? It's not necessary because they can do it now. Yeah, but then you've got a state-by-state patchwork. Are you considering building that mechanism into your rule? We have not released that yet.

It would be premature for me to speak of that. Okay. One last question. Is the Forest Service complying with the 2023 amendments to NEPA to complete the EIS in 2 years? Yes.

All right. Thank you. Yield back. Gentleman yields. I now recognize the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Gosar, for 5 minutes of questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now, Major General Gayden, how does my bill enable the Army's readiness?

Thanks, Congressman. I'd use two words, first being trust and the second reliability. Anytime we give a soldier a piece of equipment, there's a trust expectation that that piece of equipment works like it's supposed to and it's safe for use. So specific specifically your bill and, and the land withdrawal allows us to drop parachute systems, modern parachute systems from much higher altitudes, which are operationally relevant altitudes. Currently, we can drop from 25,000 feet.

Your bill will allow us to drop from 35,000 feet. So currently we are testing essentially 2/3 of the capability of the system, but not exactly how it would be used in combat. We can model and sim some of that, but real-life testing in the environment is how we make sure that it's reliable and we have trust with the soldier that's going to use it in combat at some point. Now, the Yuma Proving Grounds— most people don't know it's value. The public doesn't often see it, but it's one of the rare places we can actually test different ordinances and kind of things like that.

Can you share with the— how the installation is contributing to the Army's transformation?

Thanks for that question as well, Congressman. Yuma is the second largest contiguous landmass in the Army. White Sands is the largest. Yuma is the fourth largest across the Department of War, and that large landmass with the protected airspace that goes up to 80,000 feet offers us the ability to prove out capabilities that would be really hard to do in other environments. Yuma is, is the place where IED and counter-IED technologies were proven out during the Global War on Terror.

We've since used some of that technology, the test technology that we've already had in place, to quickly convert over to drone and counter-drone testing capability. If, if I think about the changing character of war, how war has changed, what we're seeing going forward is drone and counter drones, exceptionally important, and we do that at Yuma Proving Ground. It's, it's also the one place in the Army that we can fire cannon artillery 90 kilometers from the north or the south side of Yuma to, to the north. It offers huge advantages to us to have that large land mass, and I describe our proving grounds where we prove out capabilities as national treasures. Our military wouldn't be where they are today or won't be where they need to go in the future without these large test centers where we can prove out capabilities.

Now, Yuma is not any void of interactions with our military. In fact, it's one of the most patriotic towns I know of, period. So can you tell me a little bit about what the character of Yuma is? You know, like, they're, they're one of the few places that actually has a military base that shares an airport with a civil airport. Can you give us a little feeling for that Yuma experience?

Thanks again, Congressman. Yuma is a special place. I'm not based there. I have a colonel that commands Yuma, but every time I go out there, that both the community and the tremendous workforce that we have out there, mainly a civilian science and technology workforce that does the testing, is fantastic. It motivates me as I go out there, and I'll be out there next month, Congressman, for the airdrop mission.

And there's a couple other missions that I don't directly control that the Army or the Marine Corps does, but that the, the airport there, the mission that I control We have intergovernment service agreements where we can share technologies or go under contract with that airport. I know the Marine Corps is co-located and value the runway there. We've got another runway on Yuma Proving Ground that we use as well, but the Army's Free Fall School that's run by U.S. Army Special Operations Command uses both. But it's just— it's a great partnership, uh, and, uh, and we really, really value it. Thank you, Major General.

Appreciate it. And I yield back. Gentleman yields. I now recognize Representative Lee for your questioning. You have 5 minutes, ma'am.

All right, thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you both for being here today. Mr. French, as you know, the Interior Secretary Secretary was here just last week, and in both the Interior's budget as well as your own, you contemplate the consolidation of fire programs currently administered by the Forest Service into the Interior's new U.S. Wildland Fire Service, despite the fact that your agency currently manages roughly 75% of the federal government's wildfire resources. This is a major move, as you know, that would require serious and transparent plan, which is exactly what Congress required in the last omnibus appropriations bill on a bipartisan basis when we directed the administration to hire an independent, nonpartisan research organization with expertise in federal land management to conduct a comprehensive study on the feasibility possibility of such a move.

First, I'd like you just to sort of talk about the relationship and what you're looking at between land management, fire suppression, and fire response, and the coordination that would need to happen between the Park Service, BLM, and the Forest Service.

I mean, there's already an incredibly cooperative space right now, an interagency space between the Department of Interior agencies independently and the Forest Service and wildland fire response. And of course, with state resources, towns, tribal resources, things like that on the response side of things. On the side of what I'll say is fuels mitigation and land management, I mean, those two are, at least for us in the agency, those two are integrally tied. You know, our wildland fire resources are primarily stationed in our forest and districts. They are a big part of not only providing those wildland fire responses, but helping us with the land management goals that we have, as well as our non-fire people supporting in our wildland fire response.

I can talk more to the nature of the cooperative responses we have between fire and agents and across agencies. But in terms of the speculating on what that would look like forward, I'm not sure that I can see that yet. And I think that's one of the benefits of the independent study that Congress has asked for. Thank you. I just hope that you can reassure Nevadans assurance that the Forest Service and Interior Department will not proceed with any mass consolidation of fire programs until the administration has completed this independent review that Congress has directed, and unless you receive the requisite approval from us to do so.

Can I get that assurance? Right now, as we walk into this fire season, we have— we are keeping ourselves aligned in our current organization. We're about ready to go out for a request for proposals for the study that Congress has acted. I'm not aware of us making any changes until that independent review is done. Thank you.

Uh, speaking of wildfires, uh, one of the primary reasons my colleague from Wyoming says her legislation to codify the recent repeal of the roadless rule into law as needed. She states that for decades the roadless rule has blocked access, prevented active management, and increased the risk of catastrophic wildfires across the West, emphasizing that her bill will reduce wildfire threats by removing restrictions on road construction in national forests. Yet the people perhaps most surprised by that claim that repealing the rule rule as a priority rooted in helping our federal firefighters better do their jobs seems to be the very firefighters themselves. In fact, in a March news article, a former hotshot crew boss who went on to co-found the nonprofit Grassroots Wildland Firefighters after 18 years in Forest Service said that if he had to name the 5 biggest obstacles of obstacles to effective wildfire response, the lack of roads probably either wouldn't be on the list or it'd be at the bottom. Is he wrong?

I don't know. I mean, that's their opinion. I don't think this is about roads per se, but it is about our ability to manage those forests to reduce wildland fire risk. Well, I'll just put on the record that the best available science The science is unequivocal that human-caused fires dominate natural-caused ones and that roads increase fire ignitions. Human-ignited wildfires are estimated to represent 84% of all fires and 44% of total area burned and have tripled the length of the fire season.

These human-ignited wildfires are spatially correlated with infrastructure, including roads, railroads, and power lines. I just wanted to get that on the record to refute some of the claims I've heard here today. Yeah, that—. I mean, that's true. It's been a longstanding fact that if you look at the point of ignition for wildfires, most are human-caused and most are going to be associated where humans go, including roads.

What it doesn't take into consideration consideration is the severity of fires that break out in untreated areas, nor does it take into consideration the 10 million acres of wildland urban interface adjacent to roads and private lands. So you have to kind of look at the whole scenario. I think at any given time when we get into these issues, and I think it's why it's often polarized, there are different facts that you can pull out to support an opinion. My job is to try to look at all those and weigh the pros and —on both. Correct.

I'll say there are plenty of factors that lead to the severity of wildfires. Thank you. A'yu. Gentlelady yields. I'd like to— speaking of all this, I'd like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a report published by researchers at Oregon State University.

Although roadless— I quote— although roadless areas experience fewer fire ignitions in our are generally cooler, moister, and higher elevation landscapes, less conducive to fire, wildfire extent was far greater in these areas than in roaded areas. We'll enter that without objection. Now recognize the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Hurd. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to yield my time to the gentleman from Wyoming, Ms. Hageman. Thank you. And again, thank you for allowing me to join your Subcommittee today. A year ago, the— some of us on the Natural Resource Committee had the opportunity to go to Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea for purposes of describing or addressing a whole variety of issues.

But one of the things that we addressed in Japan is we met with the gentleman who would have been probably your counterpart or the head of the Forest Service over there. And as many people We all know Japan has lots of forested ground. One of the things that was interesting is they provided us with a document that shows how they have been able to decrease the incidents, incidents of forest fires in Japan from 1973, over 8,000 fires, to 2023, a little over 1,000 fires. So reducing them 7 out of 8 fires they've been able to stop from happening. And it used— they used to burn about 49,000 acres a year, and they're now down to, uh, about, about 6,000 acres.

So a huge difference. And we talked to them about why, how, how were they able to succeed at doing that. And they talked about the road building program. And when we explained to them that we have this thing called the Roadless Rule, and we have the wilderness areas, and we have all of these various mechanisms in place, these laws preventing us from being able to access these areas, construct the roads necessary to protect these incredible resources. They looked at us like we had 14 heads.

They were really mystified as to why we would manage our forests that way and talked about how their roads and their ability to build the roads and maintain those not only provides them the access that they need to protect their resources and their timber resources, but also to make for a healthier forest. And I was taking notes as the gentleman was speaking, and what was some of the comments that he made were, well, new growth is healthier. The goal is to harvest the old growth. Why, why would you be protecting the old growth rather than the new growth? When we talked about the, the, uh, the effort to protect old growth forests and how we cannot go into these national forests because we've got to protect those trees that are 40 or 50 years old.

And he said that is the exact opposite of what you would do if you want a healthy forest. You would go in and you would, you would try to, to make it so that you're constantly regenerating 'cause your new growth is healthier. It can resist fire better. It can resist insect infestations better. So it was just a very interesting conversation to have from the head of the forestry division for the country of Japan as they have also attempted to address the issue of forest health.

Something else that I brought with me today, and I'm sure you've seen this, this is a book called Exploring with Custer. Oh, by the way, Mr. Chairman, I would like to have unanimous consent to introduce this into the record, if I may, this document from the recent forest fires in Japan. Without objection. I also brought this book, and I'm sure that you've seen this. It's Exploring with Custer, the 1874 Black Hills Expedition.

What I find so interesting about this book— didn't really have anything to do with forest management, but there's photographs in here. And what they did is they went and they have the original photographs from 1874, and then they went back to that area and they took the photographs today. And what you can see is such a substantial difference in the way that those forests look 140 years ago in a natural state, in a natural condition, as compared to where they are now. You can see that these forests are now very, very, very monolithic, very overgrown. That's not a natural condition.

And we have the photographic evidence of that. There's probably a good 40 photographs in here that you can see dramatic differences in the last 140 years in the same location in our national forest. I think it's— excuse me— I think it's really important for people to look at. I mean, look at that. You know, some people might think that that's healthy.

That's— but that all of those trees are exactly the same age. That's a totally monolithic forest, but that's It's not what it looked like 100 years ago. I think this is really important evidence for people to understand that while we have learned how to better manage our forest, while we have learned what we need to do to protect from catastrophic forest fires, we are not creating a natural condition by not allowing access to these areas, by not using these areas, by not logging these areas. There have been many unintended or maybe intended consequences associated with the roadless rule and this effort to prevent us from being able to access these resources. But one thing I think everybody needs to understand is the Forest Service were not— they're not national parks.

They were never created to be in the Department of Interior. They're put in the United States Department of Agriculture for a reason, because they were to be managed as a commodity, provide a continuous supply of timber and a continuous supply of water. That's what they That's what they were for. That's how they're supposed to be managed. But one of the things that has happened is because of the mismanagement of our national forests over the last several decades— not blaming any one particular person— but because of that mismanagement, there's been huge cascading effects for all of our communities.

Our— oh, I didn't realize I was out of time. Excuse me. I yield back. And Mr. Chairman, my time is therefore out as well, and I yield back. The gentleman yields back.

I now recognize Ms. Leger Fernandez for your questioning. Thank you very much. And Associate Chief French, I do very much, and I know that the land grant representatives behind you appreciate USDA's support for my bill, the New Mexico Land Grant Mercedez Historical and Traditional Use Cooperation and Coordination Act. And I appreciated our conversation earlier where you noted to the representatives, the land grant representatives, that you came to know about land grants because of your work in the Forest Service. So I'm going to maybe put it in the— put my question in the context of, given your understanding of how land grants work and the USDA's general support of the bill, can you explain why you think this bill may do two things?

One is cut red tape that might exist and also increase the level of trust between local communities and the federal agencies.

Yeah, I, so I'll put it to you this way. One of the things that we, we have experienced in our agency and that often we're criticized for is constant transitions of staffing. We have different leaders in a place for 3 to 5 years, and then we bring in somebody else and you see that rotation. You know, when you are working with communities that have been on those lands for generations and generations, such as our land grant communities, what you often find is an inconsistency working with us and in our dialogues because of the change of personnel. What this bill does is establish through an MOU, the, the way of setting out that level of communication to bridge those, those changes in personnel so that you have consistency.

I think we experience this in other areas where we put those MOUs in places like with states through our shared stewardship agreements so that we're establishing what is our long-term goals, how we're going to work together, so that that's in place and you're just not making it up Every time you have a different relationship there, and I think that's incredibly important. Thank you. I think that's a great summary of the bill, and I think that the reference to the fact that MOUs exist in lots of different areas— they don't expand the rights, but what they do is increase the cooperation. Absolutely. And, and so I'm very pleased with that.

I'm going to pivot a little bit to an area where there might be more between a local community, because you would not welcome my question if I didn't give you a hard time about something. And that is, I'm going to address the fact that in one of our forests, in the Santa Fe National Forest at the Pecos area, we have had mining there that has spilled over and destroyed that watershed. And because of these concerns, there was under the Bush Biden administration, the Forest Service initiated a mineral withdrawal to protect the Upper Pecos Watershed. And when you guys hear Pecos, that is indeed the headwaters of the Pecos that runs into Texas. It's a very long and important river, and so toxic spills into that river are devastating for the local communities and downstream.

And so there are areas, I think, where We have a lot of mining in New Mexico. I support mining in general where it should be, right? But there are places that are very— I think they need to be protected because of the potential impact. We are very concerned because the Forest Service revoked the mineral withdrawal and reopened the Pecos to new mining. It canceled a previously scheduled public meeting on the Pecos withdrawal.

And if you do not have public meetings, if you do not engage in that consultation, then you are not hearing from the local community and you're not building that trust. So, Forest Service, after the withdrawal, I want to ask you, Associate Chief French, if you'll commit to holding a public meeting and comment period before any new exploration or mining activities begin in the Forest Service. Thank you. Yeah, I have walked that. I've been in the Pecos Watershed and had a meeting there with representatives after the administration's policy and talked with them about their concerns.

So I know what you're speaking of. You know, this is a broader policy of the administration on administrative withdrawals in general, but if there was an expression of interest and we were to proceed with authorizing something as part of the environmental process, we would hold public meetings. So another area of concern is that there is proposed uranium mining in New Mexico and one of our forests. And as you know, New Mexico has 350 abandoned uranium mines. We do not know what to do with the nuclear legacy, and there is very strong concern about new uranium mining.

And so we want to also get your commitment to conduct the kind of environmental impact statement that would be necessary before any such uranium mining continued. Mr. French, the time has expired, but you go ahead and answer that question. Thank you. I'm not aware of the numbers you just— but if we were to consider authorizing uranium mind, we would. Thank you.

And before I yield back, I believe I am allowed to enter into— request unanimous consent to enter into the record. Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the following local resolutions opposed to mining in the Pecos and Chama watersheds: San Miguel County Resolution passed on May 9th, 2023, titled In Support of the Administrative and Legislative Protection of the Upper Pecos Watershed Through the Withdrawal of Mineral mineral rights. I'll list them all, that way we— it's faster. Is that better?

Yes, yes. Okay. Santa Fe County resolution passed on June 13, 2023, titled a resolution supporting the administrative and legislative protection of the Upper Pecos River Watershed through the withdrawal of the mineral rights. Village of Pecos resolution passed on May 10, 2023, titled in support of the administrative and legislative protection of the Upper Pecos Watershed. The Rio Arriba County resolution passed on April 23rd, 2026, a resolution opposing uranium exploration, potential mining activities in the Carson National Forest and requesting a full environmental impact statement, and the Upper Chama Soil and Conservation District Resolution Number 20609 calling for a moratorium on uranium exploration mining until a full environmental impact statement conducted.

I request unanimous consent for all of these. Without objection. Thank you very much. It shows the strong opposition. And I'll recognize the gentlelady from Wyoming for 5 minutes of questions.

Thank you. Just to finish what I was saying previously, the challenge that we now have with the destruction really of our timber industries, we only have a few timber companies left remaining in the state of Wyoming. And so now we're having to haul timber quite some distances, which makes it very difficult for both BLM and Forest Service to be able to work with our timber companies to actually log those areas that we desperately need to log. We had a fire in the Bighorn Mountains in 2024 that burned tens of thousands of acres. It burned 25,000 acres in 3 hours because of the fuel load, because of roadless areas.

So there are serious consequences associated with what happened. But I think there's a real misunderstanding of what would happen if the roadless rule was repealed. It wouldn't be that all of those areas we would start— would start sprouting roads. The roads would be constructed pursuant to the land or resource management plans. Isn't that correct, Mr. French?

They would, but they would also require a project-specific permitting process, NEPA, including public input before you could authorize that. That's exactly right. So the way that the Forest Management Act is set up and NEPA and these various national forests throughout the United States, whether they're in Oregon or Washington or New Mexico or Arizona or Wyoming, they have resource management plans that address everything from watershed protection to roads to, uh, fencing to grazing to recreation to off-roading use. All of those things, they're very specific documents, aren't they? They are.

And the majority of them actually contain management standards that reflect the Roadless Rule. So if the Roadless Rule was rescinded, which is— it basically is a prohibition on road construction and tree cutting. We would also then subsequently have to revise the majority of our forest plans in order to no longer allow that, because it's a two-step process. That'll take years. So it's not like everybody would just be able to go into the forest and build roads willy-nilly anywhere they want to.

In fact, what would happen is you would follow the exact same process that was followed prior to 2001, correct? Yes, it's again the rules of prohibition. It doesn't tell you to build roads. If you're going to build roads, you will have to go through a subsequent NEPA process. So the problem with the 2001 roadless rule was exactly what I said earlier.

It was this idea of a one-stop one-size-fits-all approach coming out of Washington, D.C., and ignoring the individual situation of the national forests throughout the country. So a national forest, again, in Oregon with substantially more rainfall than you have in Wyoming were treated exactly the same for purposes of this rule, despite the fact that it may be necessary to build roads in some areas in Wyoming to prevent catastrophic forest fires. Is that also true? That is correct. Okay.

So the concerns and the worry that not having the roadless rule is going to create devastation across the national forest is absolutely fearmongering at its worst. Congress is the body that makes the laws, not the Forest Service, not any other administrative agency. Congress is the one that set up the framework whereby individual national forests are managed pursuant to individual forest management plans. Isn't that true?

Generally, I'd say yes. I mean, the primary justification for Secretary Rollins rescinding the rule along with the things we proposed is that this is an administrative rule that is not based on a statutory basis, something from Congress that we're interpreting. And the belief that these decisions can be made either to continue with roadless protections or not to have them made at a local basis through local forest planning processes. So that, that I, I think is again very important to emphasize, that we set up— we, Congress, set up procedure whereby the Forest Service had to do an analysis of what area would have roads and what areas would remain roadless. And I will sit here today as someone who has criticized the roadless rule since the day that it was issued and say there are many areas within the national forest that will remain roadless and should remain roadless.

And there are areas that will remain wilderness areas. But the— this rule was illegal when it was adopted, as you just indicated. It was not based on a statute. It was in violation of the law when it was adopted. And it imposes a one-size-fits-all approach when in fact our forests should be managed on an individual basis so that we can take into consideration the individual needs of that— of those communities that are affected, as well as the National Forest Service lands themselves.

I appreciate your testimony here today. Thank you for coming. With that, I yield back. Gentlelady yields. I now recognize Ms. Dexter for 5 minutes of questioning.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. French, for joining us today. And I also want to acknowledge your 34 years of experience in leadership. Thank you.

Um, that experience is exactly why I want to have an honest conversation with you about the proposed repeal of the roadless rule, because I think you know the science here as well as or better than anyone in this room. But before we get to the science, I want the committee to hear the words from some American people. When the public comment period opened, over half a million Americans wrote in to support keeping the roadless opposed to this rule. I'd like to read two of them into the record. From an Oregonian, quote, I was born in Oregon and I have grown up in Oregon.

They say home never follows you but always calls to you. I want my future children to enjoy the same amenities I did growing up. As I have grown, I have realized that Oregon is a gem that needs to be left alone, end quote. And from a Wyoming resident, one of the most conservative states in this country, quote, public lands are something we can all be proud of together. They are one of the last remaining vestiges of freedom and community.

Please don't allow any more of Wyoming to be taken from Wyomingites, end quote. This is the same message coming from two very different places, but sharing a love for the public lands. Now, Mr. French, I'm sure you've already seen the study published this past January in Fire Ecology that examined every national forest wildfire from 1992 to 2024. My colleague Representative Lee referred to that, I believe, and some of its findings earlier. It found that wildfire ignition density was lower in designated wilderness and roadless areas and significantly higher in lands within 50 meters of a road.

It's clear to me that according to the science, wildfire risk is not a legitimate justification behind the repeal of the roadless rule. I'll also thank the chair for bringing in the 2021 study submitted into the record by OSU. That article actually The foundational finding was roadless national forests in the American West burn more often and at a slightly higher severity than national forests with roads, but the end result for the roadless forest is greater fire resilience. And I think that's something that we all want. And so I thank the chair for his submission.

So I wanna get to your questions. Mr. French, your agency has said that you won't be letting go of those scientists that have been serving in— sorry, I'll back up. I want to talk about the Pacific Northwest Research Station in Portland. This institution is over 100 years old. It employs 246 permanent scientists and staff and has spent a century building that place-based scientific understanding of exactly the ecosystems that the Roadless Rule protects that have led to these studies quoted today.

Conducting long-term research on wildlife, wildfire, and water. Mr. French, your agency has said that you won't be letting go of those scientists and that they have the option to be relocated. Is that correct? Um, we are evaluating the facilities. We will not— we are not letting go any of the scientists.

We are essentially trying to accommodate our employees, including R&D, across our facilities that the majority are underutilized or have costs associated with leases that are outstripping the funding we're getting from Congress. So I appreciate that, and yet the Forest Service budget proposed for next year completely eliminates the entire research and development budget. How do you plan to pay those 246 staff if they do decide to stay without any money? Um, we are— our reorganization and our facilities work is based on our current budgets from Congress. We will continue to fund our scientists based on the congressional budgets that we receive.

Every year I watch administrations propose a presidential budget, a House budget, a Senate budget. I wait for the final budgets to be able to decide where we're going with this. Understood. And I just am rushing because of time. So the executive branch runs the agencies.

They are accountable for the agencies. If they're not proposing a budget, that suggests to Congress that that is not a priority for this administration. And in a Congress where the majority party is the same party as the administration, they are generally deferential to the president's recommended budget. Is that your experience? Not in 2026, because the 2026 president's budget, uh, eliminated funding for our state and private programs, all of our research and development programs, as well as reducing the National Forest System management, I think, by 30%, and that's not the budget that Congress passed.

Okay, so I acknowledge that, and we will continue to work together, I believe, because I do believe that you want to protect our national forests, and those research scientists are absolutely foundational to that. Will you commit to providing this committee the agency-specific plan for the future of staff and research continuity at the Pacific Northwest Research Station. Yeah, we can do that. We're evaluating it right now. We're working through how to both eliminate management layers but retain the science.

When we are finished with those and after I've presented it to our employees, because I think that's more important first, then we'll sit down and talk with you about what that evaluation looks like. Thank you very much. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The gentleman's time has expired. At this time, the chair recognizes the gentleman from the state of Washington, Ms. Randall for 5 minutes. Ms. Randall. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

For a quarter of a century, the Roadless Rule has protected 44 million acres of the most pristine and treasured areas within the National Forest System. And in Washington's 6th District, where I represent, the Olympic National Forest is home to the South Quinault Ridge Unloaded Area. It includes 9,800 acres of steep and rugged land and is adjacent to the Colonel Bob Wilderness and the south shore of the popular Lake Quinault. Streams flowing off this area feed directly into Lake Quinault and the Quinault River, which are sockeye salmon habitat areas. And in Port Townsend, another city in my district, they get their drinking water from a pristine protected watershed in the Olympic National Park.

Protecting our public lands isn't just good environmental stewardship, it's good for people. And that's why I introduced the Wild Olympics Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to protect hunting, angling, and salmon habitat for future generations. And that's also why I am a co-sponsor of Representative Salinas's Roadless Area Conservation Act, which would codify the 2001 Roadless Rule to protect America's natural lands. The 44.7 million acres covered by the 2001 Roadless Rule includes tribal ancestral lands, treaty-reserved hunting, fishing, and gathering areas, sacred sites, and subsistence resources across Indian Country. I join with tribal nations, environmentalists, and outdoor enthusiasts in opposition to the Trump administration's attempt to rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule from 2001 and in opposition to H.R.

7695, Which would codify the USDA's pending administrative rescission of the roadless rule. This bill and the Trump administration's proposal are an assault on our federal trust responsibility and would have disastrous environmental consequences. The current administrative process under the roadless rule includes important protections: NEPA and National Historic Preservation Act and federal trust responsibilities. Now, Deputy Chief French, in the fall of 2025, the National Congress of American Indians and the Affiliated Tribe of Northwest Indians passed resolutions demanding the Trump administration immediately halt the roadless rule rescission process. Because under USDA's tribal consultation regulation, agencies have an obligation to provide timely, meaningful government-to-government consultation with tribal nations beyond the general public comment window.

The National Congress of American Indians resolution called the USDA's 21-day comment period wholly inadequate for meaningful tribal engagement on decision affecting millions of acres of ancestral territories. Deputy Chief French, how has the Forest Service engaged with tribes on the—. This rulemaking? Okay, thanks. Well, no decision's been made, so I want to make that very clear.

It was a notice of intent to say we were thinking about it. We initiated consultations separately and outside of that comment period, and we held it open longer to get the views through our government-to-government relationships to inform the Secretary about where we might go. And how long was that? You said—. I don't recall at the moment, but I can certainly get that back to you.

Again, secondly, you know, when we actually go out and propose what we would do and analyze the effects through a draft environmental impact statement, we will also open consultation, government-to-government consultation to make sure that we are understanding the— and consideration of how tribes feel about that time. So we're, we're still way early in the process. Okay, thank you. I just want to mention that the Forest Service's Strengthening Tribal Consultation and Nation-to-Nation Relationships Action Plan commits to a minimum 120-day tribal consultation period. And I want to be sure that any steps forward comply with that action plan and our trust and treaty responsibility.

Have you engaged in— has the Secretary of Agriculture yet engaged in— with any of the tribal leadership to your knowledge? I mean, generally, whenever we're doing a project or a regulation, the consultation is delegated down through from the Secretary down to the Chief and the leadership of the agency. Okay. Well, we'll look forward to continued updates on how tribal nations are engaged in this process. Sure.

And As my time is expiring, I would like to enter without objection into the record two resolutions, one from the National Congress of American Indians opposing the rescission of the 2001 Roadless Rule and demanding meaningful government-to-government consultation, and one from the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians opposing the rescission of the 2001 Roadless Rule and demanding meaningful government-to-government consultations. Without objection. The gentlelady yields, and I'll recognize Representative Salinas for her question. Thank you, Chair Tiffany and Ranking Member Neguse, for inviting me to your hearing today. And thank you to Associate Chief French for being here.

The rule— this rule does protect, as you've heard, 60 million acres of pristine national forest land, including 2 million acres in Oregon. These lands store carbon, provide habitat for threatened species, and most importantly, filter drinking water. They support outdoor recreation economies, sacred sites, and treaty-protected resources for tribal communities. In my opinion, rather than roadbedrock conservation and drinking water protections, we currently need to strengthen them. And that's why I introduced the Roadless Area Conservation Act, H.R.

3930, To permanently codify the roadless rule. Mr. French, in a hearing in December, you told Senator Heinrich that the administration's new approach to the roadless rule rule is focused on addressing, and in quotes, "barriers to protecting the communities from wildfire, wildland fire risk." However, the Forest Service's own assessment found that building roads in these areas would actually increase the risk of fire, and in another analysis shows that 85% of wildfires are human-caused. Do you agree with that assessment from the U.S. Forest Service?

That is absolutely correct, that the, that the majority of wildfires are human-caused. And where humans are and where access, you're going to see a higher rate. What it does not take into consideration is the other science and data that we're looking at. So even though that's true, the severity of wildfires that are occurring in roadless areas is burning at a higher level, which actually creates more sedimentation into our watershed. Both are true.

And I think whenever you have to sit down and talk about these things, and I think roadless is one of those things, you want to be able to look at all the facts and all the science. And I think that part of the issue is here is that roadless, which is simply a prohibition on whether you can build road, and like we talked about— roads, like we talked about before, that would have to go through a subsequent process. We also— what it does is it limits our ability and the type of treatments we can do. We do do treatments in roadless, but they are not the full extent of tools that we use. So I think the real question comes down to looking at what acres create the most risk to our watersheds, to our communities, and what is the proper management we should be doing and having that dialogue with people to make that decision.

Thank you. As you stated earlier, the Forest Service currently has a road maintenance backlog of around, I think you said, $7 to $8 billion. That deferred maintenance actually undermines fire response because it means that firefighters are having to guess whether the roads on their maps are actually usable. Will building more roads help the agency meet its existing maintenance requirements?

I think that's really a question of funding from Congress. Okay, and I think, as my colleagues and I are somewhat fearful of, we, given the President's budget, that we may be directed not to fund at a level that would actually help. So, thank you. When the rule, this rule was first adopted, more than 1.6 million comments were submitted in favor of the rule, and USDA held more than 400 public meetings across the country to solicit input from the public. In September, the agency allowed just 21 days for public feedback on its proposed rescission, and I was pleased to hear you committed to that tribal consultation.

Can you also commit to a robust public comment period of at least 60 days for the upcoming draft environmental impact statement, and will the agency plan to hold public meetings on its draft DEIS proposal? We will follow the guidelines given to us from USDA on our comment period for this. And so at that point— this point, we're still talking through what that looks like, and I can't commit to what the exact time frames will be or the process they'll use. I would encourage a more robust DEIS comment period than we had for the initial proposal. So thank you.

Thank you. I yield back. Gentlelady yields back. I'd like to enter into the record a 3-decade record of contiguous U.S. National Forest wildfires indicates increased density of ignitions near roads. I would just point out that this study was authored by the Wilderness Society, one of the leading organizations that is using agenda-driven science to lock up our national forests.

Enter that into the record without objection. And now I want to recognize Representative Stansbury for her 5 minutes of questioning.

Good morning. Uh, I was trying to figure out the mics here. Um, thank you so much for being here with us this morning, gentlemen. I really appreciate it. And Melanie Sandsbury, I represent New Mexico's 1st Congressional District, right in the center of the state.

And I know, Major General, you have not gotten a lot of questions this morning, but let me just say thank you. Your field staff, your area office in the Albuquerque area is fantastic. Fantastic, and we're working on a number of projects with them, and we're really proud of the work that they're doing. They're helping us with several studies and feasibilities and projects, so we really appreciate it. But unfortunately, I have to say, Associate Chief, I cannot say the same about what is happening in our local field office in Albuquerque with the Forest Service.

And so, um, I do hope I can bring this to your attention and ask for your assistance. Instance, to get more focused staffing and support from the field office to address our needs in, in that office. And in particular, let me just ask you, have you been to Albuquerque before? Many, many times. Oh, good.

Okay, so you're, you're familiar with the fact that Albuquerque is a— it's our largest city in New Mexico, and it's right next to the Sandia Mountains, which is managed by the Cibola National Forest. So right next to Albuquerque, we have this huge, beautiful mountain. I encourage everyone to come out and visit us and ride our tram. But because of what happened with staffing under Doge, because of all of the chaos around this reorg, and for whatever reason, which I can't answer, but maybe you can, our local folks are not hearing back from the local Forest Service office in a timely manner. And it is leading to basically a complete trashing of the mountain right now.

We had one of our tribal councils come in to see us a couple of weeks ago, and they said the bathrooms are not being maintained. There's people doing off-roading activities. There's trash all over the trails. And, you know, this would obviously be problematic in any place, but it's particularly problematic on the Sandia Mountains because there's a co-management agreement with the Pueblo of Sandia because that is sacred lands of the Pueblo. And the Pueblo is very frustrated and angry that management and the Forest Service's responsibilities under that co-management agreement are not being upheld.

And like, it is completely unacceptable that, for example, bathrooms are not being maintained on sacred lands. So my ask to you today is, will you please commit to going back to your Cibola National Forest folks and please light a fire under them so that they can get all that cleaned up and, and work with our tribes? It'd be thoughtful about lighting a fire, but—. Oh yes, we don't want to use that metaphor here in the— in a Forest Service hearing. I will, I will personally reach out to Supervisor Begay, who manages that forest, and, and, and make sure that we entered into some dialogue with you all to address these.

And I would also say that most of our field units are massively understaffed. Yes, they are. We just now were able, based on budgetary abilities, to hire about 2,000 seasonals to help us with our recreation program. We've been in a hiring freeze for about 2 years from both the last administration into this. Part of our reorganization, the primary focus of it is to bring capacity that is currently at the top of the agency and start to focus it essentially at the field level to address the type of concerns that you're talking about.

Um, I apologize that we're not giving the level of service that we should be. I will personally reach out to Supervisor Begay. I appreciate that very much, and, um, also very much encourage them to engage in direct conversation and consultation with our Pueblos about it because it's, it's really taken a severe turn. But I also want to say that As a former fed myself, I appreciate all of our field staff. I know they're, they're very overstretched, but we have to have a responsiveness, especially when it comes to really sensitive lands.

And I'll just close things out with this panel. I did just hear your interaction with Congresswoman Salinas about the roadless rule. And as a person who's trained in ecology and natural resources, I can't exit this conversation without putting my two cents in, which is that we have more than a half century of science that shows us that fragmentation of forests is bad for watersheds, bad for forests, bad for wildlife, and bad for the environment. And as we'll hear in the next panel, it's also bad for our communities. And I understand that's this administration's position, but I am vehemently opposed to the breaking up of those lands with roads.

And with that, I yield back. The gentlelady yields. And if there are no further questions, we will now move on to our third panel. I want to thank you very much for your testimony and answering questions, gentlemen. While the clerk resets our witness table, I will remind the witnesses that under committee rules, they must limit your oral opening statements to 5 minutes, but the entire statement will appear in the hearing record.

I'd also like to remind our witnesses of the timing lights, which will turn red at the end of your 5-minute statement, and please remember to turn on your microphone. As with the second panel, I will allow all witnesses to testify before member questioning.

Well, first I'd like to introduce Mr. Douglas J. Nichols, Mayor of the City of Yuma. Mayor Nichols, you are recognized. You, Mr. Nichols, for your testimony for 5 minutes. Thank you, Chairman Tiffany, Ranking Member Neguse, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee on Federal Lands.

My name is Douglas Nichols, and I'm honored to be the mayor of the city of Yuma, Arizona. I appreciate the opportunity today to appear before the subcommittee to strongly support H.R. 8686, Introduced by our Congressman Paul Gosar. Yuma is a community defined by service, sacrifice, and strength. We are home to Marine Corps Air Station Yuma and United States Army Yuma Proving Ground, one of the world's most important military testing and evaluation installations in existence today.

Our relationship with the military is not merely economic. It is part of our identity. For instance, in 2025, Yuma was recognized as one of three American communities with the designation of Great American Defense Community. This designation reflects the community's focus on military members and their families to include the unique challenges that families experience with the military lifestyle. Additionally, as the Marine Corps culminates their semiannual weapons and tactical instructors course, the final training operation occurs within our city parks and schoolyards.

The Yuma citizens show up to watch the training and offer encouragement and support to our men and women serving our country. As you can see, Yuma is a very supportive community for our military and the people who serve, and protecting the mission of Yuma Proving Ground aligns with that support. And there are many facets to that support. Obviously, and not to be overlooked or downplayed, the economic benefit that YPG brings to Yuma is critical to our community. The economic activity of YPG tops $1 billion in direct indirect and induced impact.

This is the second largest part of our economy, second only to the over $4 billion agricultural industry in Yuma County. The presence of YPG not only feeds over 2,000 employees and their families, it provides partnerships for our educational institutions, guidance for our workforce development organizations, and volunteers for our numerous nonprofits that serve our community. YPG also provides management for the natural environment of our desert, protection for culturally relevant resources, and critical economic attraction for like industries to grow into Yuma. There are two parts to this withdrawal request. The first part is the permanent withdrawal of the Howard Containment Area.

These 249 acres are already in use by YPG, and the community has a full expectation that these areas will remain in use by YPG. The second area withdrawal is nearly 22,000 acres of federal land between the existing YPG boundary and US-95. This area is in very low use by the public with minor hunting and access activities. As YPG currently has lands that are providing, that are providing hunting and access permissions to the general public, through a permit process, there is no objection to adding these acres into that same system. The inclusion of these areas will also help remove ambiguity by the general public on the boundaries of YPG, as this will help square off the protected desert limits to US-95.

We have Yuma organ— public organizations that are supporting this withdrawal. Our military installation support organization, Yuma 50, will be submitting a support letter for H.R. 8686 Very soon, if it hasn't already yet arrived today. And as a member of the Yuma Rod and Gun Club, I know we have expressed our confidence in the current hunting permit system and are comfortable with adding this acreage into the same program. Bottom line, Yuma is supportive of H.R.

8686 And the addition of these lands into YPG because it supports a safe and effective work environment for our community ensures YPG can meet the challenges of the future for our warfighters, and helps Yuma Proving Ground remain in Yuma far into the future. Thank you for your time today, and I request you— your support for H.R. 8686. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Nichols.

And now for an introduction, uh, Representative Hurd, if you want to give a brief introduction of our next witness. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm pleased to welcome Mesa County Commissioner Bobby Daniel this morning. Commissioner Daniel represents Mesa County, which includes my hometown of Grand Junction, Colorado. Commissioner Daniel has been a strong advocate for Western Colorado communities and brings firsthand experience with the wildfire, forest health, and water challenges facing the West.

As both a county commissioner and a mother of four raising children, raising her children on the Western Slope, she understands what is at stake if we fail to manage our forest proactively. I appreciate Commissioner Daniel for being here today and look forward to her testimony. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Commissioner Daniel, you have 5 minutes.

Thank you, Chairman Tiffany, Ranking Member Neguse, Congressman Hurd, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify in favor of H.R. 8688, The Forest Health and Wildlife Risk Reduction Act, introduced by Congressman Hurd. And I thank you for your leadership. Mesa County strongly supports this legislation, which seeks to codify the Bureau of Land Management's proposed categorical exclusion for thinning to improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk.

I'm Bobbie Daniel. I serve as the Mesa County Commissioner in western Colorado. Mesa County is one of the largest natural resource-producing regions on the western slope, and I also serve as the vice chair of the National Counties— National Association of County Public Land Steering Committee. The wildfire crisis facing Colorado in the American West continues to worsen every year. Our communities are facing longer fire seasons, worsening drought, declining forest health, and dangerous fuel buildup across public lands.

Nearly three-quarters of Mesa County, approximately 1.6 million acres, or otherwise 74% of our Mesa County, is federally managed. Federal forests are directly connected to our public safety, water quality, outdoor recreation economy, and wildlife habitat, and overall quality of life. Communities throughout the western Colorado understand firsthand what's at stake. Wildfires threaten lives, watershed infrastructure, and rural economies while worsening air quality and really causing serious respiratory and public health problems. We need every available tool to reduce wildfire risk, improve forest health.

And as the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure when protecting our communities from devastating wildfires. I serve both on the Colorado River Roundtable Basin and the Gunnison Basin Roundtable, and I want this committee to understand that forest health and water security are directly connected across the Colorado River Basin. More than 40 million Americans depend on mountain snowpack for drinking water, agriculture, and local economies. Healthy forests protect watersheds, improve snowpack retention, and support water supplies across the West. In Colorado, 80% of our residents get their municipal water from watersheds associated with our forests.

Catastrophic wildfire damage can damage watersheds, increase erosion, and sediment runoff, contaminate drinking water supplies, and create long-term water quality challenges. The forest health crisis and the Western water crisis are deeply connected. H.R. 8688 Adds another tool to the toolbox, allowing for the BLM to move more efficiently on routine thinning projects. BLM's decades-long review found these treatments reduce hazardous fuel and lower wildfire severity by more than 70%.

Important as well is it's carefully tailored. This bill applies to thinning activities under 5,000 acres and expressly excludes clear-cutting, even-aged regeneration harvests, and activities intended to convert forests into non-forest uses. The bill also includes protections related to erosion control, invasive species, reparian areas, and temporary road reclamation. Between 2000 and 2024, the United States averaged more than 7 million acres burned annually by wildfire, and communities across Colorado in the West are increasingly facing larger and more destructive fires. Mesa County has experienced this firsthand during our Pine Gulch Fire, which burned more than 140,000 acres and caused $26 million in damage.

We must address this. Mesa County believes we need significantly more increase in the pace and scale of active forest management across federal lands, and this bill from Congressman Hurd is an important step in that direction. Most importantly, this bill recognizes that proactive forest management is far preferable to reacting after major wildfires have already devastated communities, watersheds, infrastructure, and landscapes. The longer we delay active management projects, the more expensive and destructive future wildfires become. As both a Mesa County Commissioner and a mother raising 4 children on Colorado's Western Slope, I believe we have a responsibility to leave behind a healthier, safer, and more resilient forest for the next generation.

We appreciate Congressman Hurd's and the subcommittee chairman Tiffany and chairman Westerman's leadership and the recognition of the unique forest management challenges facing communities like Mesa County. Mesa County also supports the bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act, and we believe both that— both legislation and H.R. 8688 Need to become law immediately. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to answering your questions.

Thank you, Ms. Daniel, and thank you for the shout out on FOFA. Next, I will turn to Representative Downing for an introduction of our next Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am honored to introduce Wyatt Frampton as one of our witnesses for today's hearing. Mr. Frampton is a Montana forestry leader and wildfire management expert currently serving as Acting State Forester with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, or DNRC.

He began his career in 2007 as a seasonal wildland firefighter and has since advanced through forestry leadership roles in our state. He brings significant experience coordinating forest management and wildfire prevention partnerships between the state of Montana and the federal agencies. Mr. Frampton, thank you for being here today, and we look forward to your testimony. Mr. Frampton, you have 5 minutes.

Thank you, Chairman Tiffany, Ranking Member Neguse, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. And I also want to thank Congressman Downing for his leadership on this issue. My name is Wyatt Frampton, and I serve as the acting State Forester for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, and I'm here today in support of House Resolution 8682, the Accelerating Forest Management Act. In my role, I oversee Montana's forestry and wildfire programs, including state trust lands administration, wildfire protection across 64 million acres, and implementation of our state's forest action plan.

I also work closely with federal partners on implementing the Good Neighbor Authority. Montana is well-versed and has built a proven track record of cross-boundary stewardship with the federal government and the U.S. Forest Service in particular. In June of 2025, Governor Gianforte and the Forest Service Chief Schultz signed a landmark 20-year shared stewardship agreement, setting a new national standard for collaborative forest restoration. Earlier this year, DNRC and the Forest Service identified two priority landscapes totaling more than 400,000 acres across 3 national forests, translating that agreement into real landscape-scale action. Through the Good Neighbor Authority, we have also brought over 200 million board feet of commercial timber to market, treated over 100,000 acres for forest health and wildfire risk reduction, and are conducting NEPA analysis on over 130,000 acres of Forest Service lands.

Despite these additive accomplishments to our federal partners' bodies of work, the scale of need across Montana to reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health remains substantial. We are eager to expand our Good Neighbor Authority work with BLM, and the categorical exclusions are an area where we have found real efficiency in moving well-designed projects forward and bringing additional volume to market. But we need tools that are capable of addressing the size of the problem we face. Our State Forest Action Plan identifies over 2 million acres of federal land for high-priority wildfire risk reduction and forest health improvement. We share fire risk, watersheds, and the consequences of inaction.

Montana is experiencing larger, more frequent disturbances driven by drought, insects, disease, and wildfire. At the same time, federal project timelines have stretched, and dead timber is losing value while increasing fire risk. Despite the conditions we face, many well-designed timber projects have been slowed or stalled by litigation, which makes it harder to treat the acres that we know require management. Simply put, the scale of the problem does not align with the tools we currently have available. The current 250-acre salvage categorical exclusion limit does not reflect the scale of today's disturbances.

Fires in Montana and the West can routinely affect tens of thousands of acres. It's also important to note that the conditions these fires are burning under are not— are often not representative of historic disturbance and can have significant negative ecological, recreational, and future wildfire danger impacts. Impacts. Requiring full NEPA review for larger salvage projects often delays action until the material has lost its value, either leaving costly removal or no treatment at all. Salvage is different from a green timber sale.

We're dealing with trees that are already dead or dying, and the environmental tradeoffs change and a clock starts ticking. If we move quickly and carefully, we can reduce hazards along key roads in community— near communities to capture some value before the— capture value before the wood is lost and then reinvest that into reforestation and targeted habitat work. That includes leaving snag islands and coarse woody debris. So we're supporting both recovery and wildfire. House Resolution 8682 addresses removal needs while maintaining strong environmental safeguards and design features that are standard considerations professional foresters already make.

The bill also extends the Forest Ecosystem Health and Recovery Fund through 2033, allowing BLM to reinvest salvage receipts into restoration. That authority is essential to complete the full cycle of recovery after disturbance. Finally, this legislation provides durability. The BLM salvage categorical exclusion established in 2020 was rescinded in 2024. While rulemaking is underway to restore it, administrative tools can change.

Codifying this authority and statute provides certainty for land managers. Forest managers need clear, stable tools to respond at the pace and scale of today's challenges. This bill provides that certainty. Montana stands ready to partner in implementation, and I thank you and the committee for your time today, and I welcome your questions. Thank you, Mr. Frampton.

Frampton, I now recognize Mr. Brett Storey, principal engineer for West Yellowstone Associates. Mr. Story, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Thank you, Chairman Tiffany, Ranking Member Neguse, and members of the committee. I thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I also like to thank sponsor of H.R.

184, Representative Tom McClintock. My name is Brett Story. I work for West Yost Associates in support of Placer County Water Agency located in Northern California, but I also volunteer my time for the Star Valley Conservation District located in western Wyoming. As a project manager for the past 20 years, I've worked on the ground implementing forest restoration projects across 5 national forests in California and Wyoming. I've seen firsthand what works, what doesn't, and what gets in the way.

I appreciate the opportunity to testify regarding H.R. 184, The NEPA Reform Act for National Forest Management Act. I want to portray my importance of this NEPA reform as it applies to practical on-the-ground projects. This morning, you can see above, I'm presenting remarks against the National Interagency Fire Center forecast, which shows significant wildfire risk across the western and southern part of, of the United States. In California's Central Sierra Nevada, I helped plan and implement the French Meadows Project, which was a collaborative effort involving Placer County Water Agency, Placer County, the Nature Conservancy, the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, the American River Conservancy, the US Forest Service, of course, and also the University of California.

We were working above a major municipal water supply and hydroelectric power system with a recent catastrophic wildfire just in the year past, so the stakes were high for us. We completed the NEPA process as a partnership in roughly half the time and half the cost of a traditional Forest Service process by working together. And here's what made that work: we focused our analysis on the action alternative versus the no action Certainly we did the other alternatives, but that comparison told the whole story. It showed us the dramatic benefits of moving forward. It also revealed potential impacts to special status species and water quality, which we then addressed by refining our treatments.

That's what smart, focused environmental review looks like. This project was initiated and supported by former Chiefs Christianson and Moore and aligns with Chief Schultz's emphasis on strengthening partnerships and accelerating the pace and scale of collaborative restoration as essential pillars of his leadership. I want to be clear. In my opinion, H.R. 184 Does not alter environmental review.

It just focuses it. Requiring agencies to analyze a lengthy list of alternatives consumes time, staff resources, and funding. The action versus no action comparison is where the real environmental story is told. That is where you see the cost of inaction. That is where communities, wildlife, and watersheds either get protected or they don't.

In California and Wyoming, we are trying to protect the values of the National Forest System lands, communities and their residents, water and power infrastructure, with specific species like the spotted owl and American goshawk, and migration corridors for elk, moose, and deer. With this change, all that will still happen. District rangers such as Dana Walsh of the Eldorado National Forest and Justin Laycock of the Bridger-Teton National Forest and their professional staff deserve the ability to focus their expertise on that analysis, rather than spreading across other alternatives that are likely not going to be possible. The California taxpayers have passed bonds to fund increasingly expensive forest partnership operations because they understand what's at stake. Wyoming is now directing state resources to federal lands through their Good Neighbor Authority, and the State Forester's Office under leadership by Kelly Norse, has been instrumental in extending the reach of these Forest Service projects by putting those state funds to use on critical landscapes.

These partnerships are working. Additionally, communities bordering federal lands are watching their home insurance become harder to get and harder to afford. Insurance companies respond to risk, and right now the risk is too high. More projects on the ground, completed faster, can change that calculus. The science is also becoming clear.

A landmark study from the University of California, Davis, published this month in the journal Science, analyzed nearly 300 wildfires across the western United States. Using data from these actual fires, the researchers found that every single dollar spent on forest fuel treatments saves approximately $3.75 in wildfire damages. Every dollar, $3.75 in savings. That's a pretty good deal. The question before this committee is not whether we can afford to act.

It's whether we can afford the cost of inaction. In closing, H.R. 184 Is a practical, common-sense bill that supports the communities, the wildlife, and the watersheds that depend on us getting this right and also getting it done. I urge the committee's support for this important legislation, and I welcome any questions you may have. Thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you, Mr. Storey. I now recognize Mr. Juan Sanchez. I'm going to introduce him. What's that? Mr. Chairman— I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Hang on, Mr. Sanchez. Yes, Ms. Leger Fernandez, you may do the introduction. Well, thank you, because I just am so happy to be able to introduce Chairman Juan Sanchez, who serves as chairman of the New Mexico Land Grant Council. Land Grant Council, which was created by the New Mexico State Legislature.

The New Mexico Land Grant Council provides support to land grants and serves as a liaison between those land grants, which I might remind everybody are political subdivisions of New Mexico, and the state, federal, and local governments. Chairman Sanchez is a strong advocate for our beautiful state's land and waters. He also serves as President of the Merced del Pueblo de Chilili, which is in my hermana Representative Stansbury's district. Mr. Sanchez, you have 5 minutes, sir.

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Members, and committee members, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today. As Congresswoman Teresa Leger mentioned, my name is Juan Sanchez, and I serve as chairman of the Land Grant Land Grants, Merced Communities were established between 1689 and 1854 by grants of land from the Crown of Spain and the Mexican government in what is now the United States Southwest. These communities were settled and populated by our indigenous ancestors. When established, our communities included common land that provided natural resource needs for the community survival. These common lands were never intended to be privatized, annihilated, or from the community common ownership, but rather were intended to be managed and used collectively by the community.

Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War, our property rights were to be protected and recognized by the United States federal government. Our property claims in New Mexico were adjudicated over the period that lasted more than 50 years. The process was faulty, inefficient, inequitable, and in some cases fraudulent and corrupt. Often federal government officials were directly involved in the corruption. The result of injustice process was that millions of acres of common land were stripped from the ownership of the local communities and now managed by the federal government, either by the U.S. Forest Service in USDA or the BLM under the Department of Interior.

House Bill 2785 is a product of over 15 years of work between our communities and the entire New Mexico delegation. It provides for the recognition of longstanding traditional use practices by our communities and will ensure that land grant mercedes have a seat at the table when the federal land management decisions could affect our access or use are being made. The protection and land management of traditional resources is critical to preserve the integrity of our communities into the future. In the past, our communities have seen our traditional needs ignored or taken away completely by federal agencies in favor of uses that they demand to be more desirable. Our communities are not opposed to the multi-use mission of federal lands.

We just want to ensure that our uses are protected. We believe that our traditional uses are compatible with most uses found in public lands and national forests today. Being at the table and involved in management decisions for natural resources surrounding our communities is vital to our overall health and social well-being of our people. We rely on forest lands to provide quality drinking water irrigating our crops, and watering our livestock. We rely on vegetation products like wild herbs, piñon nuts, and sap for cultural practices and municipal purposes.

Our communities have continuous annual needs to access fuelwood to heat our homes in the fall, winter, and early spring. During economically challenged times like those we face today, firewood is a basic survival necessity as many of our families cannot afford the high cost of propane or natural gas. Additionally, our communities continue to suffer from the loss of communal grazing opportunities on land that is now managed by the federal government. Over the years, traditional use needs have been ignored, largely because we are not always at the table when land management decisions are being made. The required cooperation and coordination between land grant and Merced communities, and federal agencies prescribed in House Bill 2785 is critical to ensuring our needs are not ignored.

The passage of this legislation would help ensure that federal land management policies, practices, regardless of the change of administration, will be honored and protect our traditional uses now and for future generations. As president of La Merced del Pueblo de Chilili, I want to urge the importance of the relationships with our neighbors and adjacent property owners. My land grant borders both Native American Pueblo Vizleta and the Mountainair Ranger District in the Cibola National Forest. We have successfully worked on forest restoration projects on both Forest Service and tribe land. I mentioned this to highlight the importance of Land Grant, Merced, to be able to coordinate and cooperate with local federal agencies in both maintaining traditional uses and those in common lands that are protected and associated for the future uses.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sanchez. I now recognize Mr. Chris Wood, president and CEO of Trowit Unlimited. Mr. Wood, you have 5 minutes. Chairman Tiffany, Ranking Member Neguse, and other subcommittee members, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on H.R.

76. I offer this testimony on behalf of Trout Unlimited and its 350,000 members and supporters around the country. TU's mission is to bring people together to care for and recover rivers so that our children can experience the joy of wild and native trout and salmon. In pursuit of this, TU has a long and productive partnership with the U.S. Forest Service to help recover healthy watersheds. Part of managing for healthy watersheds includes active management to reduce the threats from unnaturally intense wildfires.

H.R. 7695 Would nullify the 2001 Roadless Rule. Additionally, it would prevent similar rules from being crafted in the future. We think this is a mistake. The Roadless Rule strikes a common sense balance.

The rule allows forest health projects and hazardous fuels treatments in roadless areas. Off-highway vehicles, grazing, mining, energy development, firewood cutting, and other multiple-use activities are all allowed within roadless areas. The only thing that is prohibited is the construction of new roads, a step that seems logical given the $6 to $7 billion maintenance backlog on the Forest Service's existing 370,000— 370,000-mile road system. The roadless rule has not prevented forest health or hazardous fuels treatments necessary to counter the effects of decades of fire suppression. According to the Forest Service, fuel management activities in roadless areas have been as numerous on a per-square-kilometer basis as elsewhere on national forests.

The Forest Service Rocky Mountain Station concludes quote, a lack of roads in inventoried roadless areas has neither prevented fuel treatment nor led to substantially more fire. The study goes on to state that, quote, records show that a lack of roads has not stopped fire prevention measures, and that while roadless areas contain approximately 21% of the total tree cover across the National Forest System, those areas accounted for 34% of the total fuel treatment activities. Let me repeat that. Roadless areas represent 21% of the total tree cover of the National Forest System, but account for 34% of the total fuel treatment areas. This is borne out in Utah, where 38% of the National Forest lands treated for hazardous fuels have been in roadless areas.

In Wyoming, roadless areas comprise about one-third of the national forests in the state. Accordingly, about one-third of the hazardous fuels treatments in the state have occurred in roadless areas. Similar percentages persist in other Western states. As has been stated, 85% of all wildfires are caused by people, and 78% of them start within half a mile of a road. Instead of building new and costly roads into existing backcountry roadless areas, The federal government should focus its wildfire prevention efforts in the front country, on communities adjacent to national forests, the vast majority of which are not in roadless areas.

Roadless areas are invaluable to fish and wildlife and hunting and fishing. In Utah, 88% of conservation populations of Bonneville cutthroat trout are found in roadless areas. In Oregon, 18 of the 20 watersheds where West Slope cutthroat trout persist are found in roadless areas. In Montana, 93% of roadless areas are home to elk summer range. In Nevada, summer range for elk is 2.5 times more concentrated in roadless areas than elsewhere in the state.

The roadless rule allowed Forest Service employees to return to their conservation roots. Rekindling these controversies will only compromise the public trust that they have worked so hard to earn. We have learned a lot since the roadless rule was enacted. If there are better ways to protect communities from unnaturally intense fires while also protecting the values of roadless areas, we should have that discussion. But I would caution against reopening the roadless controversy and suggest instead we focus on how to accelerate hazardous fuels treatments closer to where people live.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to answering any questions. Thank you, Mr. Wood. I now recognize Mr. Mark Miller, Director of Environment and Natural Resources Litigation at the Pacific Legal Foundation. Mr. Miller, you have 5 minutes.

Chairman Tiffany, Ranking Member Neguse, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Mark Miller, and I am the Director of Environment and Natural Resources Litigation at Pacific Legal Foundation. PLF. In the final days of the Clinton administration, then-Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman issued the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, the Roadless Rule, which generally prohibited the construction and maintenance of roads across more than 58 million acres of national forests, an area twice the size of California. Through this Roadless Rule, the secretary also claimed the extraordinary power to impose sweeping restrictions in whatever manner he deemed best for any of the additional 140 million acres of national forests.

Congress, however, never authorized any agency official to wall off tens of millions of acres of public lands from productive use. The national forests were established to benefit the American people. Although the laws governing federal forest management recognize that national forests serve many purposes, they also presume that the forest will be used principally for productive activities. In his famed letter to Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the Forest Service, on the occasion of Congress's transfer of the forest reserves from Interior to the Department of Agriculture, Secretary James Wilson declared that, quote, "All national forest land is to be devoted to its most productive use," end quote, with, open quote, "such restrictions only as will ensure the permanence of these resources, end quote. The roadless rule defeats this paramount purpose of productive use by effectively prohibiting road construction over nearly a third of all national forest land.

One would expect such a sweeping grant of land use authority to have been expressly provided by Congress, but the Forest Service's Organic Act and the Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act contain no such language. Rather, both statutes are best read to prioritize the productive use of the national forests. For many communities, the harms from the roadless rule are immediate and real. In PLF's case, challenging the roadless rule, we represent Inside Passage Electric Cooperative, a nonprofit consumer-owned utility that provides electricity to several remote areas and communities in southeastern Alaska. These communities have some of the highest electricity costs in Alaska.

With utility rates in the cooperative's coverage area being nearly 6 times those in Juneau. The reason being the cooperative's dependence on diesel oil, which is often subject to dramatic price fluctuations. So to lower costs and modernize service, the cooperative has over the years pursued new energy projects to replace its reliance on diesel. Because the communities served by the cooperative are surrounded by the Tongass National Forest, road access through the forest is essential. Access which the roadless rule has effectively prohibited, thereby rendering many needed projects economically infeasible.

They simply won't pencil out. For example, the cooperative sought to develop a project to connect the electric grids serving the village of Cake and the town of Petersburg. This project would have provided reliable and cost-effective utility service to Cake. The project was financially viable as originally planned. Due, however, to the roadless rules prohibition on road construction, the estimated cost of the project ballooned from around $17.5 million with roads to $65 million without roads.

The result was predictable. A project meant to lower costs and improve reliability became, thanks entirely to the roadless rule, financially impossible. Although the current administration may repeal the rule administratively, that is not a durable solution. We have seen repeated policy reversals across administrations. Utilities and consumers cannot make long-term investments and decisions when potential access to the national forests changes every 4 years.

What is needed is a definitive congressional rejection of the concept of roadlessness on the national forests. The roadless rule should be legislatively nullified. Doing so would provide much-needed planning certainty to regulated entities like our clients, such as the cooperative, which currently cannot justify expending resources on developing energy projects that might find favor in the current administration, but which would be rejected out of hand by a future administration that reinstates road restrictions. Congress should decide when public lands are set aside from productive use, not agencies acting through changing administrations with shifting public lands policies. And communities that depend on affordable, reliable energy infrastructure deserve certainty.

H.R. 7695 Serves both goals. Therefore, I thank Representative Hageman for her leadership in introducing this bill and urge the subcommittee to favorably report it out of the Federal Lands Subcommittee. Thank you, and I welcome any questions. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Miller.

And now we'll turn to members' questioning for 5 minutes. And the representative from Arizona, Mr. Gosar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mayor Nichols, it's great seeing you again, and thank you for bringing your daughter. I mean, she's a recent graduate of UA in political science, so it's great to see her here as well.

In your testimony, you noted that the YPG contributes more than $1.1 billion to the Yuma economy each year. How would this bill strengthen Yuma's economy and tax base? Well, first, thank you very much, uh, Congressman, for the question. Uh, it first creates some stability in such a large part of our economy. As YPG, as all military installations face budget changes and even BRAC opportunities or situations over the years, the more capabilities that YPG has means more stability for our workforce, means more stability for the different inputs, not just the dollar inputs, but all those other inputs in our community that YPG provides.

And so from having this, this withdrawal creates a safer workforce environment for the employees there, but as well as the general public. So what are the largest benefits to residents with this, for this withdrawal? The larger benefits are that, that stability, but also knowing that the The public lands remain public in management, but also accessible to the public for certain activities. I think that's a great balance that YPG has struck, and that has worked really well with our outdoor enthusiasts. And most of this has been cutting edge.

I mean, you know, when we entertained the IEDs, they were looking at all those aspects and how they could better protect our soldiers in that interface. Yes, I mean, even just recently, the Orion reentry capsule, the That parachute system was tested for years at Yuma Proving Ground to make sure that the, the end of the mission was as successful as the beginning of the mission for our Artemis astronauts. And these are pretty incredible because they can place these MRAPs or all these different tanks or whatever on a, on almost on a dime, right? They test every facility, every piece of equipment, every from shoestrings to weaponry to artillery. To very basic equipment, all get tested through the Yuma Proving Ground so that when our warfighters need it, it is there.

And our workforce and our community takes great pride in supporting that mission. Well, I know, because when they fly over for WTI, it's like there's a sound of freedom. It's, it's contagious. Now, Yuma, Arizona is one of the best civilian-defense partnerships, including the Yuma 50. How will this withdrawal build on that momentum and make the Yuma community the best possible partner for YVG and vice versa?

Well, we, we're currently in the middle of, of working out an agreement where we're going to, as the City of Yuma, uh, take care on the maintenance of their fire equipment. So they have fire suppression equipment for the airfield as well as just regular firefighting equipment, currently needs to be, uh, transported over 200 miles to be worked on today. Well, in the City of Yuma, we have that technology, we have the skill set, and so we're able to work on an intergovernmental agreement that allows the City of Yuma to provide that critical live fire, uh, safety, uh, support, uh, in the city of Yuma. So the, the equipment can be maintained as we maintain our own, uh, 7 stations of equipment. Well, it's a pretty good story that's being told here, and it's a hidden gem out in the desert, as you know.

Is there anything else you want to add to that conversation? I, I would concur, but I got to admit I'm a bit biased to that opinion. Um, but it Military, from, from the World War II era to today, there's just been a continuous presence by Yuma Proving Ground in changing what they do. And the 2,300 technicians and engineers that work out in the middle of the desert every day take great pride in what they do, and it resonates through our community and how we engage and look forward to always supporting what YPG needs, because we know that is what our warfighters need to protect our country. Well, I thank you for traveling all the way from Yuma, Arizona, especially with your daughter.

I can tell you that's an advancement right there. So thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back. Gentleman yields, and I'll recognize Representative Leger Fernandez for 5 minutes of questioning. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. And Chairman Sanchez, thank you so much for your testimony. And I think it's really important for us to go back to both put together your testimony and that of the associate chief, uh, fire chief, because what we're trying to do with this bill is have uniformity, uh, of how land grants are treated, uh, both so it's not dependent on who happens, uh, to be working in any supervisor's position, any forest supervisor position, or where you happen to be in New Mexico. And can you, uh, explain why it's important that there be uniformity, whether you're a land grant who is trying to access traditional lands in the Santa Fe National Forest or the Cibolo National Forest. Can you lay that out for us a little bit?

Mr. Chair, Congresswoman Teresa Leger, yes.

It's important that we get unity and clarification with the agencies in order to have our traditional uses not only protected but being able to use them. Land Grant Mercedes are You know, the original stewards of the land. So we want to not only protect them, but we also want to use them. So we feel it's important with this piece of legislation, it brings us to the table. It reduces the red tape so we could move forward on using our traditional lands.

Thank you very much. And I think it's really important as we talk about, you You're the original farmers, the original ranchers, the original conservationists, the original hunters and fishers, you know, you're anglers. So you are using these lands for all of these purposes, and they are purposes that we often highlight in this committee and say are really important for us to protect. And it was— I love the fact that you pointed out how how early the original land grants were, right? That you have been on these lands for since the 1600s.

It's been like 17, 18, 13 generations. It's been— when we talk about generations, we're not talking about 2 or 3, we are talking about like 12, 13, 14, 15 generations of ranchers, farmers, community members living on these lands. Is that correct? Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Fernandez, yes, that is correct.

We have been there for that many generations and we plan on being there for more generations. And hopefully with this piece of legislation, we can move forward and teach our grandkids our traditional uses on former common lands. Yeah, thank you. And can you give us an example of where, if, uh, things have gone wrong because there hasn't been good communication and cooperation with the federal agency?

Mr. Chairman, uh, Congresswoman Fernandez, uh, I'm trying to think of a good explanation because there's been several, uh, where we haven't been able coordinate or communicate with our federal agencies.

Well, one of them is a piece of legislation that you just finished introducing and passing the House was a cemetery in San Joaquin del Río de Chama Land Grant, where they wanted to visit their ancestors that were buried in this old cemetery, and we couldn't get there because the agency won't allow those land grant heirs to do that. So it took us a lot— it took the council a long time to work with the agency and with your help to actually do that. So this bill would actually help that process, uh, with the agency and the land grant heirs. Thank you very much. And Mr. Madam Chair, I'd like to enter into the record some material.

And with consent to enter into various letters of support for HR 2785 from the Land Grant Council and from the 9 land grants across New Mexico, the Arroyo Hondo Arriba Community Land Grant, Toh-oh-Tome Land Grant, Land Grant Merced del Pueblo de San Miguel del Bado, which is where my families from La Merced del Pueblo de Chilili, Merced de Santa Barbara, Merced de Cristóbal de la Serna, Merced de Taumas Apostal del Río de las Trampas, Merced de Comunidad de San Antonio de las Huertas, and San Joaquín del Río de Chama. Without objection. And Mr. Chair, I'd also seek unanimous consent to enter into the record. Be brief, your time has expired.

Okay, but I'm just seeking—. I understand that I'm allowed to seek to introduce into the record I'm just requesting— that is allowed. I ask you now as consent to submit for the record a report from the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station, which found that while roadless areas contain approximately 21% of the total tree cover across the National Forest Service, they account for 34% of the total fuel treatment activities and 8% of the total tree area treated. I ask you now as consent to enter into the record the We part. Without objection, the gentlelady's time has expired.

Now recognize the gentleman from Colorado for 5 minutes of his question. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Commissioner Daniel, appreciate your taking the time to come here to Washington to testify on this important legislation. I want to also thank you and your fellow commissioners in Mesa County, Cody Davis and JJ Fletcher, for your engagement and leadership on federal lands issues that matters not only to Mesa County but also to our state and to the West as as well. So I appreciate that very well, very much, Commissioner Daniel.

Unfortunately, some of the experience that you and your fellow commissioners bring is born out of the experience of catastrophic wildfire in Mesa County and in the West. Can you talk a little bit about what the consequences are for local communities when hazardous fuels and overgrown forests go unaddressed? Thank you for the question. Um, I think it's really important for folks to realize that local government bears the burden. We're on the front lines of delivering services.

Our municipalities pull water, some of them directly from the Colorado River, and when there's catastrophic fires, that water is depleted. It takes so much more to provide clean drinking water to so many folks. But infrastructure, road closures, erosion, and it's not just even the impact of the fire, it's the afterwards. And we're often left to clean up the mess. And then what happens after the fire, you have devastating mudslides that will close down huge portions of I-70, and that is an economic engine for our community.

We had experienced that very same thing, and it shut off our economy, and it was for weeks at a time. And so these have multiple layers, multiple effects, and these are just longstanding. So really do appreciate this legislation to make sure that we can have every tool in the toolbox available to us, and that coordination with counties and that local coordination on these kind of federal lands cleanup efforts is just so important. Thank you, Commissioner Daniel. I think that's very well put.

One of the goals of this legislation is to help the Bureau of Land Management move more quickly in thinning high-risk areas. From your perspective at the county level, are the current federal processes moving fast enough to match the pace and scale of the wilderness— wildfire risk that we're facing? Yeah, so I've been a commissioner, this is my fourth year, And I can say in my early time, it did move at a snail's pace, but we're seeing a large increase and we're having a lot more hope in, in communicating and getting things done at the federal level. So to have some of this stuff codified brings us a lot of hope that this can have a, a larger effect, not only today but into the future. And hopefully my kids have the benefit of having a federal agency that is quick on its we can pivot and move to where the need needs to happen the most.

So there's definitely room for improvement. Yes. And that's what this bill is trying to accomplish. Commissioner Daniels, critics sometimes say that forest management and environmental stewardship are in conflict. You can't have one, you can't have, you can't have one and have the other.

In western Colorado, do local communities generally view forest management and environmental stewardship as conflicting, or are they instead goals that depend on each other? Well, I can honestly say it's been a little jarring being at this committee, seeing so much political turmoil in something that so many Americans can agree on. Everyone loves the environment. I mean, we have 74% public lands in Mesa County, and I can guarantee you every single member of our community values that, wants good stewardship. And so to have it be politicized is definitely concerning on multiple levels.

But when folks come into local government, they don't care if you're Republican or Democrat, they just want something fixed. Um, and so it's really hard to imagine taking care of our public lands with a wheelbarrow. I mean, that's just not doable. We have to have every tool in the toolbox. Um, and I think it's very important to have flexibility to be able to pick pivot when the need arises.

And I really think this legislation really does help. Great. I agree. I do think environmental stewardship and good forest management depend on each other, and they go hand in hand. I want to thank you again, Commissioner Daniel, for being here today and for representing Mesa County here in Washington on this important issue.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield. Gentleman yields, and I'll recognize Representative Stansbury, for your 5 minutes of questioning. All right, well, good morning everyone. I want to start by wishing a warm welcome to all of you. Thank you for traveling from all across the country, but I especially want to welcome Mr. Juan Sanchez, who is the chairman of the New Mexico Land Grant Council and president of the Chilili Land Grant.

And I would be remiss if I didn't say Chilili is in the house. But I also want to shout out all of our land grant folks back home who are probably watching today, including many of them across our district in Chileli, Manzano, Tajique, Carnuel, Las Huertas, Tome, and Anton Chico. And we know there are many more, but those are the ones that are in our area. And I just want to take a moment for those who are unfamiliar with New Mexico's land grants to share a little bit about their history. History, because many folks are not familiar with that.

And these communities are not only a part of the history of New Mexico, but a part of our living culture, our traditions, our language, and our way of life. Long before New Mexico was a state, long before public lands even existed as an idea, and long before the United States itself existed, land grants were the foundation of life in the Rio Grande Valley alongside our tribes and pueblos during Spanish Mexican settlement going back to the 1600s. In fact, established under Mexican and Spanish rule, these grants recognized communal stewardship of our land and water and have sustained our families and our villages for generations ever since. And when the United States invaded New Mexico and carved up this territory, land grants became incorporated into the United States. Through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848.

And as we say back home in New Mexico, the border crossed us. This treaty not only guaranteed that these lands and waters of our communities would be protected into the future, it is still the foundational document upon which our communities protect their lands and waters. And it is, in fact, such an important document that it is what I chose to be sworn into Congress here 5 years ago alongside the U.S. Constitution. In fact, I raised my hand to take my oath of office on the treaty to reaffirm my commitment to stand with our tribes, our pueblos, our land grants, and the people of New Mexico in the defense of our lands and waters and our cultures. And I want to just say that our communities back home know well that the United States has broken its promises countless times to our communities.

It has taken away these lands, it's claimed them as public lands, and made it difficult to access them. But in spite of all of this, our land grant heirs and local associations have maintained their traditions for centuries, but have continued to struggle to access these historic lands. And that's why this legislation is needed today to ensure that our land grants can continue the culture, language, ways of life, community stewardship, the grazing, firewood collection, hunting, gathering, the taking of medicinal plants, traditional acequia agriculture, livestock rearing, and all of the things that continue to maintain the way of life just as they have since the 1600s in our communities. Now, I also want to note today that there's a bill on the docket that I oppose, which is this Roadless Rule repeal. And it's notable because many of the lands that are in the Manzano Mountains just up the road from Chileli are protected under the Roadless Rule.

And these are not the US government's lands historically. They are the lands of the land grants and our pueblos and tribes, and the stewardship of those lands is essential. So Chairman Sanchez, please share with us why this bill is so important and why the protection of these historic lands is so important to our communities. Mr.

Chairman, Representative— Mr. Chairman, Representative Stanberry, the importance of the bill would It would empower land grants to have more access to the common— former common lands on the forest. It would also engage the agency and the land grants to be able to communicate with each other and have an understanding of their needs. Well, we thank you for being here. I know there's not enough time to tell the entire story of the importance of these lands to our communities, but we appreciate you and all the leaders and elders and young people in our communities who are keeping our traditions alive. So thank you, President.

I yield back. The gentlelady's time has expired. I now recognize Representative Downing. For your questioning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Frampton, I appreciate you traveling all the way to, uh, D.C. from Montana, uh, this week to discuss DNRC's role in federal land management efforts and how codification of BLM's proposed categorical exclusion for timber salvage would streamline these efforts. So first, can you elaborate on why BLM's current 250-acre categorical exclusion for timber salvage is not enough to properly manage federal lands in Montana and across the West.

Mr. Chair, Representative Downing, absolutely appreciate the opportunity to be here. So I did begin on the question. I think one of the things that's important to recognize is when a tree is killed, whether it's through insect disease or wildfire, the economic potential, economic value of that tree will rapidly decrease. And so you have a window of between the time of the mortality to about 3 years before that commercial value of that tree is lost.

And when we look at the current environmental planning processes to accomplish the removal of that timber, the timelines are prohibitive of a larger-scale removal of material. So when we talk about the need for the categorical exclusion, which allows the agency to be nimble and responsive to the environmental change from the insect and disease mortality or the wildfire, it'll create more opportunity to capitalize on that limited window to remove the material. And I keep talking about the importance of removing it because if we can't recoup economic value from it when we're when we have the opportunity, it will require us to usually pay to have that material removed. Or if it's left dead standing in the forest, it can, it can create a future insect and disease issue or, or wildfire risk to the community. Well, thank you.

In your testimony, you noted the negative impact of the Biden administration's rescission of BLM's 2020 categorical exclusions for timber salvage. So how does this demonstrate the importance of Congress codifying the Trump administration's efforts to streamline forest management? Mr. Chair, Representative Downing, one of the things that I would, I would say is that it's important for forest managers, the practitioners in the field, to have predictable tools that they can become accustomed to and familiar with. And when they, when there is changes or persistent changes to the tools we're asking them to use to accomplish their land management objectives, it creates confusion and ambiguity.

Ambiguity at that field level. And so what I believe the codification would do is create that certainty for them so they know it's a tool that they can trust, rely on, and that they have been given congressional direction to use it. Thank you. What's the current state of Montana DNRC's cooperation with BLM in managing timber and mitigating wildfire risk?

Mr. Chair, Representative Downing, so we have great relationships with the BLM. We have a lot of opportunity on the land base to increase our cooperation through Good Neighbor Authority, and we look forward to continuing to expand that relationship just as we have with the U.S. Forest Service. So how would passage of the Accelerating Forest Management Act support DNRC's efforts to assist BLM in timber salvage projects? Mr.

Chair, Representative Downing, one of the things that we've found very useful with Good Neighbor Authority is to be a surge capacity and additive value to the federal agencies emergencies. So we think with categorical exclusions and the way that we have designed our Good Neighbor Authority program, it gives us the opportunity to rapidly add capacity to address immediate or urgent needs such as instances of widespread mortality or wildfire mortality. In your testimony, you also highlighted the state of Montana's landmark 20-year shared stewardship agreement with the U.S. Forest Service to help manage lands in the Flathead, Kootenai, Bitterroot National Forests. Why is this agreement so significant for the future of state and federal land management partnerships? Mr.

Chair, Representative Downing, we think it's important. It's a mutual commitment and demonstration from not only the federal government but also the state's willingness to participate in the process. In Montana, we believe that, that forest health and wildfire risk issues affect all Montanans and that we want to be part of the solution, and the agreement is a demonstration of our commitment to each other to work together to accomplish effective forest management, wildfire risk reduction, and improvement of forest health. So how is DNRC looking to build off the success, including through expanding its good neighbor authority work with BLM? Mr.

Chair, Representative Downing, so what we would say is that we're looking forward to opportunities to implement similar types of agreements and, and finding opportunities is to increase the footprint that we have in Good Neighbor Authority with BLM. Well, thank you. I appreciate your testimony. I appreciate you being here. I've run out of time.

So on that, Mr. Chair, I yield. Gentleman's time has expired. And my people are so polite from Montana.

And Minnesota. Yeah, well, I now recognize the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Sauber, for his questioning. Thank you, Chairman Tiffany. I appreciate you holding this hearing today, and I want to voice my support for H.R. 7695, Introduced by my friend and colleague from Wyoming, Representative Hagerman, which would permanently ensure future administrations cannot put forth a dangerous, misguided roadless rule, which the Clinton administration put forth at the 11th hour in the waning days before President Clinton left office.

For 25 years, the roadless rule has been exploited by anti-responsible development anti-recreation and anti-access activists who would rather see our public lands locked up than for Americans to be able to responsibly access them. This rule was abused for years and created illegal de facto wilderness areas which Congress did not approve or authorize. Mr. Miller, can you briefly explain the legal case for why the roadless rule was unlawfully promulgated?

Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for that question, Congressman. You know, ultimately, Congress never clearly authorized the Forest Service to impose a near categorical ban on road construction across nearly 60 million acres of national forest land.

The Constitution assigns Congress, not executive agencies, the primary responsibility for determining how federal lands are used. And the roadless rule reflects a policy judgment of extraordinary magnitude made without clear congressional direction. In fact, I would say the opposite congressional direction through the Organic Act and the Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act, which encouraged productive use of our natural resources and the forests. The repeated back and forth between administrations that we have seen since the Clinton administration, uh, put forward the rule at the 11th hour, as you said, Mr. Congressman, Uh, the repeated back and forth on ruleless policy underscores why such consequential land use decisions should be made by Congress rather than left to shifting executive preferences.

Uh, while I firmly believe the ruleless rule was illegally promulgated by the Clinton administration, it was done so before the Supreme Court issued its Loper Bright decision, uh, that reined in agency deference. Can you, Mr. Miller, can you expand upon the impact of the Loper Bright decision on the roadless rule and how Congress should take this development into consideration? Yeah. Because the roadless rule was promulgated during an era, which we all know, the, the Chevron era of greater judicial deference to agency interpretations, Congress should, in fact, uh, revisit whether the underlying statutes, the Organic Act, the Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act, et cetera, actually give the Forest— uh, give the Forest Service the authority it claims today. Under the major questions doctrine, an agency needs clear congressional authorization to make decisions of vast economic and political significance.

Restricting access to tens of millions of acres of public land plainly qualifies. We've heard that today over and over. The— and finally, the repeated reversal of roadless policy across administration suggests that the legal foundation is unsettled and underscores the need for Congress to provide durable statutory clarity, which I will go so far to say, I do appreciate, even if I disagree with the, uh, Congressman who wants to pass a bill to actually put in place the, uh, roadless rule as law, even if I disagree on policy grounds, I would applaud that she's at least bringing a bill. The agency should not be doing this kind of stuff. Serious legislative work through rulemaking.

It should be Congress. And of course, I support, uh, H.R. 7695. Uh, Mr. Miller, can you expand upon some of the real-world consequen— consequences of the roadless rule for the American people?

Yeah. So first of all, I'll speak to my clients, the Inside Passage Electric Cooperative and the Alaska Power Association. These are organizations focused on providing reliable and affordable electricity to remote communities in Southeast Alaska. The best example I can give of just— that makes it very clear on dollars and cents how the roadless rule is driving up the costs of energy for Native Alaskans. The— in one example, we had a project that was going to connect Kake to Petersburg.

And what the project looked at was without the roadless rule, it was going to be $17.5 million to provide energy, electricity to CAKE through a reliable grid. But unfortunately, because of the roadless rule, the cost— and the idea was to bring down energy costs. Because of the roadless rule, the costs ballooned to $65 million, which simply made the project not pencil out. Ultimately, our clients were going to have to construct the energy grid through helicopters. And it's just, you know, patently absurd.

It really— what we're talking about here is common sense, that if you're going to prohibit roads, uh, in this blunderbuss manner, you're going to drive up the cost for everyone, most importantly consumers. Thank you very much. And before I quickly yield back, Mr. Mayor, I want to personally thank you for the work you and your colleagues at the Pacific Legal Foundation have done, and I greatly appreciate it. I yield back. Gentlemen's time has expired, and I'm gonna take a couple minutes for questioning.

Mr. Frampton, do you think it should take 11 years, 2,250 pages of environmental documents, one lawsuit, two wildfires to manage less than 1% of one national forest?

Mr. Chairman, no, I do not. Mr. Storey, same question. No, no, that's inappropriate. Mr.

Wood, same question. No, I don't.

So when are you going to start helping us end this nonsense? I heard your testimony. Well, we work very closely with the Forest Service doing all kinds of work on national forests, including fuels reduction. So I'd like to think that we're actually part of the solution. Not from what I heard of your testimony.

You were saying No, we should not undo the— didn't I hear you say we should not undo the roadless rule? That's right. I feel very strongly that we should not undo the roadless rule. I think it would have dire consequences for fish and wildlife and hunting and fishing. And I think my testimony demonstrated that we have the tools to actually do the treatments that we need to do in roadless areas as well as in the roaded portions of the national forest.

So you're trying to have it both ways because this is a product of what you've been advocating for. I mean, think about it. You said that, quote, we shouldn't open up the roadless controversy. Wasn't the roadless controversy opened in 2001? Sir, with all due respect, roadless areas were wildly controversial for decades before the roadless rule was enacted.

The fact is that the Forest Service had high-centered trying to build roads in roadless areas. They were all subject to litigation. We were tied in knots because of controversies over the roadless rule. Or, I'm sorry, because of controversies over entries into roadless areas. And who brought about those controversies?

The lawsuits is a big part of it. That's a big part of it. And you've seen the impact on the western states. I cited the 4 states earlier. I suspect you were in the audience where hundreds and hundreds of sawmills have been closed.

And as a result, we have to import timber. I'm gonna get into that a little bit later. Do you agree that it's a good policy outcome what Mr. Miller was just citing in regards to the Tongass in Alaska? Is that a good policy outcome where these people are having to pay far more for electricity than they should? I'm sorry, I'm not able to speak to that example.

This is the first I've ever heard of it. Mr. Story, why is it important to acknowledge that no-action alternatives are not environmentally neutral? You know, this whole notion that because it says no action, seems like that's kind of a neutral term, right? But it actually is not neutral. Am I accurate in these overgrown and fire-prone areas?

You are, and the analysis proves that out each time we go through NEPA and we look at that. The no-action, and we now do fire modeling that didn't used to happen. We now do the fire modeling, which will show what inaction or no action would have devastating effects on most forest opportunities. So, Mr. Miller, did you say that— what I keep hearing from Representative Hageman and others is that the roadless rule violated NEPA. Is that correct?

Mr. Chair, yes, I think that is correct. Do you have your, your mic on?

Stop the clock. Mr. Mr. Chair, go ahead and just go ahead and give your—. We can hear you. Use the other mic.

Mr. Chair, that is correct. So it does violate NEPA? Effectively, it puts—. It's because through NEPA we're supposed to be doing— we're supposed to be putting projects through NEPA analysis, and effectively this is just a blunderbuss way of saying we're simply going to cordon off millions of acres.

Um, so if this violates NEPA, why should this be the law, Mr. Cook?

Mr. Wood, I'm sorry, my apologies. What was the question, sir? So if this violates NEPA, why should we allow this to stand as a law, as the roadless rule? Well, first of all, it's rulemaking, and second of all, probably a dozen and a half courts have said that it did not violate NEPA. Yeah, well, let's hope we get it to a court that understands that it does it is not promulgated by the United States Congress.

I just close by saying this. You want to impart a reason why manufacturing moved overseas? It's because of this. And you saw the roadless rule because of— we've seen hundreds of mills close across the West, and it's because they could not get access to that wood. And it has had real-world consequences to America.

Let's hope that this gets undone sooner rather than later so that we can have the benefits both to the economy and to the environment and make America stronger. So with that, um, I want to thank all the witnesses for your testimony and members for your questions. Members of the subcommittee may have some additional questions for you. And we will ask that they, uh, that you respond to those in writing. Under Committee Rule 3, members of the subcommittee must submit questions to the subcommittee clerk by 5 PM on Tuesday, May 26, 2026.

The hearing record will be held open for 10 business days for your responses. If there is no further business, without objection, the Subcommittee on Federal Lands stands adjourned.