Forestry
Ross W. Gorte

Forestry activities have been identified as the cause of, and as the solution to, many environmental problems. Clearcutting, for example, can cause soil erosion, degrade water quality, and destroy wildlife habitat; in contrast, tree planting can protect soils and water quality, improve wildlife habitat, and yield other goods and services. Some of these forestry activities occur on public lands (146 million acres of forest, 29% of U.S. forestlands), often with extensive and rancorous public debate. Forestry activities also occur on private industrial timberlands (67 million acres, 13% of U.S. forestlands). The majority of U.S. forestlands (291 million acres, 58% of the total), however, are privately owned by individuals and organizations that do not own wood processing facilities (called nonindustrial private landowners).

Forestry on private lands has been supported by federal agencies for more than 125 years. The authorities for such assistance were generally revised and updated in the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of 1978 (P.L. 95-313). Cooperative forestry programs generally provide financial and/or technical assistance to landowners for forestry management, to state or local governments for forest protection, and to local governments for economic development and diversification. Most programs are permanently authorized, with funding "as needed." Since 1980, forestry assistance programs have generally been debated in the context of the periodic farm bills, largely as additions and modifications to the 1978 Act. As was done in the 1990 Farm Bill, the 2002 Farm Bill (P.L. 107-171) contained a separate forestry title, with new forest protection assistance programs.

The 2002 Farm Bill

The House and Senate passed quite different versions of the forestry title to the 2002 Farm Bill; the Senate version was much longer, with several sections that did not appear in the House version. The conference agreement was shorter than either, including only those provisions on which the House and the Senate could agree.

The 2002 Farm Bill affirms the importance of forestry research under the McIntire-Stennis Act of 1962. (Forestry research programs are permanently authorized.) It reauthorized the Forest Service Office of International Forestry. It also reauthorized the Renewable Resources Extension Act, doubling authorized funding (to $30 million annually) and creating a new Sustainable Forestry Outreach Initiative.

The forestry title replaced the existing forest landowner assistance programs. It generally followed the House version by repealing the existing Forestry Incentives and Stewardship Incentives Programs, and replacing them with a new Forest Land Enhancement Program (FLEP), with cost-sharing for the same and some additional forestry practices; however, it included many of the Senate's provisions for forest landowner assistance. The conference agreed to $100 million in mandatory spending through FY2007.

The 2002 Farm Bill also addressed wildfire protection, which has become more important in recent years, following the severe fire seasons in 2000 and 2002. The law established a new Enhanced Community Fire Protection program, to inform and assist landowners about property protection from wildfires, authorized at $35 million annually. However, differences over a proposed hazardous wildfire fuel reduction grant program and a program (stewardship contracting) to reduce hazardous wildfire fuels in the national forests led the conference to delete these provisions from the final agreement.

In Congress

The primary focus in Congress on forestry continues to be wildfire protection and forestry appropriations. For wildfire protection, the debates -- in the Resources and Agriculture Committees of the House and the Senate -- have emphasized reducing fuel loads on federal lands to protect structures in the neighboring wildland-urban interface. To achieve this goal, President Bush proposed a Healthy Forests Initiative in 2002. Subsequent regulatory changes, and legislative changes in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (P.L. 108-148) enacted on December 3, 2003, have expedited and prioritized the process for planning and implementing projects to reduce fuels on federal lands.

Forestry appropriations, both for programs on federal lands and for private landowner assistance, are contained in the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Acts, because the Forest Service has been included as a "related agency" since the 1950s. Through FY2007, the forest landowner cost-sharing program (FLEP) has mandatory appropriations of $100 million; however, $50 million was borrowed for emergency firefighting in FY2003, with only $10 million repaid by subsequent appropriations, and the Administration has proposed cancelling the remaining mandatory funding for landowner cost-sharing. The House Appropriations Committee included a provision cancelling FLEP in the FY2005 Interior appropriations bill, but it was removed on the floor on a point of order. Other cooperative assistance programs -- forest legacy, forest stewardship, fire protection assistance, etc. -- and programs for the national forests will continue to be debated and funded by the Appropriations Committees and the Interior Appropriations Subcommittees.

CRS Products

CRS Report RS20822(pdf), Forest Ecosystem Health: Overview.
CRS Report RL30755, Forest Fire/Wildfire Protection.
CRS Report RL31065(pdf), Forestry Assistance Programs.
CRS Issue Brief IB10076, Public (BLM) Lands and National Forests.
CRS Issue Brief IB10124, Wildfire Protection in the 108th Congress.

CRS Contact: Ross W. Gorte (7-7266)

Page last updated July 16, 2004.

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