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December 25, 2015 CapitalPress.com 7 Forest fuel reduction funding absent in omnibus bill By DAN WHEAT Capital Press More effective wildfire fuel reduction was left out of the $1.1 trillion omnibus federal spending bill, and the forest products industry and ranchers are sorely disap- pointed, groups who support them say. Efforts will continue next year but it will be much hard- er because the omnibus bill offered the best chance for passage, said Nick Smith, executive director of Healthy Forests, Healthy Communi- ties based in Roseburg, Ore. Categorical exclusions from the National Environ- mental Policy Act to speed up reviews for logging, thinning and prescribed burns on fed- eral forest lands had the best chance of passing in the om- nibus bill because they were tied to a FEMA fix the Obama administration wanted to end “fire borrowing,” Travis Jo- seph, president of the Ameri- can Forest Resources Council in Portland, has said. Fire borrowing is the U.S. Forest Service’s practice of using non-firefighting funds to cover the cost of firefight- ing when it goes over budget. The administration wants to pay for firefighting over- ages with Federal Emergency Management Agency money. The Resilient Federal Forest Act of 2015, HR 2647, spon- sored by Rep. Bruce Wester- man, R-Ark., did that and in- cluded categorical exclusions, called “CEs,” to speed NEPA reviews for logging, thinning and prescribed burns of 5,000 to 15,000 acres. That was reduced to 3,000 acres in negotiations spear- headed by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that had strong bipar- tisan support from Republican and Democratic senators from Montana and other states and the backing of the White House, Smith said. But, Smith said, the agree- ment was ultimately blocked by Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Maria Cant- well, D-Wash. Murkowski is chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resourc- es Committee and the Interior Appropriations Subcommit- tee. Cantwell is ranking mi- nority member of Energy & Natural Resources. In a statement on the Sen- ate floor, Murkowski said the agreement didn’t do enough to address forest management and that FEMA money is for natural disasters but not disas- ters on federal lands. “We’re not going to get at this overall solution simply by clearcutting large swaths of land in which we haven’t made the right assessments,” Cantwell said on the Senate floor. The omnibus bill includes $1.6 billion for fire suppres- sion, which is $600 million more for 2016 than the an- nual average over the past 10 years. It also includes $545 million for hazardous fuels reduction and $360 million for active forest management. Smith said that’s just more money for a very slow NEPA process in which only 4 to 9 percent of federal timber vul- nerable to wildfire, insects and disease is treated by log- ging, thinning or prescribed burning per year. “It’s very disappoint- ing that Congress missed an opportunity to fix wildfire spending and initiate modest forest management reforms ahead of the next fire season,” said Smith. “We continue to be dumb- founded by the broken polit- ical process and lack of res- olution,” said Joseph of the American Forest Resources Council. “Despite loss of lives to catastrophic wildfires, hun- dreds of lost homes, billions of taxpayer dollars spent and millions of acres of blackened forests, Congress once again failed to pass common-sense forest management and fire borrowing reforms. I don’t know what else it’s going to take to get Congress to wake up,” Joseph said. AFRC appreciates the work of the Oregon congres- sional delegation, particularly Wyden, and will keep work- ing for a solution to a “very real and very dangerous forest health and fire funding crisis Oregon faces,” he said. George Plaven/EO Media Group Clinton Shaver, with the Molalla Rural Fire District, watches as a tree goes up in flames on the Canyon Creek Complex south of John Day, Ore., this summer. The $1.1 trillion omnibus federal spending bill did not include forest fuel reduction measures timber and ranching interests supported. Omnibus bill allows Idaho interstate truck weight increase Capital Press Idaho now has the oppor- tunity to increase its inter- state highway truck weight limit, thanks to a provision included in the recently ap- proved $1.1 trillion omnibus federal spending bill. No trucks in excess of 105,500 pounds have been allowed on interstates in Idaho since the federal gov- ernment enacted a freeze on states’ weight limits in 1991. The Idaho-specific trans- portation rider, which was added to the House version of the federal spending bill by Rep. Mike Simpson and to the Senate version by Sen. Mike Crapo, both R-Idaho, allows the Idaho Legislature to increase its weight limit to 129,000 pounds. Idaho Trucking Associa- tion President and CEO Julie Pipal said the change, once implemented by the state, will put Idaho on equal foot- ing with Utah, Montana and Nevada. Wyoming’s limit is 117,000 pounds, Pipal said. “This is a tremendous de- velopment and provides a lot of great economic options for all of the carriers,” Pipal said. Previous efforts to in- crease Idaho’s interstate lim- it have been defeated, due to strong opposition from railroads, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and others who have raised safety concerns. Pipal said the state con- ducted a pilot project, begin- ning in the late 1990s, to test the safety of increased truck weight limits on certain state routes. She explained heavier trucks have more ax- les to distribute weight and increase breaking power, and the pilot studies proved increasing the limit didn’t result in more accidents or wear on infrastructure. Based on the findings, the state made 129,000-pound weight limits permanent on the pilot routes and created a mechanism for increasing weight limits on other state and local routes, as requested by shippers. Pipal said even with the recent interstate highway victory, there’s still more work to be done on convincing Idaho’s local ju- risdictions to increase truck weights. Amalgated Sugar Co. was part of an 80-member coalition with strong agri- cultural representation that lobbied on behalf of higher weight limits. Amalgamated CEO John McCreedy said the interstate change could save his company between $2 million and $4 million in annual shipping costs. “We will be more effec- tive, more efficient, safer and able to compete at a much greater level than we have in the past on this is- sue — the transportation of beets on and around the state and federal highways,” Mc- Creedy said. The Idaho Farm Bu- reau Federation endorsed the broader spending bill and considers the truck weight provision to be “a common-sense step for- ward,” said spokesman John Thompson. Simpson said there’s an ongoing movement by the American Trucking Asso- ciation to increase inter- state truck weights nation- wide. “What agriculture tells me is it will reduce their shipping costs by 15 percent, which is huge when you’re running on small margins, such as agriculture does,” Simpson said. A TranSystems truck arrives to pick up beets from an Amal- gamated Sugar piling location in Rupert, Idaho. A new law allowing Idaho to set its own truck weight limits on interstate highways stands to save the company millions in shipping costs. John O’Connell/Capital Press BUYING 6” and UP Alder and Maple Saw Logs, Standing Timber www.cascadehardwood.com ROP-49-4-4/#24 By JOHN O’CONNELL PAID ADVERTISEMENT 52-2/#6