Media Teleconference: Important Announcement Regarding USDA Forest Service Remarks by Tom Vilsack, Secretary of U.S. Department of Agriculture; Thomas Tidwell, Chief of Forest Service; and Harris Sherman, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environm

Press Conference

MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's media briefing. We have here in the studio, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, joined by Forest Service personnel, Forest Chief Tom Tidwell and Under Secretary Harris Sherman, and they are going to be talking about an important Forest Service announcement.

And, Reporters, if you want to ask a question, let us know by pressing Star/1 on your touchtone pad.

Here is Secretary Vilsack.

SECRETARY VILSACK: Thank you very much, Susan, and thank you all for joining. This is an important day for the U.S. Forest Service and for all who are interested in maintaining the treasured landscapes that we have in our forest and grassland areas under the jurisdiction and responsibility of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Sometime ago, I traveled to Seattle to give a speech about the importance of our forests and the importance of making sure that they were maintained and managed in a way that would ensure that they would be resilient to the changes that occur in climates and that they would do an even better job of conserving and preserving water resources and be managed effectively. A critical component to proper management is that there be a Planning Rule that can be utilized and provide a road map for how the over 150 forests that we have in our National Forest Service can, in fact, be managed properly to address both the current needs of the system but as well as the future needs.

Individual forests and grasslands follow direction of a Planning Rule to develop, revise, and amend land management plans specific to their specific location and their unit. Today, we announce the publishing of the Forest Planning Rule, making it available for comment and review.

The Proposed Planning Rule, we believe, is going to provide a collaborative and science-based framework for planning in order to sustain and restore the health and resilience of our National Forests. This Proposed Rule is going to provide a framework for land management planning to restore the health and resilience of ecosystems and watersheds, to protect wildlife and respond to changing climate, as well as connecting people more closely to our forested lands.

There is a strong emphasis in this Planning Rule on protecting and enhancing water resources and providing functioning habitat. We are also interested in making sure that we provide for diversity of plant and animal communities in our forests. The goal is to keep common native species common, contribute to the recovery of threatened and endangered species, conserve candidate species, and protect species of conservation concern.

At the same time, we want to make sure that we require the management of these lands in the context of a broader landscape approach to better protect all of our lands, including our private working lands and waters.

We also believe that this Proposed Rule will provide vibrant communities by supporting sustainable recreational and rural job opportunities that are available through our National Forest system. We believe this is going to create a more efficient and effective planning process through an adaptive framework for land management assessment, planning, and monitoring. This framework is going to allow us to use resources more effectively and focus on implementing plans.

We intend to use our Planning Rule to consider the full suite of multiple uses of the plan area. I think this is important to emphasize. There are multiple uses to each and every one of our forests, and we need to know what those uses are and to maximize to the extent possible those multiple uses. They include outdoor recreation, watershed protection, wildlife and fish protection, wilderness protection, grazing opportunities, timber energy and mineral opportunities, ecosystem services opportunities that may develop over time, and other relevant resources as well.

We believe this rule will provide for sustainable recreational opportunities and access, recognizing the important role that outdoor recreation plays in the economy of Rural America that surround these forests, and we believe that those opportunities and the economic opportunities they present will contribute to the social and economic health of a community.

These plans were written in a way to also support culture and historical resources and uses, recognizing that our forests, indeed, contain many culture and historic places of significance. We need to recognize that and ensure that they are properly considered in any planning and management of the forest.

And we believe that this Proposed Rule will also require that opportunities for public involvement and collaboration be provided through all phases of land management planning process, particularly at the beginning. As we look at modifications and amendments over time, it is better to get public input at the outset than to wait until after you have reached a decision to provide the public the opportunity to do so, and in this respect, I think the development of this particular Planning Rule reflects that commitment to participation and to transparency.

This is the most participatory planning and development process that has been used in Forest Service history. To development this rule, the Forest Service held over 40 public meetings and roundtables across the country that drew more than 3,000 participants. We also hosted a blog to engage the public. Additionally, the agency received more than 26,000 comments on the Notice of Intent to issue a new Planning Rule, and the content of this Proposed Rule attempts to strike an appropriate balance that reflects the public input that we received through the collaborative development process as well as the expertise that's within the Forest Service, current science and Tribal input, and, of course, the regulatory requirements that we must comply with.

Now we are asking the public to provide comments on this Proposed Rule to help the agency develop and modify and refine the Final Rule that we believe ultimately will have broad support and, most importantly of all, will endure over time. The comment period is open for 90 days. We will be hosting a national public forum to discuss the Proposed Rule on March the 10th, 2011, in Washington, D.C. This meeting will be open to the public and it will be webcast as well to allow for greater participation across the country. There will be additional public forums held throughout the country during the comment period to encourage further participation.

And the Proposed Rule meeting information, the Planning Rule blog, and a separate link to provide formal comments can now be found at www.fs.usda.gov/planningrule, all one word. That's www.fs.usda.gov/planningrule.

So a lot of work has gone into this rule. A lot of interests have been taken into consideration, but it starts with a commitment to make our forests more resilient, an understanding of the important role they play in the conserving and preserving of our precious water resources, and the enormous opportunity that forests provide in terms of the multiple uses that people around the country use the forests for. It is no accident that over 170 million people will visit a National Forest at some point in time during the year. That is a phenomenal number, and it reflects the importance of the Forest Service in terms of the country's attachment.

And as we encourage our young people to get more connected with the outdoors, we expect and anticipate that those numbers will increase.

So, with that, I would be happy to try to respond to questions, and as indicated, Chief Tidwell and Under Secretary Sherman are with me, and so any technical questions, I will obviously encourage them to weigh in as well.

MODERATOR: Reporters, please feel free to jump on in. Press Star/1 on your touchtone pad if you would like to ask a question of the Secretary as well as members of the Forest Service that are here to talk about this new Planning Rule.

I'll start off. Why the need to have this Planning Rule?

SECRETARY VILSACK: Well, it's important to give direction and guidance in terms of how the forests are to be managed.

Since 1982, we have had an ongoing conversation in this country about how to modify and perfect and improve the Planning Rule that was in place. There have been numerous attempts to do this, without much success. That's one of the reasons why we felt it was necessary to be open and transparent and to encourage participation at the front end of this process. It is the reason we had the public meetings. It's the reason we had the blog. It's the reason that we engaged the expertise of the agency of science because of the significance in this Planning Rule.

So I certainly would encourage the Chief or the Under Secretary to weigh in as well as to why it's important.

UNDER SECRETARY SHERMAN: I could just add to that briefly. I think now we have better science than we had before, and we want to make sure that we incorporate that better science into the Planning Rule.

Obviously, there are new stressors on our forests, such as climate change, and we want to make sure that we are considering those stressors as we go forward.

We have new approaches to land management. These are new tools which we think should be incorporated into any contemporary modern Planning Rule, and quite frankly, I think our existing Planning Rule has been somewhat inefficient. It's been expensive. It's been very time consuming. So we've got a more efficient and I think focused planning rule than we've had in the past.

SECRETARY VILSACK: I would add that we have a renewed focus on the important role that forests play in water conservation and preservation is a slightly different approach, and the whole notion of resilience and the resiliency of forests, as you mentioned, Harris, the fact is that the climate is having an impact on our forests. We don't have to go very far to see that in the western part of the United States with the pine bark beetle infestation, and that obviously raises a lot of issues concerning management.

We believe this rule is historic in terms of the participatory efforts made at the beginning. We think it is a strong science-based and collaborative rule, and we are looking forward to getting additional comments, so that we can come up with a Final Rule that has support.

MODERATOR: Reporters, if you would like to ask a question of our panel regarding the new Planning Rules that are going to come into play with the Forest Service, let us know by pressing Star/1 on your touchtone pad.

You mentioned that this rule, this new rule is adaptable more so than the current rule. What makes it that way?

SECRETARY VILSACK: Well, I think one of the concerns and challenges that we have had in the past is that under the old Planning Rule and under the old process, it was a little bit difficult, a little bit cumbersome to modify or amend the rule. If a problem came up or a circumstance changed that required a slightly different approach, the capacity to get the permission to do that basically engaged not only the focus on that particular issue but allowed and invited a whole series of other peripheral issues to be discussed at the same time, which made it extremely difficult to get the consensus necessary to get the plan modified. This rule basically provides a far more flexible and adaptive approach.

It also, I think, encourages participation at the beginning of the process, which is to say that you oftentimes can get more consensus if you encourage involvement, ongoing involvement, and involvement at the beginning of a process. So, with more flexible processes and more participatory opportunities, the combination of those should reduce the amount of litigation that gives rise whenever you seek to change or amend, and that is really what we want. We want to spend less time in the courts and more time in the forests.

CHIEF TIDWELL: This is Chief Tidwell. I would just like to add to that. One of the changes from the '82 rule is, as the Secretary mentioned, we want to focus more on the front end of the process, which we are requiring our forests and grasslands, before they start the revision process, to do an assessment where they pull together the existing information, determine what information maybe is missing at that time, and involve the public at the start of this process to really determine what changes need to occur with the existing plan. Based on that, we will go forward and do the revision.

And then the other key part of it, we are increasing the need for good monitoring, monitoring that is very timely. So, based on what we find in the monitoring, that will then help drive the need for change, and so we feel that this process will just be more efficient, more effective for us to be able to do timely amendments.

As has already been mentioned, especially with the change in climate and other stressors that we are dealing with in the environment today, there is a need for these plans to be much more adaptive. We need to be able to amend these plans, and under the '82 rule, often because of the complexity, we would go years, sometimes 15 years before we would take on the task to revise plans.

UNDER SECRETARY SHERMAN: I might also mention that under the old rule, it was typical to take 5 to 8 years to do revisions. Under this proposed plan, we are very hopeful the average time will be approximately 3 years. So, because of the amendment process that the Secretary mentioned, we think this will be a much more efficient effort.

MODERATOR: Reporters, if you want to get in and ask a question, press Star/1 on your touchtone pad.

Just to ask a couple more questions, you talk about protection for wildlife. What are some of the things that we are looking for as far as you're anticipating that people will come in and make comments about protections of wildlife as well as wetlands?

SECRETARY VILSACK: We have got essentially two approaches. One is sort of a broad-brush approach, a broad filter, if you will, that basically takes a look at the species that you would commonly and normally find in the forest and making sure that what you are doing in terms of maintenance and management of the forest contributes to habitat, supports that habitat and the like. Then you may get to a certain circumstance where a particular species will be impacted by this, and you will have to have a much finer filter, if you will, for that particular species, and you may have to make a decision about the things that need to be changed or things that need to be modified in order to maintain that species or enhance the opportunity for that species to survive. So it really is very, very much focused on recognizing our responsibility to ensure biodiversity within the forests.

MODERATOR: We have callers on the line. We go to Bill Tomson with Dow Jones. Bill?

QUESTIONER (Dow Jones): Yes. Mr. Secretary, I am wondering if you could give me an example of something that you guys tried to change but couldn't, and this will make it easier. And I mean, would one of the things be, like would it be easier to do mining or logging or something like that? Would that fall into something that might be made easier?

SECRETARY VILSACK: Bill, I don't know that it is necessarily a question of one thing being easier. I think what's important for us to emphasize is the recognition that forests don't have just a single purpose; that there are actually multiple purposes that are served by the forests, and that as you manage the forested lands, you have got to take into consideration all of those uses; that you cannot assume that outdoor recreation is more or less important than biodiversity or biodiversity is more or less important than maintaining the watershed appropriately and conserving and preserving water. It is really about doing the difficult work, the complicated work but the very important work of making sure that you are doing the right thing that balances all of those multiple uses, recognizing that there are multiple uses and recognizing that forests are an important economic driver in many rural communities, but there are multiple ways in which to generate that economic opportunity.

QUESTIONER (Dow Jones): All right. Thanks.

SECRETARY VILSACK: You've got 170 million visitors to the Forest Service. Those are 170 million opportunities for communities surrounding forests to get tourism dollars that really circulate an economy very quickly.

We are not going to forget the fact that we still have a timber industry in this country, and obviously, their interests have to be looked at and examined in the context of multiple use. There are minerals. There is an emerging energy interest. We have six projects in the Forest Service right now with hazardous fuel reduction that offer an opportunity for biomass energy production. So, I mean, there's just a whole series of opportunities here, and what we need to do is make sure that whatever we do in managing the forests that we make it as resilient as possible, so to conserve as many of those uses as effectively as possible.

QUESTIONER (Dow Jones): Thanks.

MODERATOR: We go back to our phone lines. Bruce Finley with Denver Post.

QUESTIONER (Denver Post): Secretary Vilsack, under this new plan, to what extent will decisions such as how often watershed needs to be monitored and assessed be left to the individual forest managers versus mandatory across the nation?

SECRETARY VILSACK: The Chief will weigh in on that. Chief?

CHIEF TIDWELL: The Proposed Rule has a set of required plan components that will provide for the protection of watersheds, protections of wildlife and fish, and the other resources, but as far as to the monitoring plan that will be put into place, that will be driven by the conditions that are on that forest, and it all comes from the start, with the assessment developing, what we need to address, the input from the public. So we feel that this plan provides a very good balance of providing some required plan components but at the same time providing flexibility for those components to be designed and implemented to really address the needs on individual forests.

QUESTIONER (Denver Post): Okay, so half and half.

MODERATOR: Reporters, if you would like to weigh in and ask questions, let us know by pressing Star/1 on your touchtone phone. Susan Andrew with Mountain Xpress is up next. Susan?

QUESTIONER (Mountain Xpress): Just a quick question about how forest managers might get guidance for balancing all of those competing needs on the forest, especially when some competing needs represent sort of dwindling resources; for example, old growth forests or rare species. How does a forest manager get guidance from these new plans when counterbalancing against extractive resources, heavy demand such as mining or logging?

SECRETARY VILSACK: Well, let me just say as sort of a starting principle, we are very interested in maintaining as much of the old growth as we can. When you talk about resilience and you talk about water conservation and preservation, you are really talking about making sure that the old growth is maintained more effectively. It is one of the reasons why we were very encouraged by the act of Congress that we supported in establishing solid maintenance budgets for the Forest Service as well as separate firefighting budgets and not utilizing the management budget to essentially fight fires, which has occurred in the past. We now have a budgeting process that really provides better resourcing for management and adequate resources for firefighting as well as contingent funds.

So it starts with that, but, again, if the Chief wants to weigh in or Harris?

UNDER SECRETARY SHERMAN: Yeah. This is Harris Sherman again. I would just emphasize that the heart of this Planning Rule is the requirement that we maintain and restore our forests and our ecosystems and watersheds, and that we provide for animal and plant diversity, and so all of these uses that we are talking about are within the context of those requirements.

So multiple use, of course, will be encouraged, but the bottom line here is we need to maintain and restore our forests, protect the water that comes off, deal with the stresses of climate change, and within that context, there are many multiple uses that can go forward. And we need to sort through that and design projects that best work within that context. We need them consistent with science, yes, best available science.

MODERATOR: You talk about the role of science. Can you go into a little bit more detail about what you are really looking for?

CHIEF TIDWELL: Well, this is Chief Tidwell again. This is a science-based rule, and one of the things that's required is that we will be using the best available scientific information.

And we started this process, before we even came out with a Proposed Rule, we pulled together a science forum where we brought together 21 scientists from around the country to take a look at the principles that are outlined in our Notice of Intent to make sure that we were factoring in everything we need to be considered.

In addition to that, we had our Forest Service scientists play a key role in the development also of the rule but also in the preparation of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement that accompanied this rule.

Now that the Proposed Rule is out and the Draft EIS is out, we will also have an external science review to make sure that we are factoring in the best available scientific information, and then as the plans are developed, there will be a requirement not only to use that information but also to be able to document how we are actually using it. We think it is just essential for these plans to be founded in the best available scientific information, and that is one of the core principles of this plan.

MODERATOR: We go back to our phone lines. We have Alan Kovski with BNA. Alan?

QUESTIONER (BNA): Hello. I'm curious about the idea of forest resiliency. I can understand when a farmer or a ranger, for his crops to be more resilience through a hybridization program, but, of course, you don't have that kind of control over a forest. Other than restricting logging and mining, what are the tools you've got available for enhancing or maintaining resiliency?

SECRETARY VILSACK: Let me just take one example and then suggest that the Chief and Harris weigh in on this.

I mentioned the pine bark beetle situation in the western part of the United States. One of the reasons why we are faced with that infestation is because of the distance between trees. These beetles are able to essentially hop from one tree to another because the distance between the trees is relatively small. Obviously, if you do a proper job of focusing on resilience, you are going to create adequate distances between trees, so that the trees get strong root systems and that these beetles would not have been able to jump quite as easily from tree to tree. That is one example of this whole notion of resiliency, and understanding that as climates have changed, forest management practices and so forth have to adapt and have to recognize those challenges.

CHIEF TIDWELL: Yeah. This is Chief Tidwell. What I would add to that is there's places where because of past management, we have created an even-aged stand of trees, that then when you have either insects and disease or a windstorm go through there, an even-aged stand often will reduce the resiliency and also species diversity. Through past management in some areas, we have managed for just certain species, and then so many of our pests are natural pests. They are species-specific, and so if you just have a pine type there, a bark beetle comes through there and it will take out all the pine versus if you have a mixed-conifer stand, you may have an infestation in the pine, but then the Douglas-fir, you know, remains healthy and resilient.

So those are just a couple of the key things, and these are the things that need to be determined when the plans are revised, so the Planning Rule provides a framework to make sure these things are considered as they are developing the standards and guidelines that will drive management on a forest.

UNDER SECRETARY SHERMAN: I might just add, in order to obtain this diversity of species and different age classes, there are a variety of tools by which we do that, and we can engage in replanning the forest, reseeding a forest. Sometimes the thinning of forests will help do this. Sometime even prescribed fire is a tool that we can use. So these are all tools, and again, as the Chief says, these are tools that would be considered within the context of individual forest plans.

MODERATOR: We go back to our phone line. Leslie Kaufman with The New York Times.

QUESTIONER (New York Times): Hi. It's Leslie Kaufman from The New York Times. When you sum this up, though, in the end if these rules go through, could we expect, even though you are managing for a great deal of things, that there would be less mining and less cutting down of trees? Does that seem to be where these rules will lead eventually?

SECRETARY VILSACK: I think it's important to respond to that question by reemphasizing and reaffirming some of the points we have made before, and that is that each forest is its own individual entity, and each forest has particular uses that we obviously want to showcase, and that each forest has to be treated within the context of its own identity, number one.

Number two, this is really not at the end of the day, at least from my perspective, about pitting one use against another. I think that's the old way of looking at this. I think what we are trying to do with this Planning Rule, as participatory as it's been, is to try to encourage folks to understand that we have the multiple uses that these forests are used for benefit all of us, benefit the rural communities in a multitude of ways. It may be mining in one area. It may be tourism in another area. It may be fishing and hunting opportunities in another area. It may be grazing in another area. It may be mineral extraction in one area, or it may simply be the extraordinary biodiversity which attracts people who simply want to camp and walk through the forest.

It's not a situation where we are sort of getting back into the old way of thinking that there is really only one use, one principal, primary use for the Forest Service. This is a recognition that all of these uses are important. All of them may very well give rise to economic opportunity, and we need to figure the tough work of how they can work together not only to improve the resiliency and health of the forest but also the economies of the communities that surround the forest.

UNDER SECRETARY SHERMAN: I think this is about better land management, better planning, better environmental practices. Our goal here is to have ecological sustainability along with social sustainability and economic sustainability. They all go together, and I think working together, we can come up with a very good positive result for the future of our National Forest system.

MODERATOR: We have time for one last call from Steve Wilent with the Society of American Foresters. Steve?

QUESTIONER (Society of American Foresters): Good morning, everyone. I wonder if one or all of you would talk about some of the specific changes you have made that address issues that have led to appeals in litigation in the past, and a good example would be various definitions or requirements for species viability.

CHIEF TIDWELL: Steve, thank you. This is Chief Tidwell again. One of the changes we have made is how we are making sure that we are protecting wildlife and fish species and especially maintaining viability, and as the Secretary mentioned earlier on the call, we are taking the coarse filter/fine filter approach to ensure that we will require to have the ecological conditions that will contribute to the recovery of threatened and endangered species, they will conserve candidate species and maintain viable populations of species of conservation concern. And we'll do that as much as possible within the plan area.

Now, if we don't have the capability, the opportunity within a plan unit to be able to maintain the viability, we will do everything we can to work outside of that area to provide the necessary ecological condition, but this is one of the areas that over the past, there has been a lot of controversy and a lot of litigation on it. And I feel very, very good that the work that's gone into this, based on the scientific review and everything that we've learned, that this is a much better approach.

In the past, we used Management Indicator Species as a way to be able to maintain viable populations, but what we found -- and this has been in all the scientific reviews -- is that the MIS approach did not take care of the full mix of species. It worked for very specific species, but it didn't allow us to provide the health and resiliency of habitat for all the species that are out there. So the approach that we are taking now, I think it is better. We will no longer be using the Management Indicator Species that proved to be problematic and based on the scientific review just didn't accomplish what we set out to do.

UNDER SECRETARY SHERMAN: This is Sherman. If I could just add to that, we have studied very carefully these past cases and opinions. We have made a major effort to involve the public in this early work on the rule. As the Secretary said, we have consulted with other agencies. We have accompanied this Proposed Rule with an Environmental Impact Statement, which did not happen in past planning rules. We have given very careful attention to the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, and we think all of these efforts have resulted in a better Proposed Rule and one which addresses the concerns that the courts have previously had.

QUESTIONER (Society of American Foresters): Thank you.

MODERATOR: Anything else to add?

SECRETARY VILSACK: Nope.

MODERATOR: All right. Everyone, thank you for joining us, and if you want more information about the Planning Rule, it is going to appear in the Federal Register. Also, you can go to www.fs/usda/gov/planningrule. Thank you for joining us this afternoon.

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