Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations for 2022, Part 6 (House Hearing)
Summary
Part 6 of the hearings "Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations for 2022" before the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies of the Committee on Appropriations, chaired by Chellie Pingree. The part lists hearings on marine plastic pollution and recycling, wood innovation and sustainable forest products, the effects of Covid-19 on arts and humanities organizations, and the Fiscal Year 2022 budget requests of the U.S. Forest Service, the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency. The first hearing, on March 18, 2021, heard Winnie Lau of The Pew Charitable Trusts, Ginger Spencer of the City of Phoenix and Nicole Collier of Nestle USA. The part closes with thanks to Administrator Regan and Deputy Bloom.
Summary drafted by a model from the document's text below and checked by script against that text before publication. It is a navigation aid, not a reading of what the document proves. Where AI is used
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“Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations for 2022, Part 6 (House Hearing).”
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[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED
AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2022
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine, Chair
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
DEREK KILMER, Washington MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
JOSH HARDER, California CHRIS STEWART, Utah
SUSIE LEE, Nevada MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
NOTE: Under committee rules, Ms. DeLauro, as chair of the full
committee, and Ms. Granger, as ranking minority member of the full
committee, are authorized to sit as members of all subcommittees.
Rita Culp, Jocelyn Hunn, Kusai Merchant,
Janet Erickson, Tyler Coe, and Marcel Caldwell
Subcommittee Staff
________
PART 6
Page
Efforts to Address Marine Plastic
Pollution Through Recycling.............
------
1
Wood Innovation: Sustainable Forest
Products to Reinvigorate Rural Economies
------
61
The Effects of Covid-19 on Arts and
Humanities Organizations................
------
113
U.S. Forest Service Budget Request for
Fiscal Year 2022........................
------
155
Department of the Interior Budget
Request for Fiscal Year 2022............
------
231
Environmental Protection Agency Budget
Request for Fiscal Year 2022............
------
299
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
Part 6--INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR
2022
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED
AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2022
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
_________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine, Chair
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
DEREK KILMER, Washington MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
JOSH HARDER, California CHRIS STEWART, Utah
SUSIE LEE, Nevada MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
NOTE: Under committee rules, Ms. DeLauro, as chair of the full
committee, and Ms. Granger, as ranking minority member of the full
committee, are authorized to sit as members of all subcommittees.
Rita Culp, Jocelyn Hunn, Kusai Merchant,
Janet Erickson, Tyler Coe, and Marcel Caldwell
Subcommittee Staff
_______
PART 6
Page
Efforts to Address Marine Plastic
Pollution Through Recycling.............
------
1
Wood Innovation: Sustainable Forest
Products to Reinvigorate Rural Economies
------
61
The Effects of Covid-19 on Arts and
Humanities Organizations................
------
113
U.S. Forest Service Budget Request for
Fiscal Year 2022........................
------
155
Department of the Interior Budget
Request for Fiscal Year 2022............
------
231
Environmental Protection Agency Budget
Request for Fiscal Year 2022............
------
299
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
_______
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
46-542 WASHINGTON : 2022
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
----------
ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut, Chair
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio KAY GRANGER, Texas
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
BARBARA LEE, California JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota KEN CALVERT, California
TIM RYAN, Ohio TOM COLE, Oklahoma
C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine CHUCK FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
DEREK KILMER, Washington DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
GRACE MENG, New York MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
MARK POCAN, Wisconsin CHRIS STEWART, Utah
KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi
PETE AGUILAR, California DAVID G. VALADAO, California
LOIS FRANKEL, Florida DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan
BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey JOHN H. RUTHERFORD, Florida
BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan BEN CLINE, Virginia
NORMA J. TORRES, California GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida MIKE GARCIA, California
ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona ASHLEY HINSON, Iowa
ED CASE, Hawaii TONY GONZALES, Texas
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
JOSH HARDER, California
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
DAVID J. TRONE, Maryland
LAUREN UNDERWOOD, Illinois
SUSIE LEE, Nevada
Robin Juliano, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2022
---------- --
--------
Thursday, March 18, 2021.
EFFORTS TO ADDRESS MARINE PLASTIC POLLUTION THROUGH RECYCLING
WITNESSES
WINNIE LAU, SENIOR MANAGER, PREVENTING OCEAN PLASTICS, THE PEW
CHARITABLE TRUSTS
GINGER SPENCER, PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR, CITY OF PHOENIX, ARIZONA
NICOLE COLLIER, SENIOR DIRECTOR, CORPORATE AFFAIRS, NESTLE USA
Ms. Pingree. Good morning. This hearing will now come to
order.
As the hearing is fully virtual, we must address a few
housekeeping matters. And, before I welcome everyone, I need to
read this verbatim to comply with the rules.
So, for today's meeting, the chair, or staff designated by
the chair, may mute participants' microphones when they are not
under recognition for the purposes of eliminating inadvertent
background noise. Members are responsible for muting and
unmuting themselves.
If you notice that you have not unmuted yourself, I will
ask you if you would like the staff to unmute you. If you
indicate your approval by nodding, the staff will unmute your
microphone.
I remind all members and witnesses that the 5-minute clock
still applies. If there is a technology issue, we will move to
the next member until the issue is resolved, and you will
retain the balance of your time.
You will notice a clock on your screen that will show how
much time is remaining. At 1 minute remaining, the clock will
turn to yellow. At 30 seconds remaining, I will gently tap the
gavel to remind members that their time is almost expired. When
your time has expired, the clock will turn red, and I will
begin to recognize the next member.
In terms of speaking order, we will follow the order as set
forth in the House rules, beginning with the chair and ranking
member; then members present at the time the hearing is called
to order will be recognized in order of seniority; and,
finally, members not present at the time that the hearing is
called to order.
Finally, House rules require me to remind you that we have
set up an email address to which members can send anything they
wish to submit in writing at any of our hearings or markups.
That email address has been provided in advance to your staff.
So that is the end of our technical script.
And I will officially welcome you all to the first Interior
and Environment Subcommittee hearing of the 117th Congress, and
thank you to everyone. This is my first committee as chair, so
I will try to make as few mistakes as possible. And I am very
excited to say that my daughter, who used to be the Speaker of
the House, has loaned me her gavel for this particular reason.
So we have several new members on the committee who will be
joining us at some point: Mr. Harder, Ms. Lee, and Mr.
Cartwright. Thank you very much for joining our committee. We
are excited to have you.
Ms. Kaptur, we will have her with us at some point today.
Mr. Joyce is in another meeting, and he will be with us as soon
as he can, but I am looking forward to working with him as the
ranking member. And thank you. I see Mr. Stewart and Mr.
Amodei. Great to be back on the committee with you. And I am
sure that, now that I am the chair, I will be able to visit the
wild horses and the sage-grouse at some point in time.
I am pleased that the first subcommittee oversight hearing
will be focusing on marine plastic pollution, recycling, and
steps currently underway to move us toward a circular economy.
Coming from Maine, as you can imagine, the ocean is critical to
our culture and to our economy, and I, personally, have a long-
standing interest in addressing waste challenges and improving
sustainability.
This hearing builds on the subcommittee's work last
Congress. For the newcomers on the committee, we had a hearing
in September of 2019 on marine debris and its impacts on
ecosystems and species. And, in February 2020, we held a
hearing on ways to strengthen community recycling programs.
I am just going to go over a few of the key takeaways from
those hearings.
The marine plastic pollution problem is global in scope. It
becomes worse each year, and is increasingly devastating for
its consequences. Addressing it will require coordinated
response from governments, the private sector and nongovernment
stakeholders. There are enormous economic opportunities and
environmental benefits to moving towards a circular economy,
but it will take a sustained commitment of the effort and
resources we have to get there.
Many of the tools that we need are available today, and we
will hear more about that. But, unless we substantially
increase the ambition and scale, the problem will only grow
worse as pollution growth outpaces solutions.
Finally, Federal Government has a key role to play, both
domestically and internationally, and, most importantly, we are
currently on the wrong trajectory. We need to move forward on
the complex solutions to this problem, and we need to do it
now.
So I want to welcome our panelists. Thank you very much for
taking your time to be with us today.
Dr. Winnie Lau, senior manager of Preventing Ocean
Plastics, here on behalf of Pew Charitable Trusts, who have
done tremendous work in this area.
Ginger Spencer, Director of Public Works for the city of
Phoenix, Arizona. Thank you so much. We are excited to hear
from you.
And Nicole Collier, Senior Director for Corporate Affairs
at Nestle USA.
The panelists will discuss their work researching
strategies to reduce marine plastics and successes and
challenges that they face to improve--in improving recycling
rates by the public in their communities. Also, some
investments the private sector is undertaking to reducing
packaging, and to increase recyclability of their products.
I think we all know that COVID has created new challenges
that we now have to navigate. So, I hope our witnesses will
talk a little bit about how the pandemic has impacted their
efforts and if they think we can get back to where we were with
recycling in plastics prior to the pandemic.
Finally, I hope to hear more about what the Federal
Government can be doing to support these efforts, and what else
we should be doing to increase circularity and sustainability.
We know we need to work together to address the plastic
pollution problem, and it will be instructive to learn about
the progress in sustainable packaging that will help with waste
management and reduce sources of this pollution, and our
creative solution to addressing the global trash problem.
Before the opening statements from our panel, since Mr.
Joyce is not here, I will be pleased to yield to the chair of
the full committee, Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much for
joining us, and please go ahead with your statement.
The Chair. Thank you so much. I admire the--first of all,
congratulations on chairing the committee. It is a delight, and
no one knows these issues better than you do, Madam Chair. And,
having known her daughter, I think that that was an appropriate
size gavel for her to be wielding, and now passing it on to her
spectacular mom.
So--but I thank the chair and the ranking member, and our
witnesses this morning for testifying.
Our world's oceans are near and dear to all of our hearts.
I grew up on the shores of the Long Island Sound, and have fond
childhood memories of visiting New Haven's Lighthouse Point,
where I remember playing on the beach, swimming in the water
with my family and friends. But, as the years have gone by, I
have watched with sadness as both the Sound and all of our
oceans have become choked with plastic pollution. When I was a
kid, finding plastic on the beach was a rarity, but now it is
all too common.
Connecticut alone uses 400 million plastic bags each year,
many of which eventually make their way into our oceans and
waterways. And, while recent efforts to clean up the Sound have
made an important impact, the most recent data shows that more
than 100,000 plastic bags still end up in the waters of the
Long Island Sound each year.
This has a profound impact on the health and vitality of
Connecticut's economy, which depends on the Sound, from
commercial and recreational fishing, to ecotourism, water-
dependent businesses, like lobster fishing. Connecticut derives
tens of billions annually from the Long Island Sound.
Shellfishing alone generates $30 million in sales and provides
300 jobs Statewide.
But, as the impact of plastic pollution grows, the future
of these industries is uncertain. This is certainly a global
issue, but it has local and individual causes and costs.
Keep America Beautiful estimates that litter clean-up costs
the United States more than $11.5 billion each year. That is
all the more reason why every American, whether in Connecticut
or California, has a vested interest in the future of our
plastic consumption.
As chair--co-chair of the Long Island Sound Caucus, I have
been working for years on the clean-up and revitalization of
our Nation's waterways. But this problem needs a comprehensive
response.
Some estimates indicate that people across the world may be
consuming as much as half a pound of plastic in our food and
water each year. It is in our shellfish. It is in our salt. It
is raining from our skies. Plastic is everywhere, and if we do
not take meaningful action to stop it, not only will plastic
soon be found in everything, it will also soon be found in
every way.
Our Nation must lead in cleaning up this plastic problem,
the recycling system. The focus of today's hearing is a key
part of the solution. As we will learn today, we must invest in
research that studies ways to keep plastic out of our
environment and advance policies that tackle the plastic
pollution problem throughout the supply chain.
We must become more aggressive in reducing the amount of
disposable packaging, single-use plastics, substitute more
sustainable materials for single-use plastics that are
difficult to recycle, and design products in packaging to make
it easier for every American to be able to recycle.
Congress and the private sector must partner with local
governments to enhance recycling programs to capture and
repurpose our waste and move towards a circular economy. That
requires us to reimagine the role that plastic plays in our
economy and our environment.
Fortunately, that process is already underway, as we will
hear this morning from our witnesses. Our role must be to
support those efforts and accelerate the transformation as best
we can.
And, with that, I thank the chair and the ranking member,
and I yield back my time.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank
you for joining us and making that wonderful statement.
Since we don't have the ranking member yet, I am just going
to go ahead and let the panelists start. And, when he arrives,
we will happily recognize him for an opening statement.
So, with that, let's start with Dr. Winnie Lau. Thank you
very much for being with us today.
Ms. Lau. Thank you.
Chairman Pingree, Ranking Member Joyce, members of the
subcommittee, thank you for your invitation to discuss the
growing problem of marine plastic pollution, and possible
solutions to address it.
My name is Winnie Lau, and I am the senior manager for The
Pew Charitable Trusts' Preventing Ocean Plastics Project.
Plastic pollution in the ocean is a major environmental
challenge that is growing worse each year but society has yet
to come together around a strategy to reverse this trend.
Plastic pollution stems from the current linear plastic
system where a product is produced and then discarded after
use, as opposed to a circular one, where a product is designed
for long use and ideally reused, and then recycled and waste
eliminated wherever possible.
The cost of plastic pollution to people, the economy, and
nature is estimated at $1.5- to $2.2 trillion a year. Last
year, Pew and our partners produced a report, Breaking the
Plastic Wave, a comprehensive assessment of pathways towards
stopping ocean plastic pollution, and a paper in the Journal
Science. This morning, I will present our findings and relevant
recommendations for your consideration.
One of the starkest findings from Pew's work is that
without action, the amount of plastic going into the world's
oceans, rivers, lakes, and on land each year could triple by
2040, leading to a quadrupling of the plastic that is already
in the ocean today.
The private sector and governments are responding with
commitments and new policies, but these would only reduce
plastic pollution by 7 percent in 2040. At this rate,
businesses could face a financial risk of $100 billion in the
next 20 years if governments passed the cost of plastic waste
management onto them.
There is no silver bullet. A fundamental system change is
needed. Relying mainly on recycling, disposal, or reduction,
would, at best, keep plastic pollution at around today's level
in the year 2040, but would still require a lot of effort and
resources. We simply will not be able to recycle our way out of
this problem. At the same time, recycling will need to be part
of the solution.
The one strategy that could significantly reduce plastic
pollution going into our environment is a system-change
approach that applies actions synergistically across the whole
plastic system. With the technologies and approaches that exist
today, we have the tools to reduce annual ocean plastic
pollution by 80 percent in the next 20 years.
The biggest bang for the buck is to eliminate avoidable
plastic use and encourage to switch to the reuse and refill
systems. These changes could generate 30 percent less plastic
waste by 2040, and governments globally could save $70 billion
over the next 20 years on waste management costs.
For example, the U.S. Government could exercise its
considerable procurement power, and put in place policies to
reduce the purchase of single-use plastic, and incentivize
reuse and refill models by its vendors.
A second complementary tool is to achieve a doubling of
recycling rates in the next 20 years. Only 15 percent of global
plastic waste is recycled, and the U.S. figure was only 4.5
percent in 2018.
Three key factors hinder the growth of the recycling
sector. First, 80 percent of the plastic produced today cannot
be recycled economically. Second, collecting and sorting of
plastic wastes are too costly due to the diversity of products
in the market. Third, recycled plastic often costs more than
virgin plastic.
Putting in place design standards, recycled content
targets, and improved collection and sorting technologies,
could support a robust domestic recycling industry with
economic, social, and environmental benefits.
I would like to highlight two other key areas that need
attention. First, the U.S. contribution to plastic pollution
does not stop at its borders. Decreasing and monitoring scrap
plastic export to middle- and low-income countries is needed.
Second, microplastic pollutions, especially tire tread
particles, is an increasingly growing concern, especially for
high-income countries like the U.S., and will require more
research to understand its impacts and ways to prevent and
reduce it.
We feel there is an opportunity for the U.S. to take a
global leadership role to reduce plastic pollution by 80
percent in the next 20 years, especially in the oceans, by
encouraging a comprehensive system-change strategy across
government and the private sector.
Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much.
Ms. Spencer, we would love to hear from you.
Ms. Spencer. Congratulations, Chairwoman Pingree. To you,
to chair--Madam Chair DeLauro, to Ranking Member Joyce, and
members of the subcommittees, thank you for the opportunity to
share the city of Phoenix's story on how we have met recycling
challenges, and our work to build a circular economy.
My name is Ginger Spencer. I am the public works director
for the city of Phoenix, and I am very honored to be here
today.
The city of Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the Nation
where our mayor is Kate Gallego. The city is home to 1.5
million-plus people and spans more than 500 square miles.
Mayor Gallego and our city leadership are passionate and
committed to recycling, sustainability, and building a circular
economy.
In 2011, Phoenix was described as the least-sustainable
city in the world. In 2012, our then-newly elected mayor, and
now Congressman Greg Stanton, set out to change that. The mayor
and city council established a new initiative called Reimagine
Phoenix, where our goal was to divert 40 percent of our waste
from the landfill by the year 2020. At the time, we had a 16
percent diversion rate, so this was a very ambitious goal.
I am here to report that we achieved a high diversion rate
of 36 percent in 2019, prior to COVID-19, and exceeded the
EPA's national average recycling rate of 34 percent at the
time, and that was without any mandates, fees, or fines to
incentivize our residents to recycle. Everything we did was on
a voluntary basis using our existing resources and revenue.
So how did we do it? In short, it was through innovation
and partnerships. Thanks to the leadership and action of our
mayor, city council and city management, new public-private
partnerships, a strong solid waste team, and some of the
hardest-working and most dedicated employees and essential
workers that I know, we met the challenge head-on. We said we
have got trash and lots of it. We said we have got trash, and
we don't know what to do with all of it. And we said we have
got trash, and we want to transform it into a resource.
The city has been in the recycling business for more than
30 years. We own two MRFs, two transfer stations, one compost
facility, one open landfill in the city of Buckeye, and five
closed landfills in Phoenix.
First, we did a waste characterization study to determine
the composition of our garbage and recycling, and we found out,
for example, that 30 percent of what our residents were
throwing away was compostable material. So we built a compost
facility to divert the waste from the landfill.
We also determined what was it costing us per ton to send
our material to the landfill, and we entertained new business
proposals to transform the waste into a resource that basically
would cost less than to send it to the landfill, allowing us to
create new programs and services for our residents without
increasing their fees.
We partnered with businesses, universities, NGOs, and
innovators from throughout the U.S. to repurpose our waste. We
partnered with Arizona State University and developed the
Resource Innovation and Solutions Network and the Technology
Solutions Incubator. That program, the Incubator, helped grow
19 start-up companies, generated $4.1 million in revenues,
raised $3.72 million in capital, created 68 jobs, and
manufactured 25 new products.
We issued a Call for Innovators--i.e., requests for
information--and partnered with our Economic Development
Department to issue RFPs like mattress recycling, palm frond
recycling, waste-to-energy RFPs. We partnered with the
Recycling Partnership using their free resources to develop the
Oops Shine On program to educate our residents and reduce
recycling contamination.
In week one, 70 percent of our residents received an Oops
tag for contamination in the recycling. By week five, 70
percent of our residents received a Shine On tag for great
recycling.
We partnered with the Closed Loop Partners, and received a
zero interest loan to make upgrades to our recycling facility
located in the northern part of town, which allowed us to
increase capacity. It improved the quality of our recyclables,
and it increased our net revenue from $3 million that was
projected to $6 million annually.
We partnered with our friends across the pond, and became a
member of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation so we could learn from
international cities who are already leading the way in
building a circular economy, and to highlight our challenges
and opportunities here in the U.S.
When the National Sword policy hit and we had to find a new
home for 80 percent of our recyclables that previously went to
China, we basically figured out what to do. With plastics three
through seven, we found out they no longer had a home, but we
said, Are there any plastics that do have value, and found out
that number fives, polypropylene--basically your yogurt cups--
did have value. So we slowed down our MRFs, caught that
material, and we partnered with Renewology to turn our plastics
into fuel.
When COVID-19 hit and we saw an increase on average of 20
percent in garbage, recycling and bulk trash, we stepped up and
met that challenge. It was a $4 million increase to our
operation, and we were able to get coronavirus relief funds to
help out with that as well.
We had to put our plastics-to-fuel project on hold because
of the uncertainty in the market. I am glad to announce that we
have restarted those conversations with Renewology and their
investors, such as Mitsubishi, to restart the Renew Phoenix
Project by doing a smaller demonstration project.
The city of Phoenix has a new goal of achieving zero waste
by 2050. We embrace the EPA's new national goal of achieving 50
percent diversion by 2030. We are activators of the U.S.
Plastic Pact, a partnership between The Recycling Partnership,
World Wildlife Fund, and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, with
more than 89 activators representing brands, manufacturers,
MRFs, government entities, academia, and other stakeholders
along the supply in plastics manufacturing chain, working to
build a roadmap to address the plastic waste challenge.
Lastly, our residents--we asked our residents if they were
satisfied with our solid waste services; if they value
recycling and compost; and, lastly, if they were willing to pay
a little more to maintain these services, and they said yes,
yes, and yes.
Our residents are relying on us to provide this service and
to keep our communities clean and safe, and to do our part to
protect the environment.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to share our
story.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you so much for your testimony.
Ms. Collier.
Ms. Collier. Thank you, Chairwoman Pingree, Ranking Member
Joyce, and members of the subcommittee.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this
morning about Nestle's commitment to tackling plastic waste and
critical infrastructure that both industry innovation and
recycling infrastructure will play in that effort.
My name is Nicole Collier, and I am the senior director of
corporate affairs for Nestle with responsibility over our U.S.
policy priorities, including efforts that support our
sustainability goals.
Nestle is the world's largest food and beverage company,
and the U.S. is our largest market. Our products are in 97
percent of U.S. homes. We offer products that include Coffee-
Mate creamers, Purina Pet Care, plant-based brands, like Sweet
Earth, and baking products, like Nestle Toll House morsels.
Nearly all of what we sell in the U.S., we produce right here,
with over 30,000 committed employees at our 68 facilities
throughout the country.
Our vision is that none of our packaging, including
plastics, ends up in landfills, oceans, or waterways. To
achieve this, we have set the goal that 100 percent of our
packaging will be reusable or recyclable by 2025. And, by that
same year, we will reduce our use of virgin plastic in our
packaging by one-third.
Some of these transitions are particularly challenging for
food products, where packaging and food safety are regulated by
the FDA. In some cases, there simply are not approved
alternatives for current packaging.
There is reason to be optimistic with industry investment
and discoveries. Nestle's Institute of Packaging Sciences is
making incredible headway, and Nestle is pouring research and
development dollars into the design of recyclable and
alternative materials.
Last year, we announced a $2 billion global investment to
help lead the shift from virgin to food-grade recycled
plastics. As part of that, we created a sustainable packaging
venture fund focusing on start-up companies that are developing
innovative packaging solutions. And we are not alone in these
pursuits. Other consumer-facing companies have similar goals.
For example, several years ago, we founded the Sustainable
Food Policy Alliance, or SFPA, along with Danone, Mars, and
Unilever, because we value a collaborative approach to
policymaking, and believe we can contribute to that process
while solving issues facing our employees, our consumers, our
supply chain, and retail customers.
We realize that systemic change is needed to achieve our
packaging goals, and prevent recyclable materials from being
sent to landfills, and to increase the amount of recycled
material that is collected and processed in the U.S. and made
available for reuse.
To achieve this, SFPA supports the adoption of a Federal
Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR system. An EPR system
would place a fee on packaging, and the revenue from the
collected fee would be dedicated to recycling infrastructure
improvements. Nestle and the other SFPA member companies
participate in EPR systems globally, and we know what works.
In the U.S., we support a nationally consistent, economy-
wide approach to life-cycle management of packaging with shared
responsibility between communities and brands for waste
collection, handling, and recycling.
This subcommittee's work to support the Recycling Needs
Survey and Assessment at EPA will help target investments to
increase recycling rates, reduce contamination, and attract
stronger end markets. There is a tremendous amount of
innovation and partnership happening in this space. We have
worked closely with partners, including the Recycling
Partnership's Circular Economy Accelerator, to develop a
framework using this policy approach for the U.S.
Another example is the U.S. Plastics Pact, which launched
last year with over 70 founding activators, including Nestle.
This group is aligning on national standards and a common
vision for a circular economy that will likely be published in
the summer of 2021.
I want to thank this committee for continuing to create
opportunities like this for thoughtful and bipartisan
discussions on these issues. We applaud your work to direct a
national recycling strategy that includes collaboration among
all levels of government, nonprofits, and the private sector,
and we look forward to continuing to partner with you and put
our size and scale to work in the area of plastic waste
reduction.
Thank you.
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Ms. Pingree. Thank you so much for your testimony and to
all of you for being here today.
I see Mr. Joyce has joined us. And if you would like to
make opening remarks, please go ahead.
Mr. Joyce. There we go.
Ms. Pingree. Well done. That is the biggest challenge of
today, is unmuting yourself.
Mr. Joyce. I need my daughters around so they can help me
fix all my problems with the software. Thank you for allowing
me to be here. Madam Chair, so nice to see you.
Let me be the first to say congratulations on your new role
as the head of this Interior and Environment Subcommittee. It
is well-deserved. I have heard your advocacy on behalf of Maine
for the years you have been on the subcommittee, and they
should be proud to have you as their advocate.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you.
Mr. Joyce. And it is always a pleasure to see that the
chair, Rosa DeLauro, who I first served on Labor HHS has joined
us. She taught me a lot of lessons, too, in her time there. But
you have always been a hard-working and well-respected member
of the Appropriations Committee, and I am really thankful for
the friendship and the way we are going to work together.
As we kick off subcommittee activity in the 117th Congress,
I am hopeful that we will continue the tradition that Betty and
I, and certainly Betty and Ken had in the past to reach across
the aisle and tackle the tough issues our constituents face,
while also maintaining proper oversight of the critical
programs that fall within our jurisdiction.
With that, Madam Chair, thank you for holding today's
hearing. I look forward to working with all the people on the
committee in trying to make sure we do what is best for our
country.
Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you so much, Mr. Joyce. It is a pleasure
to have the opportunity to work with you, and will do my best
to fill the big shoes that Ms. McCollum left behind, and to do
my best to get up to speed quickly on all the things that you
need to know to be on this committee, that I know you know a
lot about, so I will lean on you.
I will recognize myself for 5 minutes to begin the
questions. And, again, thank you so much to our witnesses. It
is going to be wonderful to have a chance to chat with you
more.
So let me just start with Ms. Lau. And, again, thank you so
much for the work that Pew has done on this topic, and really,
the comprehensive assessment of what needs to be done. So let
me just throw out a couple questions for you.
Why is a material design and substitution for plastic
products not enough to address the problem? And then, maybe I
will just throw in a couple of other parts of this. Why must we
focus on both pre-consumer and post-consumer? And, also, in
looking at the whole problem here, what other research is
necessary to understand the life cycle of different plastics
and the challenges that we are facing?
Sorry for that load, but I figured it would just be easier
to get them out there.
Ms. Lau. Thank you, Chair Pingree. I was writing it all
down, so I will try to capture all of your questions. If I miss
anything, please do let me know.
So what we have found is that, you know, we started the
work recognizing that plastic has a utility and it has a value
in society, but at the same time, that the rate at which we are
producing plastic is much higher than the rate at which we are
growing the solutions, the waste management processes and
infrastructure to handle that.
So, by applying approaches both to the pre-consumer and to
the post-consumer stages of the plastic system, we would be
able to dramatically reduce plastic pollution going into the
environment. What we found was, if we only focused on pre-
consumer, while we can reduce some of the--a significant
amount, 30 percent--we can reduce 30 percent of the plastic
away, and then substitute around 17 percent of the plastic
away, we would still be left with about 50 percent. And, right
now, the recycling industry is only at 15 percent of recycling
for plastic.
So that would mean we still have about 30 to 40 percent of
plastic that needs to be captured and safely handled, and
hopefully recycled back into the system. So, without applying
action to both pre-consumer and post-consumer stages of the
plastic system, we would not be able to decrease plastic waste
generation and decrease plastic pollution going into our
environment.
So material design, as you said, it is a really important
part of this whole process. Part of the reason that it is
difficult and costly to recycle plastic is that the plastic,
when it is designed, is not necessarily taking into account
what happens to the product, the packaging, once it is used. So
sometimes different plastic materials are mixed together, which
makes it very difficult to recycle, or maybe impossible, could
make it--and then, also, in the design of it--and you have
multiple, different polymers, different chemical formulations
that require a lot of effort in sorting.
So the whole system right now is not very efficient, and
there are different ways to make it more efficient. As I said
earlier, you could have design standards, you could have
recycling content targets. Those could make the whole system
more effective.
And then, at the same time, by reducing away the very-
difficult-to-recycle plastic, then you can take the
inefficiencies out of the system.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you. Thanks. And I have many more
questions, but I will just quickly ask Ms. Spencer--thank you
so much for talking to us about really the amazing work that
Phoenix has done. Such a great role model for our other cities,
and I am thrilled to hear that you have a composting operation
and that you have just really taken a comprehensive view.
So, in going forward--and I only have a minute to ask, but
I can always get back to you. What kind of research or
information do you need to be able to make the assessments and
decide what is going to be cost effective to do going into the
future?
Ms. Spencer. Thank you, Chairwoman, for that question.
So one of the things that was very helpful for us in the
beginning was to do a waste characterization so we could figure
out the makeup. What are our residents throwing away in the
garbage? What are our residents putting into the recycling bin
that is contamination, so that way, we knew how to focus our
efforts. Also, trying to figure out, well, what was our cost
per ton to send material to the landfill, and compare that
against decisions to do composting, to do recycling, to do
upgrades to our MRF, or to build a composting facility, for
example, or to do other partnerships.
One of the things that will be very, very helpful for us
from a research standpoint moving forward is similar to what
Ms. Lau said, is about being able to do life-cost analysis when
it comes to materials, when it comes to commodities. So not
only are we looking at what is the cost of the material? What
is the economic benefit that we can bring by selling that
material? But, also, what is it doing to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions? What is the long-term effect, so that we could
actually look at what we call the triple bottom line in that
overall economic benefit.
So, life cycle analysis definitely would be very, very
helpful in our efforts to continue to build a circular economy.
Ms. Pingree. Great. I have to leave it there. I am over my
time. And thank you so much.
Mr. Joyce, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair. And, also, for the
record, I would like to ask for unanimous consent to include my
full opening statement and a letter from the American Chemistry
Council in the hearing record today.
Ms. Pingree. Without objection, so moved.
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Mr. Joyce. Thank you.
Ms. Collier, thank you so much for being here--all of our
witnesses today, thank you for being here.
I am so proud of what you have done at Nestle and the bold
commitment that you have made to make 100 percent of your
packaging recyclable, or reusable by 2025 and to reduce the use
of virgin plastics by one-third. I am especially proud that you
are employing 4,000 Buckeyes to help make this goal a reality.
Can you take a moment to describe how Nestle will meet this
goal using innovative solutions, partnerships, and consumer
communication? How might heavy-handed Federal mandates and
product bans potentially, hinder Nestle's ability to foster a
circular economy and develop innovative packaging solutions?
Ms. Collier. Thank you very much, Ranking Member Joyce. We
are really proud to be in the heart of Solon, Ohio, so thank
you for that.
We do agree--I agree with all of the panelists and many of
the comments that have been made. This is a complex problem,
and Nestle is looking at this, and looking at the kind of
multifaceted-pronged approach to solving this issue.
One, we also have tremendous research capabilities
throughout the company, and we are putting a lot of those
resources and efforts into this plastic and sustainable
packaging issue.
We are one--to achieve our commitment, we are looking at
the plastic that we currently use. As I mentioned, we have a
goal of reducing virgin plastic in our packaging by one-third
by 2025, and so, we are very committed to doing that where we
can.
However, I think, as was already mentioned by Winnie Lau,
plastic does play an important role in food packaging. It helps
sustain shelf life. It has a portion of food safety that we
rely on. And, so, it likely will be a part of the food industry
for some time.
We are looking to continue redesigning and designing our
packaging for recycling in order to commit to achieve our
goals. We also are spending a lot of research and development
dollars, as I mentioned, on new alternative materials, whether
those are fiber-based, bio-based. We are looking at a lot of
other types of materials for our packaging.
We have a diverse portfolio of products, and a diverse
portfolio of needs of packaging as well. And, so, we have spent
a lot of time investing in that.
We also created this venture fund to invest in small
companies and start-ups that are innovating equipment for local
MRFs throughout the world, and some of that investment has come
to the U.S., and I hope to speak about that as well.
So there are lots of different areas that we are trying to
achieve this work. While we know plastic remains to be a big
problem, we do still use it, we do see that it has value, and
we are trying to make it as recyclable as possible.
And, last but not least, one of the things that I really
have focused a lot of my time on is infrastructure in the U.S.
It is really important that we enhance and strengthen that
infrastructure so that all of that diverse packaging really can
be circular--be a part of the circular economy and we can drive
circularity through our infrastructure. It is a big issue for
us.
Mr. Joyce. As you innovate and develop more sustainable
packaging solutions, is it challenging to do so without
compromising food safety and quality protections?
Ms. Collier. No. I mean, we can't--we have to balance that
appropriately. And, as I mentioned, there are food safety
requirements to our packaging that are regulated by the FDA. We
are fully compliant, and we work very closely with our partners
there to ensure that.
And that is why I made the comment about plastic. There are
some items today where we don't have alternative materials that
would be appropriate. But, where there are opportunities, we do
seek to use different materials.
But, you know, again, I think one of the big pieces here
is, in order for most--the majority of Americans to be able to
recycle, we really have to have more consistency in our
recycling system.
Today, there are winners and losers across the country, and
we really need to be able to strengthen that so that all of the
packaging can actually be a part of the circular economy.
Mr. Joyce.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much, Mr. Joyce.
And I am pleased to recognize the chair of the
Appropriations Committee, Ms. DeLauro, for 5 minutes. Thank you
for being here.
The Chair. Thank you very, very much, and thank you for the
testimony to our witnesses. It is really not only informative,
but it really is, you know, direction for the future and very
innovative, and so I am grateful for that.
Ms. Spencer, you mentioned China's new recycling standards
have forced Phoenix to reassess its plastic disposal methods.
We have got many municipalities who have suffered from this
change. I mean, Stamford, Connecticut used to earn $95,000
selling its recyclables. But, after the policy change, it cost
the city $700,000 to dispose of them. China's new standards
have effectively eliminated a major foreign market for our
plastic waste.
And you noted the need to redevelop in the U.S. recycling
market, the opportunity it presents in job creation,
innovation, partnerships. And it seems that recycling hubs
would need to be used by multiple localities to reduce the cost
of running them and to be able to maintain them.
Has the city of Phoenix worked with other municipalities in
Arizona to design new recycling hubs? How could the Federal
investment increase this effort? And, in terms of job creation,
do you have a projection on how many jobs a city of Phoenix's
size could create with new recycling investments?
Ms. Spencer. Madam Chair DeLauro, thank you for that
question. Great comments, observations, and a great question.
When it comes to plastics, what we do know from a Phoenix
perspective, that basically 11 percent of what was showing up
in the garbage was actually plastics, and about 15 percent of
what was in our recyclables was plastics as well.
To your point, we have worked with other cities. We have
two MRFs here in Phoenix, recycling facilities. And there are
other cities from throughout the Valley of the Sun that
actually send their recyclables to us, so we have agreements in
place.
When the National Sword hit, when COVID-19 hit, there were
other cities who reached out to us who wanted to bring their
recyclables to us as well.
Right now, though, we--with the upgrade that we did at our
north facility, through the zero-interest loan that we got from
the Closed Loop Partners, we were able to take down our older
plant that is located in southern parts of town and send all of
our recyclables there. Once we bring that location back up, we
could look at bringing in additional cities.
So investment, in recycling infrastructure is so important,
and, if that was available, many cities would be able to
continue to be in the recycling business.
It creates jobs--we know that--for the people who are
working in the plants; for the people that are processing and
sorting the recyclables; for the individuals who are selling
the actual recyclables; for the people that are taking the
recyclables and transforming that waste into a new product. So
recycling, what we know, is great for the economy.
The Chair. I will just say, as we think about--and I say
this to the chair and ranking member, as we think about
infrastructure in its broader terms, you are talking about
recyclable infrastructure seems to be a very worthwhile effort.
If I can, let me ask Dr. Lau a question. And this has to do
with the concept of the Extended Producer Responsibility, which
has not received support at the Federal level in the past, but
there--as I understand it, there is activity at the State
level.
Is the lack of Extended Producer Responsibility success due
to it not being scaled at the Federal level? What other policy
proposals would you pair with it in the recycling system
change? Do you think industry's support for this effort--for
this model is sufficient, or do you think corporations should
also work to eliminate plastic packaging?
Ms. Lau. Thank you, Madam Chair DeLauro.
So Extended Producer Responsibility is one of the policy
solutions that we included in our analysis, and found to be one
of the solutions that will be needed to help increase the
recycling rate globally, and as well as in the U.S.
And Extended Producer Responsibility is one of those
policies that can help reduce the cost of recycling, and,
therefore, making the industry more robust and more profitable.
And it is one where, likely, it will require government and
private-sector collaboration to make it work.
As to whether it should be a Federal policy, it isn't
something that we have looked at, whether it needed to be
implemented at a national level or a subnational level, so I
can't comment on that at the moment. But we do know that it is
an effective policy. It can be an effective policy to make the
recycling industry profitable and robust.
As to it not being scaled, I think it is a newer policy,
and it is one that more and more governments are looking at and
trying, and, so, I think, in the near future, this is a policy
that would likely be applied more here, I hope, at home in the
U.S., but also globally.
The Chair. Thank you.
And, Madam Chair, thank you. I have gone over my time, and
I--well, can't yield back any time. I just took over my time.
So thank you very much for your indulgence. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. We are very pleased to have you join us today,
so thank you so much for your questions.
Mr. Stewart, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Stewart. Well, thank you to the witnesses. Thanks for
being here, but also, more importantly, thanks for what you do.
I support it. Obviously, I think all of us do. It is better for
everyone, and it is clearly better for the environment, and,
hopefully, better for the consumers.
I actually am not going to ask a question. I will just
voice my support. I have another hearing I have got to run to,
and I want to be able to stay and listen to the answer, but,
Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you. And thank you so much for joining
us and hearing the witnesses today.
So, I think that next on the list is Mr. Harder, and
welcome to the committee, or do I see him there?
Actually, I don't see Mr. Harder. I think he may have left
the room. So, if he comes back, we will bring him back on.
I don't see Mr. Amodei, who was here in the beginning, so
nice to have had him here.
And we will go to Mrs. Lee. So good to have you on our
committee.
Mrs. Lee. Thank you. Well, thank you, Madam Chair, and as
well the Ranking Member Joyce for hosting this hearing. This
is, to me, a really important issue.
And I want to focus on one particular approach for how we
can incentivize industry and investments to shift away from the
production of new plastic and towards reuse systems and
sustainable substitute materials.
As you know, I represent southern Nevada. We have a robust
tourism and hospitality and convention industry. And, as you
can imagine, plastic use is prevalent. But, you know, our
tourism industry has the power to drive demand for plastic
incentives and the economic incentives to make a shift towards
more sustainable substitute materials.
Already, some of our key industry players have made major
steps in the right direction, including the Las Vegas Sands
organization that added single-use plastic reduction to its
ECO360 plan, sustainability strategy. This was back in 2018,
and they developed a new single-use plastic plan in 2019 that
annually replaces 6.5 million plastic takeaway containers and
cutlery with plant-based alternatives.
In addition, they also eliminated plastic laundry collars,
and plastic hangers have been replaced with cardboard
alternatives. Including, there has been several national hotel
or global hotel chains, Marriott International,
InterContinental Hotel Groups, that have also committed to
getting rid of the small plastic bottles used in their hotels
for products like shampoo and shower gel.
So, as we know, these are steps in the right direction, but
plenty more to be done, and I am looking forward to working on
this subcommittee in a bipartisan manner to help promote those
solutions.
Dr. Lau, I want to--recognizing the cost of plastic
pollution to the global economy, anywhere from $1.5- to $2.2
trillion across the sectors from shipping to tourism, I want to
ask you: Can you speak to how government procurement policies
can help accelerate the shift away from single-use plastic
items and towards sustainable substitutes?
Ms. Lau. Thank you, Ms. Lee, for that question, and thank
you for all the great work in your home State.
For the tourism industry--for governments, procurement is a
very powerful tool that could be used, because the government
does spend a lot of money in our economy with its purchasing
power. So, the government could put in place policies that put
preferences on--away from single-use plastic to reusable
systems directly in what they purchase, as well as in the
vendors that you choose to work with by putting in place things
like preferential sourcing with vendors that do not use single-
use plastic, but use refill and reuse systems. So, I think that
could be a very powerful tool.
Mrs. Lee. Thank you.
And, Madam Chair, we should also start with our own House.
I am always amazed at the small little plastic bottles we have
at every committee hearing. So, I think we can start to do some
of that work internally.
Dr. Lau, you also found that a comprehensive approach to
plastic waste reduction that incentivizes reduced plastic
production and expands the reuse and refill systems could
collectively save governments around the world $70 billion.
Can you elaborate on these cost savings and how this
approach reduces waste management spending needs?
Ms. Lau. Thank you for that question.
So, in our analysis, a lot of the cost of plastic is in
production, as well as the waste management piece. And, by
substituting away plastic, we essentially take away the need to
manage the plastic waste that would be generated, and that, as
you said, could be substituted--we could reduce about 30
percent of the plastic--using refill-reuse systems, as well as
eliminating avoidable plastic.
And then, with substitution, similarly, we could switch
away from plastic to other more sustainable materials. Those
materials do have waste management costs. But, for example,
paper was one we looked at, and paper--has a very robust
recycling industry. Currently, it is at above 50 percent. So
that industry--the recycling--paper recycling industry can
generate revenue.
And then, between the need for less waste management
capacity, as well as switching to materials that are recyclable
and profitable, globally, we could reduce $70 billion over the
next 20 years in the need to provide infrastructure, as well as
the services that are associated with it.
Mrs. Lee. Great. I am sorry I have gone over my time, but
thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you. I think you muted yourself at the
very end, but thank you for your questions.
And I will say, under Chair McCollum, back in the last
session, when we were actually meeting in the committee room--
well, under Ranking Member Joyce and Chair McCollum, we had
pitchers of water and individual cups. So there was an attempt
on this committee that cares deeply about the environment to
reduce our plastic use, even though that is kind of minuscule
in the whole picture, but important to do.
So, Mr. Cartwright, very nice to have you here. You are
next. I recognize you for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cartwright. Thank you, Chair Pingree, and it is an
honor to join this subcommittee. And thank you to all of our
witnesses for appearing here today.
Now, I am from a district in northeastern Pennsylvania,
which is far from the ocean, but we are home to beautiful lakes
and rivers and streams and brooks and, unfortunately, we are
also home to a huge amount of unwanted waste that could have
been recycled. We are the home to a very large landfill, and I
want to talk about that in a little bit.
Recent testing completed under NOAH standards by
PennEnvironment found microplastic and plastic fragment
contamination in both the Susquehanna and Lackawanna Rivers in
my district; but my district is burdened with more than its
fair share of waste from external sources. We received shipped
waste from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and all other
parts of Pennsylvania at the bloated 714-acre Keystone Sanitary
Landfill in Dunmore that is currently undergoing permitting to
continue expanding their operation for another 50 years. More
than 64 percent of their 7,200 tons of trash per day comes from
out of State.
To that end, I have introduced the Trash Act to help
promote recycling so less unnecessary waste makes its way into
my community. So, you see, you don't need to be near the ocean
to have your life intimately affected by unnecessary waste and
plastics.
And I want to invite Ms. Collier's attention to my first
questions. I was fascinated by the idea of a small fee that
companies would put on their products. Ms. Collier, what do you
call that program? You had a name for it.
Ms. Collier. Thank you, Congressman. Extended Producer
Responsibility or EPR.
Mr. Cartwright. EPR, okay. I want to learn a lot more about
that because it seems to track a lot of--I am going to jump off
this call and I am going to go testify in a Natural Resources
hearing about the abandoned mine lands trust fund, which
operates on the same principle, that ongoing mine operations
will pay just a little bit of their gross revenue to clean up
abandoned mine lands. It is the same idea, and I like it, and I
want to talk more about it.
And it certainly seems that Nestle is taking many of the
right steps in ensuring that it produces easily recyclable
products. My question is, have you worked specifically with
waste management centers to discuss the end-of-life phase of
your products and whether or not its economically beneficial
for them to recycle your products?
Ms. Collier. Thank you, Congressman.
That is a really big issue related to the infrastructure.
We need to make sure that any systems that we develop or
enhance, that it can remain profitable and sustainable and that
there are markets for the post-consumer material.
So, yes, we have had lots of conversations. One of the
things that we have found to be really successful are some of
the partnerships and coalitions that we have been a part of,
and a lot of those coalitions, like the recycling partnerships
coalition, and we have done a lot of work also with closed loop
partners as well, brings together all of these like-minded and
kind of interested parties, some of which, you know, are
competitors.
Like I mentioned, we are working with some of our
competitors in the marketplace, but also some of which are not
always aligned on how we should deal with these issues. And
these coalitions have given us an opportunity to really talk
about what an enhanced system, recycling system, a properly
financed system really could look like and how do we make it
more profitable and more sustainable for our local recycling
centers. It is a really key stakeholder.
Mr. Cartwright. I want to jump to my last question.
Norway recently adopted a system that charges companies
what they call an environmental levy on plastic bottlemakers,
and it is a levy that declines as the recycleability increases.
In much the same way, Britain is planning to tax manufacturers
of plastic packaging that is less than 30 percent recycle.
What are the pros and cons of a system such as that? And
how can we ensure that any burdensome costs don't fall on
consumers who may not be able to afford them?
Ms. Collier. Is that also for me?
Mr. Cartwright. Yes, it is, Ms. Collier.
Ms. Collier. Yes, there are lots of systems that include--
we sometimes call that eco-modulation. It discounts the fee
that you might pay based on innovations that you have made in
your packaging, and we are supportive of that type of system.
We would like to see any U.S. system incorporate the
investments that companies have made in their packaging,
companies like Nestle and many others.
Additionally, we believe that businesses like us that are
forward-looking and that are connected to the consumer will
make the investment now because we are thinking about our
future and tomorrow. And so there may be some costs that we
incur and absorb early on, but that will level out as the
marketplace changes. So we don't anticipate a lot of consumer
costs upfront. We are trying to make a system and develop a
system that would avoid that.
Mr. Cartwright. Thank you for your testimony. I would like
to talk further offline.
And I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much, Mr. Cartwright.
I see Mr. Amodei. Do you have any questions for our
witnesses today?
Mr. Amodei. Madam Chair, thank you. And I appreciate you
giving the shout out to the world-famous sagehen at the
beginning of the meeting. We will make sure and show you as
good or better a time as we did last Congress' chair, so no
worries there to visit the bird with a face only a mother could
love.
But anyhow, I think I want to ask, the question I have--and
I have been doing a little of multitasking, so I hope this
hasn't been asked before. I think I want to ask the lady who
manages waste programs in Phoenix--is she still on?
Ms. Spencer. Yes.
Mr. Amodei. Okay, great, Ginger. Sorry, I don't know you
that well, but Ginger, I know how to pronounce that, I think.
Anyhow, as I look at the recycling programs and as a guy, I
know people think Republicans don't recycle, but I guess I am
an aberration. So I am a dedicated personal recycler, but one
of the things I have noticed--and I live in an area where water
isn't quite as abundant as it is in other areas of the country,
which is good news for the Nestle people, because we are buying
it in bottles and stuff like that. And my question deals not
with the simple stuff like those bottles, but we have received
a lot of stuff--and I think the company that has the franchise
in my neck of the woods is headquartered in Phoenix, and they
do the recycling as well as the trash removal; but a lot of the
recycling stuff the rules say it can't be contaminated in terms
of food.
And so as you sit there and look at the products that are
being used for doggie bags, for pizza boxes, for all of that
health food stuff that I am sure we all know about, is there
anything in terms of--because to sit there and go, well,
cardboard is supposedly freely recyclable, or Styrofoam or all
of that stuff, but I mean--and I found myself doing this. I
know that this is a secret meeting so nobody will know this,
but you sit there and you use water to wash the stuff that you
are going to be able to recycle, which doesn't make a heck of a
lot of sense.
Help me, since it sounds like you are kind of on the
cutting edge of all of this stuff, are we moving towards
something where--and I get it if it is destroyed and,
obviously, hazardous materials and stuff like that, but
recycling being something that can't have food residue on it is
an interesting concept if we are trying to encourage recycling.
Ms. Spencer. Congressman Amodei, thank you for that
question.
So we get that a lot, and we do a lot of education with our
residents. We actually have a tool called Recycle Wizard where
you can actually put in an item and see if it is recyclable or
see if it is compostable or see how you can reuse it. Food
waste in recyclables is a contaminant, and actually what we
have done is videos to say--first of all, because Phoenix we
are very concerned about water use.
Mr. Amodei. As we are.
Ms. Spencer. We promote xeriscape landscaping and that sort
of thing, so water is a resource, and we want to protect it.
But what we found, I will just use a yogurt cup for an example.
You know, instead of rinsing it out with water, what we would
encourage you to do is just leave it out on your counter, let
it dry up, then you can crunch the cup and scoop out the food
waste, right, and now it is clean and you can put it in your
recycle bin.
When it comes to glass even, with candles, again, you can
burn the actual candle material out, wipe it out, and then
discard the glass. So we do a lot of education and videos to
our residents. All of our information is free. We share it very
freely as well with others on how you can actually recycle
without using water to get rid of the food waste so that we can
help the environment and be sustainable from a water
standpoint, as well as a recycling standpoint.
Mr. Amodei. Okay. And thank you for choosing the example
for me that has to do with the yogurt cup. As I am sure
everybody knows, I am a big yogurt customer. Not. But, anyhow,
thanks for giving me a chance. I will try some sometime.
That is all I have. I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Amodei. And if we had known you
were such a good recycler, we would have had a member quiz at
the beginning to see who passed and who didn't, so maybe next
time.
Ms. Kaptur. Chair Kaptur, thank you very much for joining
us today.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Chair Pingree and also
Ranking Member Joyce. What an interesting hearing. I am sorry I
couldn't join earlier. I had a Veterans hearing as well.
I wanted to mention that both Congressman Joyce and myself
share a fresh water coast in the Great Lakes, and we are told
that about 22 million pounds of plastic are dumped into the
Great Lakes each year, half of which enters Lake Michigan
alone, and that is enough to fill 100 Olympic-sized swimming
pools. And my dear staff has told me that it is heavier than
4,500 adult Beluga whales, so it is a lot of stuff. And we are
told also that 90 percent of the litter that is picked up
around the Great Lakes is plastic.
I want to commend NOAA for launching something we call
marine debris, where in our region we challenge young people to
be conscious of marine debris and to present artwork and papers
that raise consciousness regionally.
So I am interested if Ms. Lau could talk a little bit about
the regional impacts of plastic pollution, particularly on
inland oceans like the Great Lakes. I have wondered as I have
listened to this today, Ohio State University has been very
involved in using a corn byproduct to actually make bags that
used to be made out of plastic. And these bags--the first time
they did it and I went to a county fair and I picked up a bag,
it melted, so it didn't work. But I wonder, I think they have
perfected it now, if part of the answer lies in science and in
developing materials that, in fact, disintegrate at some point.
I also, in addition to that question about fresh water
ecosystems and some of the challenges that we face there, I
wanted to just put this on the record, the concentration of
microplastics in some of our tributaries.
The Maumee River is the largest river that flows into the
shallowest of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie, which is very sick
right now, and we got the figure of 2.6 particles per cubic
meter. This compares to 1.7 to 2.1 particles per cubic meter in
the Portage and Sandusky Rivers, which are more upstream, and
microplastics inputs to Lake Erie are estimated to be fourfold
higher than the other Great Lakes, Lake Huron, and so forth,
and we are told it is 80 fold higher than Lake Superior.
Could the witnesses elaborate on what some of the long-term
challenges these increased microplastic levels might have on
the health, drinking water, and fisheries? And I will wait for
the reply.
And thank you so much for this hearing again, Madam Chair.
You make a difference.
Ms. Lau. Thank you, Ms. Kaptur, for the questions.
First, with our study, we looked at plastic pollution in
all waterways, oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams, as well as
on land, and the trend is the same. We will be seeing tripling
of plastic pollution across all of these different ecosystems
in the next 20 years if we don't dramatically put in changes to
reverse the trend.
Our study was a global study, so we didn't look at
individual countries or individual regions. So I am sorry I
won't be able to provide that specific answer for you; but
extrapolating from our global study, I would say that you are
right in your concern that in the Great Lakes region plastic
pollution will continue to be a very big problem and likely
will continue to get worse and worse unless changes are put in
place.
In terms of microplastic, it is something that is gaining a
lot more attention as a pollutant, and in our study we found
that tire tread particles, in fact, made up \3/4\ of the
microplastic pollution among the four sources of microplastics
we looked at. So tire tread particles, textiles from our
clothing, the pellets, plastic pellets that turns into plastic
products, as well as the microbeads that are in our personal
care products, those are actually smaller categories, still
very important; but tire tread particles are extremely
important.
There was a recent study that looked at salmon die-offs in
the Pacific Northwest, and they identified that it was a
chemical from tire dust particles that was causing the die-off
in the salmon in the Pacific Northwest. So it is quite likely
there are these other impacts in other ecosystems, other
freshwater systems.
So it is going to be very important that more research is
done on microplastics and their impacts, but also their
sources, so that we can find better ways to reduce them and
prevent them from getting into our environment.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
Madam Chair, I just wanted to mention if I could--I know I
am over time, and I will try to do this really fast.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you.
Ms. Kaptur. But there are companies--and I will provide
them to the record. I think one is called Re-New or Re-Gen, I
just can't remember--where they are taking plastic because of
their deep concern that half of the forests--the wood in the
forests in our country, that is being cut down, is being cut
down for pallets, and they are trying to find a substitute for
wood in pallets, and they have been recycling plastic to a
point where they are able to make it stronger than steel
actually as they get it to glump together through a heat
process I believe it is.
And because they were worried about reforestation and
what's happening with our forests. And I think it would be
interesting to look at new industries that are being born by
reusing recyclables like plastics.
And I hear what you are saying about eliminating it in the
first place, but I think there also are people working on the
other end and, hopefully, we can attract some of those to do
business, do greater business. And I will share those with the
record.
Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. And thank you, Chair Kaptur. It is really a
wonderful resource to have you and our ranking member so
knowledgeable about the Great Lakes. Those of us on the coast
tend to think about water bodies and think about the ocean, but
they are such essential resources that I know we will a chance
to talk much more about them during this year.
And next week our committee hearing will be about forest,
forest products, the health of our forests, so if you want to
put that on your calendar, it would be great to have your
input.
We have heard from all of the committee members, but we
have a chance for a second round. So I am just going to go
ahead and ask another question. I recognize myself for 5
minutes.
Ms. Collier, thank you so much for being here with us
today, and I am very familiar with the work that Nestle does,
especially as part of the Sustainable Food Policy Alliance.
That has been a really great movement forward in terms of so
many things around transparency and packaging and just a whole
variety of things, food waste, everything else. I have gotten
to work with you and the other companies on a variety of
issues. So thank you for being a part of that.
As you know, Nestle has a long history of Maine as the
owners of Poland Spring Water. Poland Spring Water is a 175-
year old water company, and we have been thrilled in that
capacity to see that Nestle is a brand that is using recycled
packaging so seriously.
We have also been excited to have the University of Maine,
which has done a lot of work on silastic nano products to
really look at some of these alternative methods for plastics,
and I know there have been some alliances around the research
that is going on there.
But I also note that Nestle is selling off Poland Springs,
so we will not be a long-term partner with Nestle, but I know
that you will go on to create important things. But I was
interested to read because we, of course, have followed that in
Maine about the coming sale of Poland Spring, but one of the
factors was around bottled water and some of the decline in
people using it because of their concerns about the plastic
waste.
And I only bring that up because I think it speaks to some
of the questions that have come up earlier about how--the
importance of resolving these issues in terms of consumer
demands. Consumers are increasingly saying, We want to use
environmentally friendly packaging, we want to use things that
are good for our climate, and that that factors into enormous
decisions, like whether a company is bought and sold or what
the future of a particular product is.
So that I think makes this even more important and also
emphasizes the complexity of this problem that so many of you
have talked to us about today, whether it is how it gets
recycled, what is in the initial product, what leaches out of
the products, so many things.
So I am just going to ask you because I know the company is
doing some work on bioplastics, and that is a big interest of
ours. In Maine--Ms. Kaptur mentioned it, you know, with corn.
People have talked about potato-based plastics. We are
interested in wood fiber, just the opportunities there for more
compostable products or just the new fibers that might be used
that may leave less toxins in the environment.
So sorry my question was so long, but just interested to
hear how you see that work and where you think we are with it.
Ms. Collier. Thank you, Chairwoman Pingree. We really do
look forward to continuing to work with you and have
appreciated your leadership on food waste, for example, but
certainly in these areas as well.
You know, there are a lot of decisions and factors that go
into business decisions like the ones we have had to make in
the last couple of years. I won't necessarily speak to that too
specifically, but I can say, whenever we have products--and you
are right, our consumers are telling us that they want changes
in our packaging and they want to see less waste and they don't
want to feel guilty about purchasing products that they are not
sure how to recycle or how to dispose of them, and we are doing
a lot of work to try to communicate with our consumers about
their packaging and about their food.
So that is one thing for sure we have to be very responsive
to that. And Nestle does invest in the space. As I mentioned,
in 2019, we created this Institute for Packaging Sciences, and
we continue to look at different packaging applications.
Recycling is sometimes preferred for certain packaging because
we can have that circular approach. But bio-based and
biodegradable packaging is certainly also something that we are
considering in doing a lot of work on.
We have partnered with fantastic universities, like the
University of Maine. We also partner with other universities
around the world in this space, and we also have a partnership
with the company, Danimer Scientific to develop a marine
biodegradable and recyclable bottle, and there is some
information about that that is public, and we continue to do
work on that. That is research and development work that is not
necessarily tied to specific businesses or divisions within the
company.
So we are continuing to do all of that. We want to be able
to offer consumers a lot of variety and what they want, and we
are also are paying attention to what's necessary for the
quality and safety of our foods as well.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you so much.
Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Spencer, I am glad to see that you came back. I was
worried that I was going to lose you when your screen went
blank.
Given education is a proven tool to increasing recycling
participation and producing more viable recyclable streams,
last Congress I was proud to co-sponsor the Recycle Act. The
Recycle Act would create a new EPA grant program to help
educate households and consumers about their residential and
community recycling programs.
I, for one, in the local paper at home started reading
about the problems we were having at the recycling center at
the township, and being the guy who shuttles all the household
recycling up there, I know my wife--mason jars, bottom will
crack, can't go in the stream. It is glass, so why would it go
in there. Obviously, we need to be educated.
I was especially pleased that in fiscal year 2021 Congress
provided up to $1.5 million for these efforts. Can you take a
moment to discuss how community outreach, communication, and
education about sustainability efforts to residents and
businesses were critical in helping Phoenix reach its
sustainability goals?
Ms. Spencer. Thank you, Ranking Member Joyce, for that, and
also thank you for your leadership and for the Recycle Act.
That is huge, that is huge, and it will go a long way to help
communities with increasing education for our residents.
In Phoenix, that is our first fear when we looked at
developing our Reimagine Phoenix Program so. So the very first
part is how can we educate our residents, the second part was
new programs and services, and the third was public-private
partnerships. So, again, it starts with our residents.
One of the things is we need to be consistent in our
messaging, and we need to have technologies that will allow all
cities to be able to recycle the same type of products. You
mentioned glass. In Phoenix we are very fortunate, we can
recycle glass. We have optical sorters that allow us to do it,
and we have a company that is located here that actually can
take that glass and repurpose it.
But the one thing that will be very helpful working with
EPA, as well as other organizations and coalitions, if we can
have consistent messaging. And, again, if we can have the
technology that will allow our MRFs, whether you have a MRF in
your own township or your own city or if you are using a
regional approach or if you are even working with the private
sector through their MRFs, that we can actually take the
material in the first place, process it, and, most importantly,
have a market for it so that it can sell and then be
repurposed.
So we do a lot when it comes to education. And, again, for
us, the residents, they are at the top of the food chain. They
are our bosses, and they want recycling, and we have to engage
them. We surveyed them, and that is really what helped us with
our efforts here in Phoenix is hearing their voices and knowing
that they value it and that they expect it and that they rely
on us.
Mr. Joyce. Now, is it, in fact--it has been helpful to you
to do that, but isn't the--like I said myself, when you schlep
this stuff up there in the township, and then the township--the
article was about it is not cost effective for them, people
were throwing too much junk into the stream. If it is not going
into the recycling stream, then it is just basically going to
the lots or to the----
Ms. Spencer. To the landfill.
Mr. Joyce. Correct, thank you. I was going to say junkyard,
but I knew that wasn't it.
Ms. Spencer. That too. And so, yes, sir, it is just very
important that we keep our recycling messages very simple and
that we give our residents options, but we should be clear
about if we are taking a material, right, and our residents are
paying us to do that, that it is being recycled at the end of
the day and not sent to the landfill.
So, again, it is about keeping up the infrastructure and
keeping up the technology so that we can take that material and
we can recycle it, and it is also about creating those local
markets and partnerships so that, at the end of the day, it is
being recycled, it is being repurposed, it is creating new
products or turned to fuel, whatever the case may be.
So we want to keep the message simple, and we definitely
want to work with our residents, and we do community meetings,
you know, prior to COVID. Now we do a lot of information
online, a lot of videos, a lot of tools for our residents.
Mr. Joyce. And it is not a question, but I would like to
follow up and be able to view some of those things offline
after we get through with this hearing.
Ms. Spencer. Yes, sir, be glad to do that.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you.
And it looks like, once again, it is you and I, Madam
Chair, and I know these ladies, we have put them through a
couple of hours here, and I apologize for being late to begin
with, but all of us get stuck in other meetings.
But I know you are in good hands with our chairwoman, and I
really appreciate the opportunity to hear from all of you
today. It is very enlightening, and thank you for your service
and work.
I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. I want to thank all of you. You have been
really wonderfully informative to all of our colleagues, and I
know we will have follow-up questions going into the future,
and you are all great resources for us as we work towards these
issues, all of which are very critical and need our attention
and resolution now. I can see from all of the statistics this
is not something we can continue to put off for so many
reasons, so----
Mr. Joyce. Madam Chair, before we close, I would like to
enter a letter into the record from my distinguished colleague,
Tim Ryan, about a company in his district and some of the
processes that they use to help eliminate waste.
Ms. Pingree. Absolutely. Without objection, so moved.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Absolutely.
Okay. So, again, thank you to all of the witnesses. We
really do appreciate your questions. And if there are no
additional questions, the hearing is now adjourned.
Thank you.
Tuesday, March 23, 2021.
WOOD INNOVATION: SUSTAINABLE FOREST PRODUCTS TO REINVIGORATE RURAL
ECONOMIES
WITNESSES
CYNTHIA ``CINDI'' WEST, DIRECTOR, FOREST PRODUCTS LABORATORY AND
NORTHERN RESEARCH STATION
STEPHEN SHALER, PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF MAINE, FOR/MAINE,
SCHOOL OF FOREST RESOURCES
PETER MACKEITH, DEAN AND ARCHITECT, FAY JONES SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
AND DESIGN, UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS
MARC BRINKMEYER, OWNER, IDAHO FOREST GROUP, IDAHO FOREST PRODUCTS
COMMISSION
Ms. Pingree. Good morning. This hearing will now come to
order.
As this meeting is fully virtual, we must address a few
housekeeping matters, and I will read the opening verbatim.
For today's meeting, the chair or staff designated by the
chair may mute participants' microphones when they are not
under recognition for the purposes of eliminating inadvertent
background noise.
Members are responsible for muting and unmuting themselves.
If you notice you have not unmuted yourself, I will ask you if
you would like the staff to unmute you. If you indicate
approval by nodding, staff will unmute your microphone.
I remind all members and witnesses that the 5-minute clock
still applies. If there is a technology issue, we will move to
the next member until the issue is resolved, and you will
retain the balance of your time.
You will notice a clock on your screen that will show how
much time is remaining. At 1 minute remaining, the clock will
turn to yellow. At 30 seconds remaining, I will gently tap the
gavel to remind members that their time is almost expired. When
your time has expired, the clock will turn to red and I will
begin to recognize the next member.
In terms of speaking order, we will follow the order set
forth in the House rules, beginning with the chair and ranking
member. Then, members present at the time that the hearing is
called to order will be recognized in the order of seniority;
and, finally, members not present at the time that the hearing
is called to order.
Finally, House rules require me to remind you that we have
set up an email address to which members can send anything they
wish to submit in writing at any of our hearings or markups.
That email address has been provided in advance to your staff.
All right. That is the end of the technical stuff, so we
can go ahead and open this up.
Well, I am very excited to be having today's hearing in our
committee. It is a really important time to talk about some of
the exciting developments in the forest product industry. This
industry is critical to my State, and I know it is to many
others in this country.
Just as an aside, our State is 90 percent forested. We are
the most forested State in the Nation. And unlike a lot of
western States, we are mostly, 90 percent, privately owned, so
quite a difference.
As another small aside, I just want to say, I live on a
200-acre piece of property that is covered by an old-growth
spruce-fir forest. So I've spent much of my life around
forestry and harvesting, and we know some of the challenges
that are happening given the droughts that we are experiencing
now, the invasive species, the end of the useful life of many
of these trees and the importance of replanting and harvesting
for good use. So we have a lot of engagement in that.
So there are a lot of innovations in sustainable, climate-
friendly products that really could be important to
reinvigorate a sector hit hard by reduced demand for certain
traditional wood products like pulp and paper. We certainly
know in our State the heartbreak of losing a paper mill, losing
the jobs, losing the heart of the community. So these
innovations and new markets are particularly important to us,
as they have been in many other places. The nice thing about
this emerging market for climate-friendly products, it is also
a good opportunity to promote rural job growth.
Today's hearing will explore the ways in which innovative,
new forest products could function as excellent alternatives to
traditional materials while also being climate-friendly because
they are renewable resources and they store carbon once in
buildings. We will have a chance to discuss mass timber and how
the widespread adoption of new timber products in the
construction industry could have a major impact on the carbon
footprint of the construction industry as a whole.
Research shows that wood products can have multiple layers
of benefits. In an agriculture policy committee hearing that
was held last year, Michael Goergen of the Endowment for
Forestry and Communities testified about the potential for
biodegradable and recyclable food packaging made from forest
products. The University of Maine has participated in this
research, and I am pleased that one of our witnesses today is
from the University of Maine and can tell us more about
projects like this.
Coincidentally, last week, we held a hearing on plastic
waste and recycling, and we learned that plastic pollution
costs the global economy over $1.5 trillion a year due to
impacts on a variety of sectors. Packaging alternatives created
from forest products could help solve some of this crisis.
Much of the innovation in the wood industry is credited to
the research and support provided by the Forest Service. In
fiscal year 2021, we appropriated $20.3 million for the Forest
Products Laboratory. FPL's research ranges from fiber and
chemical science to composites, and its work has allowed a wide
range of wood products to emerge and develop into viable
consumer products, from nanocellulose-enhanced flooring to wood
cellulose supporting films and electronics, to advanced
composites and many things in between.
I look forward to hearing how we can continue to support
progress and innovation in the wood products industry through
support of the Forest Service.
So, to discuss this important issue, I am pleased to
welcome Dr. Cindi West from the U.S. Forest Service and the
Director of the Forest Products Laboratory in the Northern
Research Station.
Joining Dr. West today are three witnesses with a deep
knowledge of forest products development and research into
emerging products and their uses in construction: Dr. Stephen
Shaler, director and professor at the School of Forest
Resources at the University of Maine, representing FOR/Maine;
Marc Brinkmeyer, owner of the Idaho Forest Group, representing
the Idaho Forest Products Commission; and our final witness is
Dean Peter MacKeith joining us this morning.
And we are very fortunate to have him introduced by
Representative Womack. Thank you so much for joining us today,
and I will turn the introduction over to you.
Mr. Womack. All right. Thank you so much, Chairwoman
Pingree. And what a great honor it is to be with this
subcommittee this morning and my colleagues on the
Appropriations Committee.
To all of you, I want to welcome from the Natural State
Peter MacKeith. If you hear someone mention ``the Hill'' in
Washington, they refer to Capitol Hill, but in Arkansas we
refer to the University of Arkansas campus. So, while Dean
MacKeith would need little introduction on the Hill in
Fayetteville, I do want you, my colleagues on the
Appropriations Committee, to know a little bit about his
background.
He's a professor and the dean of the Fay Jones School of
Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas, a
cornerstone of higher education in my district. He was
appointed as the fifth dean of the school in 2014 and has made
his mark in the industry as a nationally recognized scholar,
teacher, and administrator.
Since his arrival on campus, he has expanded academic and
outreach programs and fostered innovative design thinking
across the State and well beyond. A long list of accolades
includes a Fulbright fellowship, multiple Design Educator of
the Year titles, and recognition of the Design Futures Council.
I could go on, but I am positive his expertise will be
demonstrated in his testimony this morning.
Before joining us in northwest Arkansas, he was an
associate dean, professor of architecture, and adjunct
associate curator for architecture and design at the Sam Fox
School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in
St. Louis. Prior to his tenure at WashU, he served as director
of the Master of Architecture International Program at the
Helsinki University of Technology in Finland from 1995 to 1999.
Superb academic achievement laid the groundwork for Mr.
MacKeith's success in the field. A participant in the
prestigious Echols Scholar Program, he received his Bachelor of
Arts in literature and international relations from the
University of Virginia in 1981 and his Master of Architecture
from Yale in 1985.
He is also currently serving as chair of the Advisory
Committee for the Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program,
in addition to overseeing the design and construction of the
Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation,
a regional center for research and development of new wood
products and new approaches in sustainable construction
materials.
Mr. MacKeith is also an accomplished author and has served
as the editor of Perspecta, the Yale Architecture Journal, in
addition to the SOM Journal.
As even a cursory examination of his record makes
abundantly clear, he is an excellent asset to the University of
Arkansas and the greater Fayetteville and northwest Arkansas
community. His substantial experience will elevate today's
discussions, and I am pleased to welcome him to today's
hearing.
Before I yield back, let me take a shameless opportunity to
note that the Razorbacks are headed to the Sweet Sixteen for
the first time in 25 years. And I know Mr. MacKeith is just as
excited about that as I am.
So, Mr. MacKeith, thank you for joining us. And go, Hogs.
Ms. Pingree. There you go. Okay. Well, I am sure we will
hear about some other favorite teams as the day goes on, but
very exciting news for Arkansas. And thank you so much for
being here to introduce your witness from your State.
Now I will yield to Mr. Joyce for any opening remarks he
would like to make.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Chair Pingree.
And special thanks to my friend and colleague, Congressman
Womack, for taking the time to help introduce our witnesses
this morning.
I would also like to extend a warm welcome to Dr. Cindi
West, Peter MacKeith, Dr. Stephen Shaler, and Marc Brinkmeyer.
I want to thank you all for participating today. While I regret
that we cannot be together in person, I look forward to hearing
your perspectives on innovative wood products and their impact
on rural economies and the health of our Nation's forests.
Our Nation's forests, both public and private, offer
substantial environmental and economic benefits. Forests
improve our air and water quality, provide habitat for plants
and wildlife, reduce carbon in the atmosphere, and help control
floods and erosion. Forests also furnish recreational
opportunities; timber, mineral, and energy resources; but, most
importantly, quality jobs, especially in rural areas, for
communities across the country.
I have seen these benefits firsthand in my home State of
Ohio. Nearly 8 million acres of forestland help support over
120,000 forest-related jobs that contribute more than $20
billion to Ohio's economy. When considering the economic impact
of forest products nationwide, the industry directly employees
over 900,000 workers and manufactures nearly $300 billion worth
of products annually.
I recognize, though, for our forests to meet the needs of
current and future generations, we must commit to finding ways
to utilize, manage, and protect our Nation's forests while
maintaining a viable market for wood products. Innovative wood
products provide us with an opportunity to meet these
challenges. By developing and exploring new uses for wood,
especially low-value or low-quality wood, we can create new
jobs and market demand and reinvigorate rural economies.
Innovative wood products also provide landowners with more
opportunities for active management of our Nation's forests,
which helps us ensure that our forests are more resilient to
insect infestations and diseases as well as reduce the risk of
catastrophic wildfires.
I look forward to hearing today about how the U.S. Forest
Service is accelerating the development of innovative wood
products through research efforts at the Forest Products
Laboratory. I am also keen to learn about the agency's work to
help create new, expanded markets for wood products through
partnerships and grants.
Additionally, I hope to hear more about the benefits
associated with the diverse range of innovative wood products,
including cross-laminated timber and other mass timber
products, in addition to wood products derived from
nanotechnology.
With that, I look forward to this discussion ahead of us.
In Ohio, we have no more teams left in the NCAA tournament, but
I always like a underdog, so I will take Oral Roberts, since
they knocked off the Buckeyes.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. There you go. Thank you, Mr. Joyce. I guess I
better quickly pick a team.
Would any other members like to make opening remarks?
Mr. Simpson. Chairwoman Pingree.
Ms. Pingree. Yes, Mr. Simpson.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
I would like to introduce a friend of mine, but, before I
do, I haven't had the opportunity yet to thank you for putting
on this hearing and congratulate you on being the chairwoman of
the Interior Appropriations Committee. I look forward to
working with you.
And I notice you have a bunch of books behind you, and so
do I. We are going to have to exchange titles and see what we
can do.
And just as an aside, I like the Razorbacks, but they
haven't met Gonzaga yet. So the Bulldogs are going to eat
everybody up, just so you know that and you are not
disappointed when it comes.
But let me introduce a friend and advisor of mine for many
years, Marc Brinkmeyer. He is the owner and chairman of the
board of the Idaho Forest Group, as was mentioned. One of
America's largest producers across Idaho and Montana, the Idaho
Forest Group owns six sawmills and a finger-joint facility with
capacity of over 1 billion board-feet per year. Marc is an
accomplished business leader, a champion of education and
innovation, and a longtime philanthropist.
Based in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho Forest Group grows, harvests,
manufactures, and distributes lumber and other wood byproducts
to customers in the United States and abroad. The company
emphasizes a talented workforce of more than 1,000 employees
and 2,000 partner contractors. IFG's mission statement is to
``enhance the lives and livelihood of our employees, customers,
and partners and the communities in which we operate by
providing the Earth's best renewable building products.''
He is a champion in the forest products industry, and I
look forward to hearing their testimony.
Welcome, Marc. Thank you for participating today.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. And thank you for your
kind words. It is wonderful to have someone from Idaho today
here with us, and it will give us a chance to decide who has
the better forest and the better potatoes, Maine or Idaho. It
is always a competition.
Let's start off our witnesses with Dr. Cindi West.
Thank you so much for being here, Ms. West.
Ms. West. Thank you, Chair and Ranking Member and members
of the committee. I appreciate this opportunity to share with
you information about how the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
Forest Service supports innovative wood products and their
impact on our Nation.
The investment by the Federal Government in wood innovation
and research started in 1910, when the National Center for
Forest Products Research was established in Madison, Wisconsin.
We had a critical need for the Nation to lengthen the life of
wood rail ties to fuel economic development of this country.
Today, the Forest Service uses all of its authorities
across the agency to support wood innovation. In addition to
research, State and private forestry grant programs support
early adoption and application of wood innovations across the
spectrum. They provide technical assistance and market
development.
We develop and trial many of our new technologies on
national forest. We demonstrate their benefit and their
efficacy and use demonstration to transfer and speed up
adoption of these innovations.
We work from the smallest components of wood today at the
nano scale to mass timber for multistory structures at the
largest scale. And although we started as a national center, a
single research organization within this country, we now work
through a collaborative of university, industry, and NGO
partners to innovate and address the most pressing issue of our
time: how to build a sustainable future.
Now, the year I was born, the world's population was around
2.9 billion. Today, it is 7.8 billion. And at the end of the
century, when my grandchildren will be 85 and 82, the world's
population is projected by the U.N. to be at 11 billion. It is
urgent that we develop the technology to sustainably provide
for the needs of 11 billion people across the world--solutions
that address ecological, economic, and social needs.
Nature offers us a sustainable path [inaudible] Through the
best [inaudible] Practices for forests and also for use. Wood
is our most abundant, renewable, and versatile raw material on
planet Earth.
Today, you may not really realize how many wood products
you touched before getting to work this morning. They included
maple syrup, toothpaste, of course your wooden house, your
home, your furniture, clothing, cardboards, paper, and in
aspirin that was compounded originally from a tree.
The United States is a world leader in sustainable forest
management. We are blessed with very abundant natural
resources. However, climate change is increasing the risk to
these resources and to our forest. The amount of biomass
accumulated in areas of increasing drought is not sustainable.
As we have seen over this last decade in the Intermountain
West, warming temperatures and invasive species, such as the
emerald ash borer, are transforming the composition and
regeneration of northern forest.
We cannot take for granted our forests will continue to
provide wildlife, recreation, clean water, carbon sequestration
in the same abundance as in the past. We need to take action
now unless we want to see impacts from these types of stresses
on our forest.
Sustainable management of our forest will continue to
provide our Nation with a positive carbon sink, reduce the loss
of wildfires to forests, and provide benefits that enhance our
quality of life--water, habitat, outdoor recreation, and
economic opportunities for rural communities.
Increasing markets for renewable wood materials and
products makes a positive economic incentive to retain private
forest as forest and to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Innovative wood products diversify and support a vibrant forest
private sector, which is essential to forest health and
sustainability.
My written statement provides many details on how the
Forest Service is contributing to sustainable solutions through
research, innovation, and market development with a wide
variety of partners. But let me just talk a little bit about
how we are advancing from the lab to putting discovery and
innovation to use in growing a wood products sector, economy,
and opportunities for good forest management.
Together with our partners, we are increasing wood use in
the Nation's industrial building sector by supporting the
development and application of mass timber products such as
cross-laminated timber, CLT, in the construction of tall,
multistory buildings.
To meet building code requirements in the United States, we
are working with organizations like the International Code
Council, WoodWorks, the Softwood Lumber Board, the American
Wood Council, and, importantly, the Department of Defense to
support the changes necessary in building codes to use this
technology. We have conducted numerous and necessary seismic
and fire performance tests, blast tests, to gain code support
required for this construction.
The Wood Innovations Program has supported education and
technical assistance for architects and engineers to design and
build these systems.
In 2014, when the Forest Service initiated engagement in
the CLT sector, the U.S. had zero manufacturing facilities.
Today, there are 10 operational mass timber manufacturing
facilities, and we anticipate additional plants coming on line
soon.
We are building the collaborations with businesses and
organizations to help develop markets for CLT and mass timber
products through the agency's competitive Wood Innovations
Grants Program.
And, finally, we are working to develop and refine new mass
timber material, consistent with the goal of utilizing low-
value and small-diameter trees. And, thus, we can provide
forestland owners and managers viable markets to support
management activities to improve forest conditions.
The Forest Service is fulfilling a Federal role as an agent
to coordinate national capacity across different entities to
develop a sustainable future and competitive advantage for
forest owners and wood product businesses and industries. Using
the materials that nature provides ensures our forests will
continue to provide for the Nation and the world.
We appreciate the committee's interest in our work related
to innovative wood products and look forward to working
together to ensure these programs are delivered in the most
efficient and effective manner possible. I am happy to answer
any questions you may have.
Thank you very much.
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Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Dr. West.
Dr. Shaler, it would be great to hear from you next.
Mr. Shaler. Good morning, Chair Pingree, Ranking Member
Joyce, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Steve
Shaler. I am director of the School of Forest Resources at the
University of Maine, a land, sea, and space grant university
located in the homeland of the Penobscot Nation. Thank you for
the opportunity to testify about increasingly innovative wood
products and their growing markets.
The intent of my remarks today will be to illustrate the
importance of forest-sourced products to rural communities,
their role in promoting sustainability, and opportunities for
carbon sequestration in wood building materials and other wood
products.
Maine, home to the first sawmill in North America, is the
most heavily forested State in the country, at 90 percent of
the land area. The health and sustainability of our rural
communities is entirely dependent on that of the forest. These
forests are the economic heart of many of our rural
communities, supporting forest products, outdoor recreation and
tourism industries, while providing vital habitat for wildlife,
improving water and air quality for all life.
We live in a challenging time where the impacts of climate
change on forest health are increasingly evident, whether it is
through temperature, drought, fire, invasive pests, muddy roads
from early thaws, and heavy rain events. The need to adapt how
we manage the forest depends on the presence of markets. And,
conversely, the ability to meet increased demand for wood
products from forest systems requires the forest be healthy and
sustainably managed.
There has been incredible disruption in the forest products
industry over the last two decades with the closure of many
pulp and paper mills that have long been the region's largest
economic engines and the biggest buyers of wood. But exciting
opportunities are emerging that will diversify, strengthen, and
sustain the forest economy and the communities dependent upon
it.
Accelerating innovation in forest products and their
applications is key to meeting increasing global demand for
low-carbon materials, chemicals, and fuels that come from
forests. But that innovation must occur within the context of a
vibrant, interconnected network of the environment, society,
and economy.
An example of a collaboration building upon strengths
through innovation to shape the future of the forest economy
and forest-dependent communities can be found in Maine in the
Forest Opportunity Roadmap/Maine, also known as FOR/Maine.
FOR/Maine is a unique cross-sector collaboration between
industry, communities, government, education, and nonprofits.
We have come together to ensure that Maine strategically
adapts, capitalizes on changing markets to maintain our leading
role in global forest economy, and to support prosperity in the
State while sustaining our natural resources.
FOR/Maine evolved from a Federal Economic Development
Assistance Team initiated in 2016 and is currently funded
through the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The
University of Maine is proud to play a central role in this
effort, serving on FOR/Maine's executive committee, a number of
its subcommittees, including those focused on emerging
technologies, market attraction, workforce development, and
wood supply analysis.
Our research and development are critical to Maine and the
Nation's ability to add value to existing industries and create
new ones. We are increasingly seeing demand driven by industry
interest for sustainable and renewable feed stocks, which
actively managed forests can provide. Since 2016, over $1.1
billion in CapEx has been invested in Maine forest industries,
including pulp and paper, lumber, wood energy, and wood
composites.
In 2019, the University of Maine was awarded 1 of 10
university mass timber grants funded by the U.S. endowment in
the Forest Service to support demonstration projects showcasing
mass timber technologies on university campuses. The project
helped to support the conceptual design, engineering, and
pricing of a cross-laminated timber laboratory facility.
To capture the full carbon picture of the project, a
preliminary cradle-to-grave whole-building lifecycle assessment
was performed, and the study highlighted that the materials
sourcing is a key driver of embodied carbon and that storage of
biogenic carbon in wood-building materials is a clear positive
attribute for the life of the structure.
Opportunities for wood product innovation in the building
space beyond load-bearing solutions also exist. Use of low-
grade biomass or mill residuals for low-density wood fiber
insulation materials is one example. Wood fiber insulation is
currently being imported into the U.S., but high shipping costs
have kept it an expensive niche product. Active collaboration
with emerging domestic manufacturers in Maine are projecting
wood fiber insulation to be a cost-neutral, drop-in replacement
for petroleum-based insulation products.
A final example is a $1.5 million investment by the U.S.
Forest Service to build a pilot plant for production of
cellulose nanofibrils as part of a joint venture in 2011. Since
inception, the University of Maine has shipped cellulose
nanomaterials, including those produced at the Forest Products
Laboratory, to 50 countries, 305 companies, and 276
universities to support R&D and product development. Though
global in reach, 60 percent of samples have gone to U.S.-based
organizations.
This supports a large community of researchers and startups
using cellulose nanofibers in a wide variety of applications,
including adhesives, foams, packaging, building materials, and,
yes, even bones. Many of these will replace products made with
petroleum products.
To summarize, collaboration involving industry, government,
universities, and local communities are central to leveraging
the maximum impact of wood innovation, as is sustained Federal
investment that fosters that collaboration while supporting
research and development.
Thank you again for the opportunity to speak and for your
ongoing interest and investment that is sustaining the forest
economy, the communities, and the citizens dependent upon it.
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Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much. Thank you for your
comprehensive remarks.
Mr. Brinkmeyer, we are excited to hear about the message
from Idaho.
You might need to unmute, or we can unmute you.
We still can't hear you.
Can our tech team unmute Mr. Brinkmeyer?
Staff. Madam Chair, it looked like he was unmuted on the
Webex, but he was not getting audio through. So we will have to
have somebody look into that.
Ms. Pingree. Okay. Why don't we work that out.
Sorry, Mr. Brinkmeyer. We are anxious to hear from you, but
I will put Dean MacKeith first, and then we will come back, and
hopefully it will all be settled by then.
Mr. MacKeith. Yes?
Ms. Pingree. We hear you.
Mr. MacKeith. Good morning, Chair Pingree, Ranking Member
Joyce, and members of the committee.
Thank you for the invitation and opportunity to speak with
you regarding the importance of America's forests, of our
Nation's timber and wood products industries, and of the rural
communities which reside within these forests, but, in
particular, to speak of the essential role that the vision,
commitment, and innovation of our Federal Government should
play in enhancing our Nation's forests and our Nation's
environmental future.
I serve the University of Arkansas, the State's land grant
university, as dean of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and
Design. While I will speak to the specifics of Arkansas's
forests and its timber and wood industries today, I also speak
on behalf of many schools and many universities across the
United States engaged in similar endeavors.
I offer here an Arkansas case study in the effectiveness,
value, and essential importance of innovative research and
development in the cause of America's forests. Two questions
frame our work: What does it mean to be a Nation of forests, of
forested States? What is the value of funding innovation in our
forests in the cause of the Nation?
By focusing on the potential of Arkansas forests,
timberlands, and wood products industries, the Fay Jones
School, together with our School of Forestry and Natural
Resources and with significant assistance from the U.S. Forest
Service and its Wood Innovations Grant Program, as well as the
Forest Products Laboratory, we have been able to stimulate both
greater economic environmental health for this essential
renewable resource and greater economic development in the
State, with attention to our rural communities and a more
sustainable low-carbon future.
In 2017, a U.S. Forest Service Wood Innovations Grant
funded research into the viability of building new mass timber
residence halls at the University of Arkansas. Design research
studios funded by this grant developed residence hall
prototypes constructed from mass timber. In validation of this
effort, the university built a new $79 million residence hall
out of mass timber, currently the largest such building in the
United States. The Forest Products Laboratory has now provided
funds further to our school for important research on this
completed building.
Our School of Forestry has also received Wood Innovations
Grant funds, and with these we are forming a statewide
consortium of forestry, timberlands, and wood-products
stakeholders so as to maximize the environmental and economic
benefits of Arkansas's forests.
Collectively, the effects of this funding and the design
research it yielded have been remarkable, as the University of
Arkansas has become perhaps the most significant supporter of
advanced timber construction in higher education. With more
than $100 million in construction so far and with the new $20
million Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials
Innovation, a home to our numerous wood initiatives and a new
applied research center, now in the early stages of design, we
are now a critical actor in the stimulation of the
architecture, engineering, and contracting industries in the
State, as well as turning our attention to our rural economies
and communities.
The impact of these initiatives now extend statewide, as
our proof of concept at the university informs significant
private enterprise in Arkansas. Structurlam, the leading mass
timber manufacturer in North America, from Canada, is now
investing $90 million and hiring 130 Arkansas employees for its
first U.S. facility, producing CLT panels in Conway, Arkansas.
Structurlam's first primary project will be Walmart's new mass
timber headquarters in Bentonville, a 3-million-square-foot
campus which will use 1.1 million cubic feet of Arkansas
timber. And more projects, public and private, are on the way
across the State.
In total and in constant growth, this is the Arkansas
timber project, stimulated by innovation funds from the USFS
and collateral partners.
I will be emphatic now in summary. The United States of
America is a forest Nation. The forests are inextricably
engaged with our history, our society, our politics, our
culture, our environment, our future. The forests of the United
States must therefore be wisely conserved, stewarded, and
employed for the greatest good, for the greatest number, for
the greatest benefit. These last words echo, of course, the
credo of Gifford Pinchot, the founder of the USFS.
This ambition can only be achieved through the concerted,
farsighted efforts of both public institutions and agencies and
private stakeholder and corporate interests and organizations.
The ideals, the purposes, activities, people, and funding
mechanisms of the USFS are central to this larger goal. The
specific work and collaborative funding of the Forest Products
Laboratory and the specific funding of the USFS Wood
Innovations Grant Program are demonstrably essential, valuable,
and impactful across a broad range of actors and audiences in
this mission across the country.
If what we have achieved in Arkansas is any measure of
effectiveness and value, then, on behalf of my colleagues,
partners, and allies in Arkansas and across the country all
engaged in the larger America's Forests Project, I confirm
today the absolute value of a federally supported emphasis,
with enhanced and accelerated funding, on America's forests, on
America's timber and wood industries, and on America's timber
and wood innovation initiatives to the greater good of our
society and our Nation.
Thank you. I will be happy to take questions when that
moment comes.
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Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much, Dean MacKeith. Always
wonderful to hear someone quote Pinchot and know about the long
history of our Forest Service.
My understanding is, there are still some technical issues
with Mr. Brinkmeyer. Kind of looks like it. But we could go
ahead and start questions, and I will hear from the technical
people as soon as they have that resolved. I know it was
working earlier, so it is just that the internet has a mind of
its own. So, if we go to questions, we will just come back to
his testimony.
And I am going to yield for my first question to Ms.
McCollum, because she needs to be at her Defense hearing
shortly. And so I am happy to yield to her my time, and I will
ask some questions later.
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you, Chair Pingree, for allowing
me.
And I want to say, as long as we are speaking of defense, I
want to acknowledge the partnership between the Army's
Development Command Research Laboratory and the Forest Products
Laboratory and the extraordinary story of how leaders of their
joint projects sent legacy mahogany wood that was over a
century old here to the Capitol to repair the damage endured on
the January 6 attack.
So, once again, Chair Pingree, we find ways in which we can
cross-pollinate through our work. I want to particularly just
say that this priceless lumber, it is going to rebuild the
heart of our democracy. And I hope when we can all go back in
the Capitol and look at it again that we get an opportunity to
see the wood replacement.
But I wanted to take a second to just talk about FPL's
ability to help our Nation rebuild every day in every way
throughout our communities. As we look forward to making
serious investments in infrastructure across America, I would
like to hear more about the role that FPL sees its forest
products playing in sustainable source construction and new
facilities, even in structures like bridges.
So I am going to give Minnesota a shout-out. Mr. Joyce and
I are often stuck in the middle between Ms. Pingree and Mr.
Simpson talking about their potatoes and their timber, but Mr.
Joyce and I, just saying, we do have the greatest lakes.
So the University of Minnesota has been working with the
Resources Research Institute, their division at the university,
and they have published some amazing and interesting research
on the efficiency and durability of bridges that use timber
alone or in a combination with other materials.
And here is why timber bridges can be very exciting. They
can be constructed in all weather conditions, and the wood is
not damaged by continuous freeze and thaw conditions, and it
can hold up to deicing road salt. So there are combinations
where the bridges use timber in the construction.
So could you maybe elaborate a little more, if you could,
on how we could see these forest products in recent years help
prepare for that role of more sustainability and, in some ways,
be very green with reducing carbon footprint?
Ms. West. Thank you very much, Congresswoman McCollum. I
appreciate that question.
I have worked for the last 7 years in looking at green
products and their benefits, particularly in carbon
sequestration and sustainability. And wood is, again, the only
renewable material that is part of a biogenic cycle for carbon.
By utilizing wood, we are taking wood out of forests, we are
allowing new trees to grow and accumulate carbon, all while
taking that material that we removed that will continue to
accumulate carbon.
And let me just give you an example. I live in a 125-year-
old house. I have flooring that needed to be replaced, so I
went down to my local mill, and they had beams from a barn that
was probably 150 years old. They sawed those beams into new
flooring to match my old house. These trees probably for the
barn building were at least 150 years old. So you begin to add
up, 150 years, plus another, you know--and 150 years of carbon
sequester in the forest, in the tree, 150 years in use at the
barn, now going into my old house, you know, which will add
another at least 125 to 150 years of carbon sequestration, and
you begin to add up and look at across 400 to 500 years of
carbon sequester from when that tree or that seedling grew in a
forest to where it is in service in life in my home.
Now, wood in service accumulates and--or it is a body of
carbon. We can use lots of materials. We can substitute many
materials that are nonrenewable and combine them with other
materials.
So, for example, just recently, we have taken the smallest
particles from wood, nanomaterials, combined that with cement
to create concrete that has higher strength properties, which
means that we could reduce the amount of concrete that we use
by adding nanomaterials from wood by 20 percent.
And you begin to add up the road miles, as the U.S.
endowment calculated, a one-road-mile four-lane highway would
help us to thin and improve forest--about 26 acres of forest
per road mile of using this material for road servicing. And I
could go on and on.
Bridges. I started my career a number of years ago, and I
remember the startup of the timber bridge program to be able to
utilize eastern species, particularly hardwood species, that
had low-value markets to create a higher-value product using a
technology that was easy to implement--low capitalization--that
local communities could develop.
And so the bridge program is mature, but we are looking
forward. We have had a lot of requests for looking at different
applications. I can look forward to the future and say, we will
have a next generation of bridges that combine wood and other
products, are higher performance, low cost, and to create local
jobs and businesses.
Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Chair McCollum, Dean MacKeith wanted to give a
quick answer. And I know you are over time, but I know you
won't be here for a second question.
So, Dean, if you could just give a quick answer before we
lose Ms. McCollum.
Mr. MacKeith. Yes. Two issues, one related to defense.
Currently, in concert with the U.S. Forest Service, the
U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, there is a three-
university project underway led by Clemson University's wood
utilization laboratories and Pat Layton, but together with
Arkansas and Oregon, Oregon State, looking at prototyping new
designs from cross-laminated timber for defense facilities
across the country. It is a very important growth of innovative
research and collaborative research all together.
Second, the Forest Products Laboratory is doing important
work in moisture sensing, believe it or not, of newly
constructed cross-laminated timber buildings. We are doing one
here on campus with them.
And then even more importantly, I would say, is lifecycle
analysis of the full life of a building, from pre-construction
all the way through 2, 5, 10 years on the road, to really prove
as much as possible on an evidence-based approach that these
buildings constructed this way are of ultimate value to the
consumer as well as to, really, the manufacturer.
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you. It looks like Mr. Kilmer and
I have some extra homework in the Defense committee.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you.
Now, I think we have it all worked out for Mr. Brinkmeyer.
Please accept our apology for the technical problem.
Hopefully we will be able to hear you now.
Mr. Brinkmeyer. How is this?
Ms. Pingree. I can hear you.
Mr. Brinkmeyer. Wow. Sorry, Madam Chairwoman.
First of all, I am pleased to be here, and want to thank
our Representative Simpson. He casts a big shadow in Idaho. And
he already put in Gonzaga, so we dispensed with that
requirement.
There has been a lot said. And, just quickly, we, in our
company and myself personally, have had a significant appetite
to learn, and our training ground has been Europe. We have been
heavily involved in the European community for the last 20-some
years. Our company is 40 years old, and, as the comment was
made in the opening remarks, our company has grown with
technology.
And cross-laminated timber was invented by Wolfgang Weirer
at the University of Graz, which is really the bastion of
research on wood that we have found. Universities in the States
are certainly picking up and making progress, but cross-
laminated timber factories, laminated beam timber factories in
Europe are significantly advanced. And it is technology that
will benefit the U.S. as the U.S. begins to adapt.
I am here representing the Forest Products Commission in
Idaho, which was started in 1992. And it was an earlier version
of the Softwood Lumber Board, which I had the opportunity to be
involved in from the very beginning.
I am especially pleased with Secretary Vilsack being back,
because the Softwood Lumber Board was created under his watch.
It is a check-off. And like the Forest Products Commission, it
is embedded in our State. All the forest products companies pay
into the fund, and it is for education, conservation, forest
health, and so forth.
The Softwood Lumber Board is the lumber producers in the
United States, including all lumber producers that import. We
are in our eighth year. We have just increased our dues. And we
will, over the next 7 years, put $125 million into mass timber.
Now, we call it mass timber, but really it is a moniker for
nonresidential housing. Residential housing in the United
States is approximately--94 percent is wood-related.
Commercial, on the other hand, is not. And our competitors in
that regard are steel and concrete. Wood has certainly a better
carbon footprint than steel and concrete, but, really, all
building materials have their rightful place in the
construction environment. And our goal is for wood to have its
rightful place.
And we are accomplishing this through WoodWorks, which
Softwood Lumber Board supports significantly. I believe that we
are their largest supporter economically. And the other is the
American Wood Council, which is a group of unsung heroes who do
marvelous work and are involved with the Forest Lab to some
degree.
But it is through the efforts of the Softwood Lumber Board
and the American Wood Council that, last year, in the code
cycle, they were successful in changing the codes to allow mass
timber construction for buildings 18 stories.
We had asked for 12 when we started that process. We were
able to go to 18 because of the science of work from
universities, work from the Forest Products Lab, research done
by the industry through the American Wood Council. There were
comments earlier about some of the bomb tests that were done,
and for schools to be built on military bases, extensive fire
testing, which is one our competitors use against us from time
to time as being a risk.
But mass timber has a huge opportunity to grow in the
United States. And I think, with what you heard today in
testimony, there is a lot of very capable people, very bright
people focused on this.
And I might add that WoodWorks' sole job is to talk to
people building in the commercial space and convert those
buildings to mass timber. And so far, they have been successful
and have converted over 4.5 billion feet of lumber being
utilized in projects.
For us and what we see in the future is----
Ms. Pingree. Uh-oh, I think we lost your audio again, just
when you were--you are back.
Mr. Brinkmeyer. I am back?
Ms. Pingree. Yep. You were starting to say what you see in
the future.
Mr. Brinkmeyer. What I see in the future is, we will have
continued focus with mass timber as we have more and more focus
on climate change, which is real. It is not perceived; it is
real. We experience it in the Intermountain West, and I will
talk about that in a moment.
But one area that we need focus--and our company is focused
on it now--is what we call ``all of the fiber that is
nonrectangular.'' Because, at the end of the day, lumber
producers make precision rectangles. And we have--approximately
30 percent of a log is residual fiber.
And we just lost in July one of the most modern newsprint
plants in North America at Usk, Washington. And, without any
notice, they closed the plant, paid out the WARN Act obligation
to the employees, and handed the keys to the bankruptcy judge
in Spokane, where it still exists today. No one will buy it.
That is a message, one we should pay attention to.
We feel that wood fiber--you talk about plastics. We know a
lot about biofuel. We are working with the National Lab in
Idaho now and with the experts. A particular group we are
working with and I am fascinated with are the fellows that came
together and manufactured the bio-jet fuel that Alaska Airlines
used to fly from Seattle to Washington, D.C., here a few years
ago.
There is the area that is the most promising. Mass timber
will take care of itself. It is a great product, and it will
find its place. And the architects and the engineers, it is now
up to them to bring it into fruition. But we see the fiber side
of it as a huge opportunity.
As we address forest health in the West, we have
submergible material that is a fire loading on the lands that
we need to deal with. And my hope is that this body, as you
look at an infrastructure bill going forward, that you will
consider infrastructure funds for forest health, and, in that
infrastructure bill, you look towards what to do with this low-
value fiber. It is nonstructural fiber in its current state,
but it can be used from a BTU point of view with respect to
carbon.
The U.K. has huge investments in pellet plants in the
South, because it is proven technology that current coal-fired
power plants, if they are fired with 80 to 90 percent pellets,
they can maintain that electrical generation infrastructure.
And you can look to Enviva, you can look to Drax, you can look
at those companies now that are building very large pellet
facilities all around the U.S. that take advantage of this
fiber situation and how it fits into the carbon equation. And
these are things that we need to pay attention to.
One other area of----
Ms. Pingree. I am going to need to have you wrap up, but we
can ask some more of these things in the questions later. Can I
get you to say----
Mr. Brinkmeyer. Okay. I want to make one last comment. And
I am sorry, Madam Chairwoman, for going over here.
Ms. Pingree. It is perfectly fine.
Mr. Brinkmeyer. We are working with Oxford University in
Cambridge, and have been for the last 4 years, on satellite
imagery. Our Intermountain Forest, where our mills are located,
comprises approximately 16 million acres. It was discussed
early on of the problems of the wildfires in the Intermountain
Forest. And that exposure is huge.
And for our particular company, the future of our company
is the Intermountain Forest. And, as a result, we took it upon
ourselves that--I personally wanted to understand and know,
because of our species diversity, what that forest is going to
look like today, tomorrow, and 20 years from now.
And with Oxford University and its emerging technology
group, from what they call the satellite catapult, we have been
doing research on the Intermountain Forest and have completed
roughly 9,000 plots and using artificial intelligence to train
the algorithms, where we can look at habitat, we can share
information with our friends in the conservation community and
others.
And this is something I personally and our company are
taking on. We have great leadership in a gentleman by the name
of Tom Schultz, who has taken this and has [inaudible]
Understand this.
I just muted out. It is time to quit, Madam Chairwoman. I
will take any questions when the time is right. Apologize for
all this. You would think a technical company wouldn't have
technical problems, but apparently we do.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Yeah, well, that is because the internet has a
mind of its own, so certainly not your fault. But we really
appreciate it. And thank you so much for your wonderful
testimony and all the experience and work that you are doing.
I will yield to Mr. Joyce for questions.
Mr. Joyce. I thank you, Chair Pingree.
You know, Marc, the loss of your internet makes a good case
on why we need to increase broadband throughout the country.
And I disagree with you on the big shadow of Mr. Simpson. He is
half the Congressman he used to be when I first got here. He is
losing weight at a rapid pace every year.
But, Dean MacKeith, good to see you.
Last Congress, I was proud to cosponsor Congressman Bruce
Westerman's bill, the Trillion Trees Act, to plant 1 trillion
trees globally by 2050 and promote sustainable forest practices
to make our forests more resilient to disease and wildfires
while also reducing carbon in the atmosphere.
To increase carbon storage, the Trillion Trees Act sought
to incentivize innovative building practices with a sustainable
building tax credit.
Dean, consistent with the policies in the Trillion Trees
Act, can you take a moment to discuss the potential benefits of
building with innovative wood products, especially how products
like cross-laminated timber store carbon and reduce
CO2 emissions during construction?
Mr. MacKeith. Thank you very much, Representative Joyce.
I have appreciated very much coming to know Congressman
Westerman and his constituents in the State of Arkansas, as
well as his advice, certainly. As you know, he is the only
forester in the House of Congress. So there is a great deal to
be learned.
The benefits--and I was--speaking as the dean of a school
of architecture and design, I want to, in fact, resound what
Mr. Brinkmeyer has said. All materials have a use value that
can be understood. At a very basic level, I am quite ecumenical
on the subject of steel and concrete as much as timber. Each of
these materials has a role to play.
And yet the use value, the lifecycle value, certainly can
be estimated and even calculated at a higher value when
considering the use of wood products and mass timber more
generally. This is partially what the Forest Products
Laboratory is doing now in concert with universities and
schools across the country.
I think there is an important aspect to be understood,
certainly, here from the State of Arkansas and, I think, across
the Southeast of the United States more generally, which is a
southern yellow pine fiber basket, along with significant
hardwood stands. And that is to say that, currently, in
Arkansas and elsewhere across the Southeast, we are, in a
sense, growing more than we can reasonably harvest and utilize.
We had a growing issue of surplus, which is either still
standing in the forests or on the ground.
This is, you could say, a negative value, so to speak, in
the sense that it sets us up for potential forest fires, for
insect infestation, as is being experienced elsewhere, and a
range of other environmental effects, including into the
groundwater supply.
So there is a benefit which needs to be noted from the
outset, which is: A dramatic surge in the development of new
products and markets for those products, as well as just
expanded markets for the products we have, will bring
environmental benefit by--it is beginning to address, in part,
this surplus condition. Surplus has to be seen as an
opportunity. So above and beyond what we see in terms of the
built constructions, there is, I think, an underlying
environmental benefit which I believe all of us can understand,
and it goes to the heart, I think, of the discussion today.
The other question, having to do with the character of the
construction itself--this is to say, making use of, as was
already discussed, smaller-dimension woods, off-cuts or tree
thinnings, making maximum use of every tree, in a sense, that
is taken down.
This, to me, is, I think, an ultimate principle of economy
and environment at the same time. And it means that our
buildings can be built less wastefully. It means that they can
be, in many ways, built more quickly and more efficiently. And,
ultimately, although there is still significant ways to go in
terms of the research, residing within a timber building is
beginning to be shown to have advantageous psychological
effects. We work better, we work more productively, we work
more optimistically from working within a wood-based
environment.
So there is a range of issues. I could go on. I see my time
is up, but I am happy to continue to expand at request.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you.
I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Kilmer has another committee, so I happily defer to him
for the next question.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Based on that last comment, I am thinking about asking for
a bill to turn the U.S. Capitol into a wood building.
My first question is for Dean MacKeith.
You know, we know that building with wood has the potential
to reduce embodied carbon in buildings. The data suggests
massive emissions reductions over the next 50 years, about 870
million tons of CO2, you know, which is powering
about 100 million homes for a year. That is equal to the
emissions gains in that regard. That is a huge deal.
And, you know, now that we have seen the 2021 edition of
the International Building Code include an update to allow wood
buildings up to 18 stories tall, which captures most
residential and commercial buildings in the U.S., it feels like
the time is right to see a significant increase in tall wood
building construction.
But we haven't seen that shift really materialize quite
yet, and I am just curious what you think the holdup is. Is it
just a natural adjustment period, or are there remaining
barriers that you see that are preventing the private sector
from transitioning to more tall wood construction? Do we have
the manufacturing capacity to meet the demand? What is cooking?
Mr. MacKeith. Thank you. And, again, this is a multifront
question, or a multifront discussion, and you have identified
some of the significant factors here.
Manufacturing, yes. Seven years ago, when we began to look
at what was possible in the State of Arkansas, I showed
Governor Hutchinson a map of the United States indicating where
the fiber basket was in the Southeast, where Arkansas was, and
where the cross-laminated timber facilities were in North
America, let alone the United States. And, of course, they were
in Canada; there were two or three coming into being in your
State and elsewhere, in Oregon and Idaho and so forth; and
there was one, potentially, on the books in Alabama. But there
was nothing in the center of the United States, where arguably
the Mississippi River has a great presence still in
transportation.
So there is a supply question, a manufacturing and supply
question, no doubt, that brings this into greater reality for
anyone thinking of a new building. That is certainly one
aspect.
The other aspect, I think, has to do, as you have noted,
with the building codes, their relationships to insurance
costs, their relationship to pro forma costs as developers and
other commissioning agents see those costs.
The IBC has, yes, advanced significantly, but, of course,
building codes are still maintained at the local or at the
State levels. And, therefore, it does take a while for the new
building code to be brought into, I guess, code compliance or
code agreement, even at the level of a city or a State or a
county. So there is work to be done there too.
I do want to--so, yes, code, insurance, and also financing,
right, which has to do with how buildings are financed, how
they are underwritten. And there are an increasing number of
banks and other financial concerns which see the value of this
to their bottom line. I attended a significant conference 2
years ago organized by Bank of America, which you may know is
seeking to invest significant amounts into a low-carbon future.
This is very much on their agenda.
The last thing I want to note, again, looking at just
keeping an eye on the clock, is, for me--and I am not alone in
this, but others could differ--the real challenge here is not
the tallest building in the world. That is, I think, always
something of an architect's dream, perhaps, but it is not
really the sweet spot for mass timber and wood product
construction. The sweet spot is the 8- to 10-story building,
whether it is speculative or commercial, cultural or academic.
And, equally, it is into the residential market, especially
multifamily, multistory.
And this is where we come to building our small towns and
communities--building our rural communities, at that--by really
addressing the ability for mass timber to move into the
residential market.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you for that.
And thank you, Madam Chair, for fitting me in. I may come
back after testifying to Budget. So thanks so much. This is a
great topic, and I appreciate the subcommittee taking this up.
And I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Kilmer.
Mr. Simpson is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman. I have to leave after
this question, also, for another meeting and stuff, and
hopefully I will be able to come back after it.
But, Marc, I wanted to ask you, you know, one of the
important things is--we can talk about all the interesting
things that happen in the forest products industry and what
they are developing and so forth. One of the most important
things is getting that wood from the forest to the mill so that
they can actually do those types of activities that are
necessary.
In a 2015 ruling, in the Cottonwood, it has created a
barrier that stands in the way of improving health of our
Federal forests. How has the Cottonwood decision created
uncertainty in your supply chain, and what can we do about it?
Mr. Brinkmeyer. Great question, Congressman. Thank you.
Cottonwood is one of those red-herring lawsuits that, once
we go through the whole collaborative process on a timber sale
or work in the woods, whatever it be, it is still subject to
exposure if there is new science that may be unrelated that
shows up in another issue, in another place, and it can be used
to hold up that particular timber sale.
And so what the whole purpose with Cottonwood--and Senator
Daines and another Senator from California have legislation
that we hope will be passed to clean up the Cottonwood. As you
know, there was great work done on the farm bill here years
ago, and we have not had the benefit, because of Cottonwood,
really to continue the efforts in the woods.
Our position and the work we have done with the Western
Governors' Association, which is something that deserves a
shout-out--and you are aware of it through our Governor, Butch
Otter, who was a huge proponent of that. It is the bipartisan
effort of the western States coming together on western health
issues. And it is through that focus we will get to the
Cottonwood issue.
I am not for closing the doors to the courthouse, but we
have to have some action against serial litigators. And
Cottonwood is used by the serial litigators to stop timber
sales.
You are aware we have Good Neighbor Authority in Idaho.
Good Neighbor Authority is coming in Montana, where the State
foresters have the ability to work with the Federal forest
professionals in administering timber sales. All the right
pieces are in place for our forest health and continued effort
on the forest floor, but those are important.
One other area that I didn't mention in my earlier comments
is, the true tools for forest health are our loggers. And our
loggers need certainty for timber under contract and so forth
so they can invest in their equipment and keep their businesses
going.
We have over 2,000 logging families that work for our
company in the Intermountain. And, to me, it is really
important that we look out for them and advance their
technology, logistics, and other attributes that we can bring
in helping them. Because it has been overlooked for some time.
I am not sure what has gone on in other States in that regard,
but it has certainly in the Intermountain. It is the Federal
forests that have the issue with Cottonwood.
Mr. Simpson. Well, thank you. I appreciate that answer. And
we look forward to working with you on this.
Just for the sake of the other members, I will tell you
that--we have mentioned here Mr. Westerman's bill on the
trillion tree planting or whatever. There is also a bipartisan
bill that I am the lead cosponsor of called the REPLANT Act
that been reintroduced in the House, which would help the
Forest Service plant 1.2 billion trees over the next 10 years
and create 40,000 new jobs.
And it is okay to have--it is okay to cosponsor both of
those bills. I think both of them would be beneficial to get
through Congress. So I look forward to working with all of you
on that.
And thanks for this hearing, Representative Pingree.
Ms. Pingree. [Inaudible] Great having you on the call.
But I wanted to ask you, since the university has had the
opportunity to kind of look at this broad range of products,
from, you know, the cellulosic fibers to CLT and now the new
innovation around wood-related building insulation, where do
you see the most promise? And I know that is kind of a big-
picture question, but there are so many things on the
forefront, I would just be interested to hear from your
perspective on that.
Mr. Shaler. Thank you for the question.
Yes, ``most promise'' is a big question. I think one of the
real values and important themes about innovation is that,
there isn't one solution. And it is this broadening of markets
mass timber that we have had discussions about, putting in the
insulation, new materials, from nanocellulose, the small fiber.
Markets have natural ups and downs, so having that diversity
for the manufacturing sector is really important.
A characteristic of the industry in the State, if I may be
so bold, is that it has a variety of markets. I think in
Arkansas they say, ``Use everything of the hog but the
squeal.'' In Maine, you tend to use, if you have the ability to
use the pulp, if you have the ability to use the lumber, if you
have the energy, if you have the new products from the
nanocellulose, you have the ability to use every part of the
tree for its highest value as markets change. You are not stuck
in a single paradigm. And, as the world changes, we need to
have that flexibility and that innovation moving forward.
So we need it all; it is that connection. And we have had a
discussion about the life cycle analysis. We also think in
terms of circular economy, where we are looking at--the end of
that 120 years or 60 years or 3 years in packaging or 6 months
in packaging, designing and innovating so it continues to be
reused and has the lowest carbon and sustainable impact.
I didn't exactly answer your question directly, but
everything is important, and how they work together is really
vital.
And that ties in with the mass timber. What happens when we
deconstruct that building? Will we be able to put it into
flooring? How do we design that building? What is the connecter
system innovation? All of those come into the long view. We are
solving some of today's problems right now, but this is really
the long-view solution.
Ms. Pingree. Yeah. Thank you for that.
And it kind of leads into another question that I was going
to ask Dr. West, and Mr. Brinkmeyer brought it up as well. But
when we talk about harvesting the forest, one of the
opportunities--because you mention it--is the, sort of, full
use of everything in the forest. That can be kind of helpful on
two fronts, in terms of managing the forest and cleaning up
some of the left-behind that could put us in a better position
when it comes to forest fires in the future. And that is
something we have to invest in quite a bit.
But some people raise concerns about what does get left
behind and how we sustainably do that. So, before I go to Dr.
West, do you want to make any comment about how that has been
perceived in Maine in terms of, like, sort of, you know, snout-
to-tail use of the forest, in a sense?
Mr. Shaler. Thank you for the question.
I don't know how to answer that, to be honest.
Ms. Pingree. Okay. That is fine. Well, why don't I just
skip to Dr. West and then see what time I have left.
But, well, you know full well, Dr. West, because, you know,
hazardous fuel reduction is a big part of our budget. And I
think Mr. Brinkmeyer mentioned putting it into an
infrastructure package. And we have looked at that, the idea of
the massive amount of cleanup that needs to take place, either
in forests where there has been a burn or just in the cleanup
and maintenance of it.
So how do you sort of see that fitting in the picture? And
is there a way to do some of these good forest products, turn
things into a usable product, but also maybe save us some money
on the forest cleanup budgets?
Ms. West. I want to talk a little bit--we talk about
hazardous fuels, and that has been a term that has been used
for a couple decades. I want to suggest that, right now, in
many of our places across the Nation, that the environmental
conditions our forests are growing under now in this century
are fundamentally different from the environmental conditions
that they were growing under when we developed all those
guidelines for foresters to manage, right? So how many trees
per acre, what size, what species.
And what we know from what we have experienced through
drought, massive drought, more than a million acres of beetle
kill, you know, earlier this century in the Intermountain West,
to 4 years of drought setting up massive die-back and beetle
kills and fire in California--in the Intermountain West now, we
are seeing, and across several States, where, for the first
time since we have been collecting data, that we are losing
carbon. So we are not getting more carbon in our forests, but
they are becoming emitters.
So I would say that, you know, part of it is hazardous
fuels, in that we have too much material in there to burn, but
also, in order to keep our forests healthy so that they can
withstand insects and disease that will cause death, dry fuels
in the forest, it is a bigger picture and a bigger cycle. We
need to go in and remove material from this forest. There is
not enough water on this landscape to support all of that
biomass in addition to fire.
And when we take this material--we have lost--and several
folks have spoken to this. We have lost our low-value residual
wood markets, right? And that was our pulp industry. And so,
with the loss of that, we are looking at, where can we utilize
this material? What technology can we develop?
Well, we have technologies. We know how we can take and use
this material. But what we need to put in place and think about
are policies that help us to make those technologies
economical, whether we are converting wood to various types of
fuels, bio-char, whether we are removing these and putting them
into a composite or an engineered wood product.
We know how to do this. We just need the policies to help
us work across both Federal and State agencies, with the
private sector, to make these things economical. So technology
we have got, but--and if we can advance the science. But that
is where I think we our biggest gap right now.
Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you. That is very helpful.
I recognize Mr. Stewart for 5 minutes. Thank you.
And your clock is wrong. I think it is 2 hours later here.
So I don't know. You have got that ``9:30'' on your clock.
And you are muted.
Mr. Stewart. Thank you. I was saying it is a beautiful day
out here in Utah, and you are right, a couple hours behind. Ms.
Pingree, thank you for hosting us, and, of course, to the
witnesses today.
Ms. Pingree, you started out talking about some of the
differences in the forest between the West, generally, that, of
course, I represent, and the East. And I have had a chance to
enjoy the beautiful forests in the East.
And, Dr. West, you alluded to the thing I wanted to talk
about today, and that is, there are some differences--private
forest versus public forest, public lands.
One of the things we know about out here in the West, as
you said, Dr. West, is that, in some cases, our forests--in
fact, in many cases, far too many, our forests are overgrown,
that we do need a healthy restoration. And the threat of
catastrophic wildfire is one of the things we have to live with
because of that overgrowth.
One of the problems we have here in Utah--and I think it is
not only within my State; I think it is broadly in the West--we
don't grow these enormous trees. Many of them are small-
diameter trees. And the market for these small-diameter trees--
and when I say small-diameter, I am talking now 8, 12, 14
inches. They are not, you know, tiny. They are certainly viable
on the market, except for only for special uses.
And we are experiencing a couple interesting things right
now. One of them is an incredible inflation in timber. If you
are in the housing or if you are trying to buy a home or build
a home right now, that is certainly reflected, as we have seen
timber prices double over, really, a matter of less than a
year. And yet we can't use these small-diameter trees that are
so common out here in the West. And if we could, it would help
reduce the threat of these catastrophic fires.
There are a couple alternative sources, you know, like bio-
char or wood shavings. And I am asking, I guess, the Forest
Service, how can we help match the demand for timber products
with the challenges of the small timber and, at the same time,
you know, reduce the threat of the forest fires and become part
of the healthy restoration as well?
And, Dr. West, if you could maybe lead.
Ms. Pingree. I think, Mr. Stewart, your camera is off. I
think it probably was a mistake too.
Who is it?
Chris Stewart, your camera is off.
Mr. Stewart. For some reason, when I go to unmute myself,
it turns my camera off. You tell me. It has been that way for a
couple weeks, and we are trying to fix it.
Ms. Pingree. That is fine. We know you are there, so please
continue.
And, Dr. West, I think you are next.
Ms. West. Thank you for that question.
I have family that live on the Wasatch Front. And I have
talked with water utilities and concerns of Salt Lake City,
where 60 percent of the water comes down through the Cottonwood
Canyon and the extreme conditions in those canyons and impact
on water quality and quantity.
So what we need is a solution to take small trees and make
them into higher-value wood products. We have limited uses and
capacity in your State and, actually, throughout the
Intermountain West to be able to utilize this material with
current technologies that typically would make an engineered
product or a composite product that requires high
capitalization costs with a lot of uncertainty for timber
supply for those types of investments.
So what we need is something that is to scale, that can be
capitalized at a lower cost, and will take these small stems
and convert them to a higher-value product. And that is one of
the areas of research that we have targeted. And some promising
technologies that we have identified to be able to take the
stem and convert it with lower-capitalized technology that we
can put in at the right scale in these communities to address
this problem.
And so that is a future use. And----
Mr. Stewart. And, Dr. West, if I could, on that, very
quickly, the market has just shifted, as I said, although I
actually think that I didn't express it very well, in the sense
that, in the past, the market didn't demand these small-
diameter trees, but in talking with the people in the market
and people here in the West, that is no longer true. There is a
market for this.
But what we don't have, as you said, is the infrastructure
in the market. But we can't develop the infrastructure if there
is not the promise that we would have large-scale tracts that
would be available. And that is what I am encouraging the
Forest Service to do.
It is a little bit of a ``chicken or the egg, what comes
first?'' If the Forest Service would commit to make large
tracts available for these small-diameter trees, the market
would move in and provide the infrastructure. I am convinced of
that. But we need the forest to be more accommodating to tract
sales that they just haven't been willing to do in the past.
Ms. West. The Forest Service is aware of this challenge and
working with States and others as we advance, you know, our
stewardship work and our shared stewardship program across the
West to find solutions to the problem that you just described.
Mr. Stewart. All right. And my time has expired. But,
again, thank you. We look forward to working with you and
others as well.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Stewart.
Mrs. Lee, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Lee. Thank you, Chairwoman Pingree and Ranking Member
Joyce, for this hearing, as well as all of our guests and
witnesses. It has been fascinating.
I am proud to represent the State of Nevada, where we have
had the fastest-growing population of any State during the last
five decades. As we have grown, the demand for affordable
housing has rapidly outpaced our supply, and today we have a
shortage of roughly 80,000 affordable units for low-income
renters.
So, while we may not have large swaths of forest in
southern Nevada--although my counterpart, Mark Amodei, from up
north has a different scenario--we are certainly invested in
wood innovation and, in particular, the impacts it has on
building materials and construction.
One innovative wood product that I am particularly
interested in is mass timber. We have heard today how mass
timber can be made from the smaller and weaker trees that are
removed from forests during thinning operations to prevent
wildfires. Another big concern in the drought Southwest is we
are basically in a mega-drought. We have also heard that, when
produced sustainably, mass timber building materials have the
potential to be stronger, more fire-resistant, and promote
faster, cost-efficient construction.
So I want to direct my question to Mr. MacKeith.
You have described how sustainably sourced mass timber can
be used as a low-carbon alternative for building materials. And
as we tackle our housing crisis here in southern Nevada, I am
particularly interested in the potential cost benefits of using
mass timber in building construction.
Can you comment on that and talk about how you see that
transpiring?
Mr. MacKeith. Thank you very much for the question. And
very much thank you for saying the word ``housing.'' Housing is
critical to our future as a Nation and certainly critical in
any State, whether it is here in Arkansas or in your State of
Nevada.
We believe that there is a role for mass timber and wood
product development within the housing industry, within the
housing market, within the housing territory altogether. As I
alluded to earlier, this is where the financial metrics as well
as the quality-of-life metrics can potentially be most broadly
realized.
This is also where I would say the universities and the
research enterprises in the universities can be of real
importance. And just to quote one example, I know this is being
worked on at Clemson. I know it is being worked on at Oregon,
Oregon State. I can tell you it is being worked on here in
Arkansas, where we have our own design-to-income issues for
affordable housing.
We know that stick-frame construction, of course, is a
major market for the existing wood industry as it is, but, at
the same time, the dimensions really pertain to what is, in
essence, a private-market-driven territory in which we can
either reduce the cost of land, reduce the cost of design, or
reduce the cost of construction.
I can certainly be addressing the cost of design. And what
we can do within our schools and universities is to produce
prototypical affordable-housing unit-based design based upon
mass timber panelized construction that can reduce that line
item on a pro forma to make this attractive to a developer,
whether that is a government agency or a private-market
developer. That is what we can be doing to then leverage the
manufacturing capacity that is currently in development in the
United States.
There are a lot of wins that we can achieve out there, but,
as was said earlier, it has to be done in a consortium-based
approach--government, industry, and, really, the economy--to
further this along.
Our approach is to say we will prototype design, and then
we will provide those designs at minimal cost to developers or
nonprofits alike in order to incentivize their use of mass
timber in a repetitive way. That, for us, is the real next
horizon.
Mrs. Lee. Thank you.
And my time is up, so I have to yield. Thank you very much.
Ms. Pingree. Sorry. I forgot to unmute myself.
Mr. Amodei, would you like to be recognized for 5 minutes
for questions?
Mr. Amodei. Thank you, Madam Chair.
A couple of preliminary things. I noticed that the vice
chair was talking about something to do with the Great Lakes.
As an individual who represents the greatest single lake, that
being Tahoe, we are happy to welcome those lakes where they
needed five or six of them to go ahead and make the ``great''
thing. But, you know, no hard feelings. But that old saying
that I believe you folks in Maine are familiar with: Quality is
preferable over quantity.
But, anyhow, let's get on to the hearing.
Thank you.
I was intrigued to hear the discussion a little bit earlier
about low-value fiber and forest health and fuels management.
You have touched on it; other people have. I believe Mr.
Stewart referred to it as low-diameter trees or something along
those lines.
And as the home--of which represents my colleague Susie
Lee's district in Mount Charleston and the Spring Mountains--
the home of the HumboldtToiyabe National Forest, which I think
is the largest one acreage-wise in the Nation, the challenges
are such that--I am glad to hear the discussion about all the
innovation and stuff like that, and I certainly support all
that, but I think we need to talk about, as the committee does
its work, talk about the 800-pound gorilla in the room, which
is forest health, which is also fuels management.
And so, when we talk about that and we also add in carbon--
I am guessing that maybe some of the folks on the panel can
answer this question. But when we lose wood in the forest, fuel
in the forest, through the forest-fire mechanism, the carbon
release and the air-quality implications are nothing short of
catastrophic.
We don't highlight that a lot, but, nonetheless, when we
talk about--I was intrigued to hear the discussion about
turning biomass into pellets to make that--dealing with carbon
release, whether it is biomass or fuel generation or other
stuff, is eminently manageable compared to rapid oxidation.
And I can tell you, no offense to my colleagues in the
Golden State, but when there is a big fire in the forest in
California, Nevada's air quality goes right out of sight, in
terms of, you can't see anything, there are health district
warnings, there is all that stuff, which has become all too
common.
So I would like to hear if any of the folks on this panel
have information regarding what the air-quality carbon-release
realities are--and I know that it differs based on what the
fuel is for the acre that is burning, but none of it is good--
if there is any existing data on that.
And then, also, if there are one or two clearinghouses, if
you will, that talk about the low-value fiber products and how
that can be basically looked at in a responsible infrastructure
policy going forward.
Ms. Pingree. It looks like--Mr. Brinkmeyer, did you want to
take that?
Mr. Brinkmeyer. Yes, please. Is my audio working?
Ms. Pingree. Perfectly.
Mr. Brinkmeyer. It is. All right. Well, great question, and
I have a couple comments here.
I think I mentioned earlier that we are building a new mill
in Mississippi. And the reason we are going to Mississippi is
assurance of supply. And with respect to the gentleman that
asked the question about the small trees in Utah, if there is
certainty available with respect to raw materials supply, the
industry will come.
And we have the technology to deal with small logs. That
technology going to the State of Maine--knowing Mr. Irving and
other producers, your logs are quite small. Your trees are
quite old. They are slow-growing. They have structural
integrity used in I-joists and other products. Nature's own
engineered wood, if you will. And so the technology exists to
economically handle the small material.
With respect to forest health, the answer is pellets. In
the infrastructure bill--there are pellet manufacturers now.
There is technology that is emerging. It has been in Europe for
some time. And to give an example, residual--let's just pick--
sawdust, in Europe, sells for 80 euros a ton. In the United
States, we get $5 to $7 per ton.
The whole point being, this is about--because natural gas
in the United States versus in Europe, that they don't. And it
is used for energy, so the BTU value in Europe is much higher
than the United States, hence the pellet plants being built in
the Southeast for export to Japan and other places in Europe.
So the answer to the small-diameter wood and the recipes
that have come out of the pellet industry is that it will take
bark. So it is chippers, to the logging community, to be able
to remove this small material and economically put it into
pellets and use it for fuel, as was mentioned earlier.
So my point is, we have solutions. The industry will rise
to the occasion to be able to deal with it. But we are just a
tool. And we are not--we are an industry that is not
subsidized. We are not looking for a subsidy. What we need is
certainty. And the mills--there are other families in the
industry that would build mills and have the technology and
ability to do it. But that would be the issue.
So these are all solvable.
Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you.
Mr. Amodei yields back.
And Mr. Cartwright is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cartwright. Thank you, Chair Pingree.
And thank you to all our witnesses for being with us today.
Thank you, particularly, to Dr. MacKeith, Dean MacKeith,
for mentioning Gifford Pinchot, who hails from my district,
from Milford, Pennsylvania. Started the forestry school at
Yale, the first U.S. Forest Service chair. And great friend of
Theodore Roosevelt, the both of them terrific conservationists.
And Gifford Pinchot went on to become the Governor of
Pennsylvania in 1931, largely through the efforts of his wife.
Many people don't realize Cornelia Pinchot was basically the
leader of the suffragist movement in Pennsylvania, enabling an
entire gender of voters to come on line. And it was his
popularity because of his wife that really ushered Gifford
Pinchot into the office of Governor of Pennsylvania in 1931.
And he had this summer camp for the Yale forestry school at
his home in Milford, Pennsylvania, as well. And there is no
coincidence there. As you all may be aware, Pennsylvania is
home to many beautiful forests. The name ``Pennsylvania'' means
``Penn's woods.'' Over 58 percent of Pennsylvania is covered in
forests right now. Many of the forests are publicly owned, but
there are 750,000 people who are private owners of forestland
in Pennsylvania, with less than 3 percent of the land owned by
the forest product industry.
The first question I have is about invasive insects and
diseases. The introduction and spread of non-native invasive
insect, pathogen, and plant species are causing significant
harm to both urban and rural forests.
I recently introduced the Native Plant Species Pilot
Program Act to try to understand the cost-effectiveness of
using native plant materials in land management activities.
Dr. West, the first question goes to you. What efforts is
the Forest Service taking to combat invasive species and
reestablish native species?
Ms. West. Thank you for the question.
As I mentioned earlier in my remarks, invasive species are
significant throughout particularly our eastern forests. We
have seen many of these species, both insects, invasive
diseases, that have affected the composition of our native
forests.
So, you know, there is not a one-track solution. We are
working, and working with universities, with other Federal
agencies, with State agencies, first of all, to early
detections of any new invasives coming in, and then, once
detection, trying to eradicate quickly.
When we have lost the game there, now we have to manage and
control. So, working on that front, we are also looking at
developing biological control methods, we are looking at
managing that with different chemical treatments, as well as
looking at what comes after.
So, even though we have lost the game, we have to look at,
how do we restore behind? I think the Chief may have mentioned
in her testimony in another hearing about we need to, you know,
begin to think how we re-ash our forests. The chestnut white
took out chestnuts. We are looking at challenges for oak
regeneration.
And, in the face of this, we are facing changing climatic
conditions around climate change.
But the good news is, nature is resilient. And with our
help and the work we are doing to find solutions, including
genetic selection of solutions for trees that could become
resistant to diseases, we can help to shape the forests of the
future. And I think that is where we need to be looking to, is
the future.
And there are a lot of great biologists, ecologists
working, of course, with State universities. We are working on
Federal lands, State lands, through our State agencies, to
better understand the trajectory of our forests and what we
need to do as managers and as well as developing the
technologies and the treatments for the future of our forests.
And I can provide you with a great more details on that, if you
would like, Congressman.
Mr. Cartwright. I think we are going to follow up.
And I have gone over my time. And, Madam Chair, I yield
back.
Ms. Pingree. Mr. Cartwright, it looks like we might have a
brief second round of questions.
So thank you to our witnesses, if you are willing to have a
few more questions. I will start with myself.
Mr. Brinkmeyer, thank you so much. It has really been
helpful to have your perspective, you know, from the business
side.
Everyone has been great, so thank you for all of the
testimony.
But you mentioned a couple things in your first testimony
that I am just interested to ask you more about. I think you
said that you have long turned to Europe to look at some of
their best practices and seen that as a source of, kind of,
looking into the future of wood products. And, also, you
mentioned the check-off system.
So I guess my two questions are: Do you think we still--do
we adequately utilize the forest practice and products that are
being developed in Europe right now? Is there more we could do
with that, sort of, shared information?
And are we using the check-off system enough--I know that
is in the Ag Committee, but not here--but just in terms of this
whole question about developing markets, getting more built
with some of these wood products, particularly the new and
innovative ones? What is your perspective on that?
Mr. Brinkmeyer. Well, thank you very much for the question.
With respect to Europe, the European sawmill community and
the forest products community is virtually all family-held. And
I have had the opportunity to be part of the international
association and have gotten to know the families over the years
and their embracing of technologies. So there aren't public
companies and large public infrastructures. So they're quite
conservative.
Their sustained yield program in Austria and Germany is
over 200 years old in how they manage their forest. And so
there is a message there. And they, for example, have
processes, because of their energy costs, where the actual
slash is bailed and bundled and brought in and converted to
energy. So there are messages in those states--same thing with
respect to Finland, Sweden, and so forth. So we, personally and
professionally, in our company, we look to Europe first.
And, for example, in processing logs, just to give you an
example, it is all done with laser data points. On a 20-foot
log, we have 20,000 data points. And what we are doing is we
are extracting precision rectangles out of a truncated cone.
Three or four years ago, we invested in a CT scanner, and
the reason we did that--all we can do is saw from the outside
in. Today, we can saw from the inside out. We know where the
knots are, we know where the defect is. And so all of this can
lead to a higher grade of lumber.
This is all European technology; it didn't come from the
United States. And so our new mill in Mississippi will employ
not only that technology but other technology as we study that
log for better yield and better products.
Cross-laminated timber is very vibrant. New mills are being
built in Europe, and that is where the technology is. The
University of Graz is a bastion of utilization of wood fiber.
Keep in mind that they do not have a dimension, structural
American lumber standards for it like we have here in the
United States. So they don't have commodity lumber. North
America is ahead of the game in that respect. But Europe, from
a managing forest point of view, their plants, how they handle
energy, and their product development is quite good. Necessity
drives investment, and necessity is the mother of invention in
Europe.
Cross-laminated timber really gained market momentum in the
European communities because, as was mentioned earlier, the
sweet spot with respect to buildings is 8 to 10 stories. So
just imagine, in the large metropolitan areas--pick London,
pick any of the large European cities that have six-story
buildings--have been utilizing cross-laminated timber to add
two stories to those buildings. Because wood is 20 percent of
the weight of steel and concrete and has the same strength
characteristics. That is where the innovation comes from, and
that is where it is fascinating.
And so we believe that, from a forest health point of view,
managing their forests, there is a lesson.
There is also another lesson here in the United States. The
fires on private lands and public lands are minimal, on a
percentage basis. The fire situation is on the Federal lands.
Now, there are issues with respect to sagebrush and other forms
of wildfires that are an issue and contribute to the fire
situation. With respect to managed forests, there is less fire
exposure than there is on the national forest, and it is purely
because of the forest health.
And that is what we feel that--we don't feel it is
appropriate to complain about it. We feel it is appropriate to
work with folks, such as yourself and the western Governors and
others, to bring this information forward to see if we can't
show you and have you look at it with the same optics that we
do. Because we are operating people. Our world is the woods,
our world is fires. We have had some fires that we have had to
deal with. But that is all part of the forest products
community.
But management of the Federal forest, allowing us to do our
job, allowing the professionals in the Forest Service--who are
super. The State foresters we have, the Federal foresters we
have, they know what they are doing. Give them a chance to do
their job. They will do the right thing.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you so much. I have to cut you off right
there. I am out of time. Thank you.
Mr. Joyce, do you have another question you would like to
ask?
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Chair Pingree.
Dean MacKeith, if you wouldn't mind, can you tell us how
the advancements you have witnessed in Arkansas's timber and
wood industries have impacted rural communities throughout the
State? And just take a moment, as well, to discuss the
importance of Forest Service funding in achieving those goals.
Mr. MacKeith. Yeah. Thank you very much for the question.
As I indicated in my remarks, the first, I think, advantage
and the first appeal on this, beyond the evident need to
address the surplus condition, the environmental condition,
there is, I think, as well, the need to address the economic
vitality, the quality of life in the rural communities of the
State.
If you were to map in a somewhat laminated way the presence
of the forests in the State of Arkansas, the presence of
sawmills and other wood product operations in those forests,
you would also be mapping rural communities as well. So these
are all interrelated. That is, I think, vital to this
understanding.
The first thing, then, is in terms of jobs. And whether
that is the restoration or creation of new jobs in logging and
in sawmill operations or new jobs in the sense for the
development of new markets--new products and new markets. And
that is where, for instance, our ability to attract a cross-
laminated timber manufacturer to set up operations in the
middle of the State is job creation of immediate residents
around that facility and then further and further residents
out.
So this is about job creation. That is one thing which can
be of great benefit to rural communities. Equally, then, we
believe that there is a role that we can play, as a school, in
quality of life in those communities. And I come back to the
issue of housing.
So we are now working with a combination of a foundation
grant as well as USFS funding to look at the issue of
affordable housing in rural communities situated in the forest
in such a way that we can truly provide affordable housing for
those citizens of those communities in a way that makes
absolute sense to them. It is made of wood, and its essence is
something that they can identify with.
This is the value chain that I continue to emphasize, not
only the partnership between government, industry, and
university, but also the responsibility that we have to our
citizens in these rural communities to really demonstrate the
value of their work directly to the places where they are
living.
So, again, the USFS funding has been critical for us all
along the way. And then, coming in the wake of everything that
we have done, everything we have built, Forest Products
Laboratory research funding just enhances that and furthers it
down the line.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Chair Pingree, I know we have other folks who want to ask
additional questions, so I would defer to them. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Yeah. Thank you for that.
Let's see. Mr. Cartwright was going to go next, but I think
he has disappeared, so that would bring us back to Mr. Kilmer
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I just, actually, want to mention, in response to the last
comment around housing, there is actually some interesting
stuff that is happening in my neck of the woods. We have
another interesting product, composites, recycled composites,
that are being used in coordination with cross-laminated timber
to build tiny homes for homeless veterans in our area. And if
there is interest in learning more about that, I would be happy
to pass on some of the interesting work that is happening in my
neck of the woods.
I also wanted to just ask, again, trying to get at what we
can do--you know, I am conscious of the fact that the Federal
Government is our Nation's largest builder, and so I think
there is a lot of opportunity to sort of move the needle by
getting the Federal Government to lead more in this space. You
know, on this committee, you know, I have worked with GSA and
with the Department of Defense to try to update their
procurement policies to reflect the carbon benefits of wood
construction.
But I would love to get a sense--and I am not sure who to
direct this to, maybe Dr. West or Dr. Shaler--of what steps can
the Federal Government take to help lead the shift toward wood
construction and to solidify the role of advanced wood products
as low-embodied-carbon building material that will be key to
meeting our net-zero goals?
Ms. West. I am glad to take that question and really
appreciate the question.
The Federal Government has the power through the sheer
number of buildings that we put in place. And many of these are
not those tall, 18-story buildings, but they are the lower-rise
buildings that we are putting in place. And whether it is
through our programs with HUD for affordable housing, or with
FEMA and HUD to address replacing housing after major disasters
from fires and from major storms, and where it is that we are
building upon our own facilities.
We had a program and a plan about 12 years ago called our
Green Building Strategy, and part of that strategy that we put
together with our partners identified incentives for the
Federal Government to lean into building from wood. And
resurrecting those recommendations and incentives--you know, we
have made some progress. I mean, this is in the Forest Service
and other agencies and within USDA. With the new sustainability
office and the department sustainability plan and forum, we
have an opportunity to lead out on that. So we certainly can do
that.
Department of Defense is a huge organization with many
needs and structures. So we have innovations, from using, you
know, thin nanocellulose material that has been combined with
cement and concrete to create thin walls to put up to withstand
blasts for temporary housing for military personnel--is one
thing. If we can develop some of these systems with these CLT
panels that we can ship flat, we can move houses around the
country from where we put our component parts together.
So we have a lot of opportunity in working, again,
resurrecting what we started with 12 years ago in Green
Building Strategy for Federal agencies.
Mr. Shaler. If I could briefly add on: part of the other
issue is--in the low-carbon procurement standards. Details
matter in terms of how those calculations are made. I think
that is an important area.
And the other part of this: We talk to contractors and look
at how they de-risk. We know that once a company has built
these, they reduce time to market because they are comfortable
with the new building technology, and they can price that into
their models moving forward. Demonstration giving these
companies the experience so that they have confidence in
putting more projects forward--is an important component.
Mr. Kilmer. Thanks very much. And to the credit of some of
the leaders in my State, they are doing some demonstration
projects using CLT. And I mentioned the work on the veterans'
housing using recycled carbon fiber and CLT. It is entirely
with an eye towards doing that sort of demonstration.
So thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Kilmer.
I see Mr. Harder has joined us. So it will be Mr. Amodei,
if you would like to ask another round of questions, and then
Mr. Harder.
Mr. Amodei. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Just to follow up on the earlier stuff, which is, in terms
of your committee's work, Madam Chair, and also the members'
work in terms of fuels, forest management, all that sort of
stuff, if there is--and I don't know whether that is Dr. West
or any of the other panel members--but if the data is out there
that talks about, for instance, the carbon effects of wildland
fire and also the cost to produce whatever creates a BTU or
whatever of coal with existing technology versus the cost to
create the same unit of measure, whether it is BTU or a ton or
something like that, regarding wood pellets, I think those
would be phenomenally persuasive facts when we go forth and
say, ``Hey, we need money to do this. You want clean air, and
pellets are cleaner than coal and the cost to create them is
competitive, if those are the facts. Oh, and, by the way, all
of that stuff is not going into the air in the form of the next
forest fire during these drought times'' or climate change or
whatever. I would think that would be phenomenally persuasive
for us to go to our colleagues.
So my request would be, if there is an entity or entities
that have that information, please share that with the
committee so that we can develop that and use that to make our
other colleagues aware of it and go forth and try to get the
right thing done.
Ms. West. Congressman, we do have quite a bit of
information that does those comparisons. We do quite a bit of
monitoring for air quality and emissions during forest fires.
And we are glad to put together some additional information and
share that with you.
Mr. Amodei. Thank you very much.
I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Great.
Mr. Harder, I recognize you for 5 minutes.
Mr. Harder. Thank you, Madam Chair. No questions from me.
Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. I think that Mr. Brinkmeyer had a hand up. I
don't know if he wanted to answer Mr. Amodei's question or just
weigh in.
Mr. Brinkmeyer. Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I just
wanted to share that, together with Dr. West, we can help with
the information on pellets and the value proposition.
One of our team members supplied me the information on the
last round of wildfires. It is 112 million tons of carbon that
went up in the air. And so, just looking at California and that
issue--and then we can break it down based on forest versus
wildland fires and so forth.
But we would be happy to--and there is independent valued
research that has been done in this space that we can share
with this committee, however you would like to receive it, if
we bring it in through Dr. West or however you would want us to
bring that information forward for you.
Ms. Pingree. Great. Well, we will follow up with you on
that, and we will follow up on Mr. Amodei's question, because I
think we could gather a lot of very useful information from
these witnesses that we have had today.
So we have kept you for 2 hours, and you have all been
really generous with your time. Unless any members want to ask
any more questions--and it looks like we can let you off the
hook.
So I just want to thank our witnesses for appearing in
front of us today. We really appreciate your testimony. This
has been an important, really helpful conversation to all of
us. And, as I said, we would love to follow up with you. You
all have a wealth of information, and I think you are really
such useful resources for our committee in making some of these
challenging decisions going forward.
So there are no additional questions and we won't have any
more additional comments, so this hearing is now adjourned.
Thank you all very much. Thank you so much.
Thursday, March 25, 2021.
THE EFFECTS OF COVID-19 ON ARTS AND HUMANITIES ORGANIZATIONS
WITNESSES
KATHLEEN MUNDELL, CULTURAL RESOURCES
CALEB CAGE, NEVADA HUMANITIES BOARD OF TRUSTEES
DEBORAH LENK, MUSEUM DIRECTOR, MUSEUM OF GLASS
ULYSSES SLAUGHTER, PROJECT MANAGER, CHESTER MADE
Ms. Pingree. Good afternoon. This hearing will officially
come to order.
As the hearing is fully virtual, we must address a few
housekeeping matters, and I will read this verbatim.
For today's meeting, the chair or staff designated by the
chair may mute participants' microphones when they are not
under recognition for the purposes of eliminating inadvertent
background noise. Members are responsible for muting and
unmuting themselves.
If you notice that you have not unmuted yourself, I will
ask if you would like staff to unmute you. If you indicate
approval by nodding, staff will unmute your microphone.
I remind all members and witnesses that the 5-minute clock
still applies. If there is a technology issue, we will move to
the next member until the issue is resolved, and you will
retain the balance of your time.
You will notice a clock on your screen that will show how
much time is remaining. At 1 minute remaining, the clock will
turn to yellow. At 30 seconds remaining, I will gently tap the
gavel to remind members that their time is almost expired. When
your time is expired, the clock will turn red, and I will begin
to recognize the next member.
In terms of the speaking order, we will follow the order
set forth in House rules, beginning with the chair and ranking
member. Then members present at the time the hearing is called
to order will be recognized in order of seniority, and,
finally, members not present at the time the hearing is called
to order.
Finally, House rules require me to remind you that we have
set up an email address to which members can send anything they
wish to submit in writing at any of our hearings and markups.
That email address has been provided in advance to your staff.
Okay. That is the end, so I will begin.
Well, thank you so much to our witnesses for being here and
to committee members for taking up this important topic. COVID-
19, as we all know--I don't have to say this--has taken a grave
toll on communities across the country, and the dire impacts
have been far-reaching. Today, in this committee hearing, we
will examine how the pandemic has affected the arts and
humanities sector.
By nature, many of these organizations, like museums and
performing arts groups, are inherently dependent on interaction
with their consumers. So workers in these industry have faced
high unemployment, lost income and benefits, and challenging
decisions on how to protect their health while preserving their
livelihoods.
Last year, Congress provided much-needed relief,
appropriating $75 million to each of the endowments through the
CARES Act. Still, I think we all knew that the needs were far
greater than that, and I am pleased that an additional $135
million has been provided for each endowment in the recent
American Rescue Plan.
The National Endowment for the Arts' Office of Research and
Analysis estimates that these funds will support about 2,300--
234,000 jobs in the arts. These are largely good, stable,
middle-class jobs and provide much-needed respite for
organizations until normal funding streams can resume.
In April 2020, the National Endowment for the Humanities
estimated that museums and historic sites were reporting losses
of $1 billion a month.
The NEA estimates that while the national endowment rate
for the fourth quarter of 2020 was approximately 6 percent, the
unemployment rate for dancers and choreographers was 77.8
percent; for actors, 47.6 percent; and for musicians, 21.5
percent.
Those are sobering statistics about the state of our arts
and humanities sectors across the country. And it is important
to remember, even though those are numbers, there are real
people behind all those numbers, and that is the purpose of our
hearing today.
Today's witnesses represent a wide swath of arts and
humanities groups from across the country, and they are
integral to arts and humanities in their communities. I look
forward to hearing from them what Federal funding through the
NEA and NEH has done to help these organizations and their
communities and what needs we may need to address as a
subcommittee going forward. I hope they will help us to
understand the on-the-ground reality and the outlook for
recovery in this sector.
I will now welcome our panelists, Kathleen Mundell, who is
the director of Cultural Resources in Rockport, Maine--pleased
to have a Mainer here with us today; Debbie Lenk, who is the
executive director or the Museum of Glass in Tacoma,
Washington; Ulysses Slaughter, who is the project manager for
Chester Made in Chester, Pennsylvania; and Caleb Cage, Nevada
Board of Humanities, who I think we may hear more about from
Mr. Amodei.
Before the--before hearing the opening statements from our
panel, I would like to yield to our yanking--ranking member,
Mr. Joyce, for any opening remarks he would like to make.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you for yielding, Madam Chair.
Today's oversight hearing provides an opportunity to
understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected arts and
humanities organizations across the country and how Federal
resources are being used to mitigate the virus' impact.
Like the chair, I would like to welcome our witnesses,
Caleb Cage, Deborah Lenk, Kathleen Mundell, and Ulysses
Slaughter. I appreciate you taking the time to join us this
afternoon.
COVID-19 has brought unprecedented hardships and tragedies,
and it has turned a lot of lives upside down. It has disrupted
our communities and left no industry untouched. I recognize
that COVID-19 has hit the arts and humanities sector especially
hard, given the industry's characteristics and their reliance
on in-person experiences.
Last spring, Congress passed, and President Trump signed,
the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, more
commonly known as the CARES Act. The CARES Act provided $75
million in emergency funding for the National Endowment for the
Arts and also for the National Endowment for the Humanities to
help State and regional councils, as well as cultural
organizations and institutions, blunt the financial impacts of
the pandemic.
Madam Chair, while I wish we could have held this hearing
in advance of another $270 million being provided, I am hopeful
that through our discussions today we can understand how groups
across the country are using funding to stay afloat, support
at-risk jobs, and protect ongoing projects during the pandemic.
And whether these funds more broadly benefited local economies
and communities, including students and teachers displaced from
their classrooms during the pandemic.
I know we are all looking forward to the day when we can
return to a full concert venue, a gallery opening, or a museum
exhibition. In the meantime, it is helpful for us as
appropriators, who want to ensure we remain good stewards of
taxpayer dollars, to hold these oversight hearings to
understand the impact COVID-19 emergency funding has had on
various industries like the arts and humanities. And to
recognize the industry needs have continued to evolve
throughout the pandemic, which could help guide our future
funding considerations.
Thank you for yielding, Madam Chair. I look forward to this
discussion ahead, and I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much, Mr. Joyce.
Would any other member like to make opening remarks?
Seeing none, we will start with Ms. Mundell. Thank you very
much, and welcome to a fellow Mainer.
I think you might be muted. There you go.
Ms. Mundell. Great. Thank you.
Thank you, Chair Pingree and Ranking Member Joyce and other
members of the subcommittee, for inviting me to speak this
afternoon.
My name is Kathleen Mundell, and I am the director of
Cultural Resources, a nonprofit based in Maine, that for the
last 30 years, has worked with local communities on developing
strategies, alliances, and programs that help sustain their
traditional culture.
Franco-American step dancing in Lewiston, Wabanaki basket
making in Princeton, Rwandan drumming in Portland, almost every
community in Maine has cultural traditions worth sustaining.
These traditions are passed down informally, usually face to
face, from one generation to the next, and are rooted in the
way of living, reflecting shared cultural values.
Drawing on a set of skills acquired over a lifetime of
practice, traditional artists are often recognized by fellow
community members as the ones who are doing it right. Such
mastery calls for a deep understanding of natural materials,
places, and cultural practices. Where there is a longstanding
sense of place, people know what works and what doesn't, what
is useful and what is beautiful. And although some of these
people, who live in an area for a long time, sometimes are
reluctant to call themselves artists, they are definitely
keepers of their culture.
Cultural Resources works with communities and artists to
sustain this culture. We do this through fieldwork and
community gatherings, resulting in the development of
apprenticeship programs and traveling exhibits.
Our longest working relationship is with the Wabanaki
traditional artists and Tribal members. These are members of
the Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Micmac, and Maliseet Tribes. With
support from the National Endowments for the Arts' Folk and
Traditional Arts Program, Cultural Resources has worked with
members of the Wabanaki Tribes and the Maine Arts Commission in
developing a highly successful apprenticeship program that
contributed to the resurgence of the ash basketry tradition and
also helped create a new generation of basket makers, many who
have gone on to national recognition, including four National
Heritage winners, as well as many award winners at the Santa Fe
Indian Market.
The apprenticeship program was also instrumental in the
formation of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, a native-
run nonprofit dedicated to sustaining this endangered
tradition.
More than just one-on-one instruction, apprenticeships help
communities maintain traditions by connecting elders with
younger students for an exchange of techniques and cultural
knowledge, which includes language and selection and
preparation of natural materials.
Being able to utilize nearby natural resources has great
resonance in Maine, especially the North Woods. This part of
Maine is America's oldest working forest and is home to the
remarkable range of traditional artists. Given the harsh
climate and limited economic opportunities, to be a practicing
traditional artist requires a strong sense of purpose,
resourcefulness, and ingenuity.
Last year, as eight new apprenticeships were about to
begin, everything came to a grinding halt when Governor Janet
Mills issued a stay-at-home order. As a result, many of the
apprenticeships were postponed, as well as the development of a
new exhibit called ``Always Home: Wabanaki Traditional Arts,''
which was to open in Monson Arts in northern Maine.
With CARES Act funding from the National Endowment for the
Arts, Cultural Resources will be able to move forward with the
apprenticeships and continue to develop this exhibit, which
will open at the end of May 2021.
This past year has been one of tremendous loss--of lives,
of jobs, and of human connection. We have also witnessed the
extraordinary capacity of the human spirit to find ways to keep
going. I believe supporting traditional arts anchors people,
helping to support communities through such difficult times by
honoring people, their places, and their culture.
It is through the support of this committee and the
National Endowment for the Arts that such programs are
successful and will continue for future generations.
Thank you for your support and for all that you do.
[The statement of Ms. Mundell follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you so much.
Ms. Lenk.
Ms. Lenk. Thank you, Chair Pingree, Ranking Member Joyce,
and members of the committee.
As mentioned, I am Debbie Lenk, executive director at
Museum of Glass. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you
about the devastating effects of COVID-19 on museums and
communities we serve.
Museum of Glass, affectionately known as MOG, is based in
Tacoma, Washington. Long known as the Gritty City, we have a
reputation for hard work, a large military presence, and a
willingness to roll up our sleeves to make life more equitable
and accessible for all.
We are also known for glass. The Pacific Northwest is home
to the largest concentration of glass artists in the world,
making MOG a vital player in shaping the future of glass
nationally and internationally. Unique among museums, we are a
hands-on maker space where creativity becomes art every day.
But the crowning feature of the museum is our Hot Shop,
with an amphitheater and two furnaces each filled with a
thousand pounds of molten glass. We invite artists to
experiment and work with our renowned team, and use the glass-
making shop for community programs that heal, inspire, and
educate.
While most Museum of Glass programming is offered onsite,
MOG frequently provides in-class programs in local schools,
designed to foster critical thinking skills and instill a
passion for lifelong learning. We have also been working to
develop greater partnerships among historically underserved
communities to bring access to our youth programs.
We never imagined a world where Museum of Glass would
operate only 4 months in 2020. Last March, for the first time
in 20 years, our exhibitions, Hot Shop, and programming went
idle. Without vital Federal funding, including the grant from
the National Endowment for the Arts, Museum of Glass would not
have survived this past year.
Thanks to the NEA, we have deepened our understanding of
arts as healing through our Hot Shop Heroes program, which
supports the individual therapies of soldiers and vets with
visible and invisible wounds, injury, or illness. The NEA was
one of the first to support the museum's effort to engage the
military in their recovery and work towards understanding why a
structured series of glassmaking classes seemed to profoundly
impact wellness.
Throughout this extraordinary year, we have remained
concerned about the financial and human impacts of our closure.
An independent news site here in Seattle, Crosscut, recently
surveyed 118 local arts organizations on the impact of COVID-
19. The majority, 72 percent of the respondents, said they
don't have enough cash on hand to cover operating expenses for
the next 12 months. This is the reality for nonprofit arts
organizations like MOG.
Fifty percent of our museum's revenue comes from earned
sources--admission tickets, hands-on activities, classes, et
cetera. To sustain the organization for the long term and
position us for a very unpredictable year, we placed all staff
on furlough immediately after closing. It was difficult, and it
took an emotional toll on our people.
The financial instability of families, stress of parents
homeschooling children, the social and political climate, fear
of coronavirus, and a constant state of evolving restrictions
have pushed people to their limits. Our communities need art
more than ever.
CARES Act, PPP, and EIDL loans were critical lifelines for
us to cover ongoing site costs and to adapt key programs to
virtual formats. We also received a special COVID CARES Act
grant from the NEA to bring our Hot Shop staff back to evolve
our techniques and create safe processes to blow glass with
masks on.
On April 2, Museum of Glass will reopen, and we believe
guests are ready to return. We look forward to reengaging
programs that had to be put on hold.
At the institutional level, this next year will still be
uncertain. The health of museums is dependent on Federal
programs and funding provided by organizations like the
National Endowment for the Arts, which enable us to do what we
do best, heal our communities through art.
Thank you. I appreciate the chance to tell MOG's story and
let you know how much we appreciate your support.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you so much for your testimony.
And since my birthday is April 2, I really appreciate you
recognizing that day for your reopening--for me.
Ms. Lenk. Happy to do that.
Ms. Pingree. Mr. Slaughter, we would love to hear your
testimony.
Mr. Slaughter. Good afternoon. My name is Ulysses
Slaughter. I am the senior project manager for the Pennsylvania
Humanities Council and the project manager for the arts and
culture initiative called Chester Made.
Today, I would like to talk with you about how COVID-19 has
impacted places like Chester, Pennsylvania, and cultural
organizations throughout the State, and how CARES funding is
helping to continue--to help us to continue to reclaim,
repurpose, and rebuild our lives and communities.
I want to thank you, subcommittee chair, Congresswoman
Pingree, and the members of the subcommittee for inviting me
during this very, very difficult time.
The Pennsylvania Humanities Council is one of the many
State humanities councils across the Nation that partners with
the National Endowment for the Humanities. We put the
humanities in action to create positive change. We are the
voice and the leader for Pennsylvania's cultural sector,
including our museums, historical societies, and public
libraries.
Over the last two decades, I have worked on the ground with
Chester's creatives in cultural communities, and now manage a
project we call Chester Made. I am proud to be both a witness
and an actor on the stage of Chester's relentless fight to
bring joy, peace, and harmony to a town that refuses to be
defeated.
Chester, Pennsylvania is the first city of Pennsylvania, a
city of 30,000, that lies just outside of Philadelphia. Founded
in 1682 by William Penn, Chester thrived in the early 20th
century as a manufacturing hub. Like many industrial cities,
however, fortunes fell when factories closed. Nevertheless, we
see people--boarded-up buildings, and people think that this is
a disinvestment. Well, the artists in Chester see this as an
asset. They see this as an opportunity. That is what artists
do. They know that the most important and precious resource in
a town is its city.
I want to be clear that Chester is, in fact, one of the
hardest hit places in Pennsylvania, but not just because of the
pandemic, but because of a long history of racial,
environmental, and economic injustice. People like legendary
martial artist Freda Cheetah Gibbs comes from Chester. Reverend
Dr. Martin Luther King studied in Chester, and a woman named
Ethel Waters was inspired here in this city called Chester.
Chester Made was a name that was given by the people to
Chester Made, and it flows off of the slogan ``What Chester
Makes, Makes Chester.'' It is a humanities-based initiative
that is designed to celebrate and promote arts and culture in
the city of Chester. It is a project of the Pennsylvania
Humanities Council and one that is co-created with the
Pennsylvania Humanities Council.
Chester Made is based on a simple idea that community
revitalization can be accomplished by building on the strengths
and talents of community residents.
One of the more painful results of COVID-19 was watching
all of the vibrant and vital spaces in the community that
housed Chester Made programs and opportunities for connection--
to watch them close their doors was painful. But Chester is
resilient and creative and is no stranger to adversity.
With the support of the Pennsylvania Humanities Council and
the National Endowment for the Humanities, we went viral--
viral. We went virtual--excuse me--and some of them that were
virtual did go viral.
The people of Chester built new platforms and found new
ways to engage. We put together a digital storytelling project
that allowed people the opportunity to reclaim their history
through video.
It is no coincidence that President Joe Biden visited
Chester this month. Chester, like many cities, is at the
forefront of the meaningful change that needs to happen
everywhere across our country. We have towns across
Pennsylvania, including one called Carbondale, where committee
member Congressman Matt Cartwright's district is located.
One of the things that we want to pay attention to is that
the Americans for the Arts last year said that in 2020, our
creative and cultural sector in PA experienced a $4.4 billion
loss in revenue. More than half of our creative and cultural
workers are now out of jobs and have no savings. In a
nationwide study by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society
Studies says that it is going to take 26.4 months to improve
this situation.
I want to close by thanking you again for having us. And I
want to reemphasize that the cultural sector is resilient and
our residents have the talent. And it will come back stronger
than before, but it needs substantive help at the Federal level
to support the work of PHC and the NEH.
Thank you so much.
[The statement of Mr. Slaughter follows:]
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Ms. Pingree. Thank you for your testimony.
Before we hear from our last witness, I think Mr. Amodei
may like to add some remarks of introduction before Mr. Cage
begins. Is that true?
Mr. Amodei. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And, listen, I won't do a keynote introduction, because it
is Caleb's testimony that we are looking for, not my intro. But
I will just say that your committee staff has done an excellent
job of identifying someone from a nationwide perspective who is
basically a utility infielder for public service, whether that
is service in his younger years--not that he is old compared to
me--but as a--in our Nation as a graduate of the U.S. Military
Academy, serving in the Middle East, returning to Nevada,
fulfilling a variety of roles there, some of which involve
veterans in terms of standing up some new offices for veterans
services, as well as State director of emergency management and
those sorts of things.
In his latest role, he is directing the State's COVID-19
efforts in terms of managing, coordinating that stuff. But he
is here today, and you have got a great--you have got a great
witness, because he is a volunteer member of the Nevada Board
for Humanities.
So, without further adieu, if I haven't ruined Caleb's
reputation, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you.
And thank you. We look forward to hearing from you, Mr.
Cage.
Mr. Cage. Thank you very much, Madam Chair and members of
the subcommittee. And thank you for that introduction,
Congressman Amodei. Thank you for the opportunity to present
testimony on behalf of State humanities councils and State
affiliates of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
As you know, my name is Caleb Cage, and I serve as a
Governor's appointee to the Nevada Humanities Board of
Trustees. I also currently serve as the COVID-19 response
director for the State of Nevada. In this role, my job is to
help the State of Nevada and Nevadans navigate the current
pandemic crisis.
Since March of last year, I have worked to implement Nevada
Governor Steve Sisolak's vision to protect Nevada's public
health, to maintain our economy, and to ensure our ability to
provide services to the public in the future. These factors and
others, in short, amount to our best efforts to ensure that we
are resilient as a State.
The humanities provide us the essential and necessary tools
of reflection and understanding that contribute to this
resilience. Using these tools, we interpret the pandemic
through our world view and values to determine how we will
handle and respond to the challenges the crisis represents.
This is the act of assessing our current situation in terms of
what we have experienced throughout our history and having the
vision and wisdom to both look forward to and create a
different future.
As we find meaning in crisis our Nation is experiencing
today, we determine how we can persevere as individuals and
also collectively as members of a society, of a culture, and of
our local communities. This is the work of the humanities.
This is also the work of Nevada Humanities, as Nevada's
leading cultural organization, collaborating with libraries,
historical societies, and museums, folklife centers and other
cultural organizations of many kinds.
On behalf of the National Endowment of the Humanities and
the State humanities council, I would like to thank you for the
2020 CARES Act COVID-19 relief funding that has provided
necessary funds to keep local humanities organizations open
during the pandemic.
On a national scale, the American Alliance of Museums
estimates that one-third of museums in the United States will
permanently close as a result of COVID-19, while over 52
percent of museums have 6 months or less of operating reserves,
and 53 percent have had to furlough or lay off staff. These
challenges have also been felt acutely by humanities
organizations in Nevada, and our organizations mirror the
national crisis.
The National Endowment for the Humanities received $75
million in CARES Act funds, which became a lifeline for
cultural and educational organizations. In Nevada, Nevada
Humanities distributed $368,873 in CARES Act grants to 46
organizations across the State, providing rapid response,
short-term operating support for Nevada nonprofit humanities
and cultural organizations facing the crisis of the pandemic.
I would like to share some examples of some of those
programs at the local level.
Marilyn Gillespie, executive director of the Las Vegas
Natural History Museum, notes that through her programs,
southern Nevada children and their families could remain
connected with humanities-focused programs and high-quality
educational resources despite the numerous changes in their
daily lives presented by COVID-19--because of COVID-19.
In northern Nevada, the David J. Drakulich Art Foundation,
a small nonprofit organization founded by the family of fallen
U.S. Army Sergeant David J. Drakulich. As a veteran of the Iraq
war and former director of veterans services at the State, I
worked closely with this organization and can tell you of the
great work they do.
But in the founder, Tina Drakulich's words, as she shared
with us: ``The Nevada Humanities CARES grant came at a time of
great uncertainty. It helped the David J. Drakulich Art
Foundation employ veterans to sew masks for their community
using donated supplies and military uniforms at the time when
PPE was unavailable to individuals scrambling to protect
themselves from COVID-19.''
And, finally, in reference to the National Cowboy Poetry
Gathering, or The Gathering, the founder--or the executive
director notes: The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering normally
injects several million dollars into the local economy at a
time of year when it is needed most, but this year, the
pandemic prohibited us from holding an in-person event,
resulting in a 60 percent loss in operating income. Funding we
received from the National Endowment of the Humanities and
other CARES Act grant funding allowed us to continue.
Thank you very much.
[The statement of Mr. Cage follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you so much for your testimony.
I don't think we have ever had a panel of witnesses that
were so perfectly timed to 5 minutes each. It is quite an
impressive panel, and you are impressive in so many other ways.
We will begin the questions, and I will start by
recognizing myself for 5 minutes.
So, Kathleen, thank you again so much for being here and
representing the work that you do in Maine. We are all really
grateful for the many years you have put in to preserve such
important Maine traditions.
And I want you to know that the baskets behind me always
are there. I didn't just bring them up for this particular
meeting, but I would have, because we are so proud of our
Wabanaki basket makers, and you have just done an incredible
job at expanding their reach and helping to build their
national notoriety.
So much of the work that you do in your program is
dependent on this apprenticeship, mentor, one-on-one
interaction. And could you talk a little bit about how you have
managed to navigate that during this really challenging year,
and then maybe just a little bit about how the NEA money has
been beneficial to the work that you do?
I think you are still muted.
Ms. Mundell. I was very glad to see the baskets behind you.
It was like seeing friends back there.
Well, first, I just want to say that this program, the
National Endowment for the Arts, does support apprenticeship
programs throughout the country, and Maine is one of the oldest
ones. And it was so instrumental in the resurgence of this
basket-making tradition, because it really focused on elders
passing on skills to a new generation, and it basically was
almost 30 years this has been going on.
But I think, in COVID times, it was very difficult on a
couple of levels. One was that sometimes the master student
would live close to the apprentice and would know the person,
but they didn't really want to risk it because the person was
elderly, so they would do it virtually.
And I think one thing about the apprenticeship program is
it really is about that one-on-one healing connection, where
people have to meet, they have to go outside, they have to
spend a period of time getting to know one another for it to
really take hold.
So I think a lot of people got discouraged kind of early on
and decided they were going to wait till they were vaccinated,
which in many of the Tribal communities in Maine, they had
early vaccination, so they were one of the first communities to
be fully vaccinated. So some of those master artists are now
starting their apprenticeships, which is great to hear.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you. And thanks again for the work that
you do.
Mr. Slaughter, it was fascinating to hear your testimony.
And I wish you could talk a little bit more about the role that
the arts play in revitalizing communities that have been
economically challenged, as you have discussed.
Mr. Slaughter. The role that the arts play in revitalizing
the communities? So it is so important for people to be
creative in spaces that are restricted, and there is a lot of
restriction that people have had to deal with.
Ms. Pingree. Sure.
Mr. Slaughter. And in places like Chester, in places in
like Carlyle, people have had to figure new things out. And a
lot of times, madam, people will say that they are not an
artist. And what we find is that, in fact, it is the art that
inspires people to think outside of the proverbial box. People
are thinking very different than they used to. They are trying
to figure out what is the answer, what is the way, and what is
the strategy.
And so having arts as a model gives people an opportunity
to say, well, you know what? I actually can figure out another
road to take, or we can figure out another road to take.
So the fact that people don't see themselves as art in one
context, it is interesting to see them in this new context,
because everybody has to try to figure it out. And so the arts
is a model for what everybody else wants to be now. They want
to figure it out. And, you know, from people literally creating
masks to doing whatever they have got to do, suddenly everybody
is an artist. And it is a beautiful thing to see, because art
will always find a way.
Ms. Pingree. Great. That is a wonderful way to look at it.
I only have a few minutes left, so I will yield back and
yield to Mr. Joyce for 5 minutes.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair. If you beg my
forgiveness, I would like to yield to my dear friend, Mr.
Amodei, so he can cross-examine--I mean, ask questions of Mr.
Cage. I will pick up my time later on. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Mr. Amodei.
Mr. Amodei. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the
yanking member. Nice slip, Madam Chair, but I think you hit the
nail right on the head.
Anyhow, listen, I am very interested in hearing what Mr.
Slaughter just said, and whether we are talking to Tacoma or
Pennsylvania or the folks up in Maine, my experience with the
National Endowment and the arts folks have been that they have
always been very responsible with the money that they have got.
And my impression is what we have done with the COVID moneys
that they have been provided in these various forms of
legislation, it is no different. They are trying to spread it
wide. They are using transparent processes, all good, hats off,
way to go.
But I think as we are talking about the arts, I would be
interested, because it is almost like we have got a patient
here who is sick and the arts, quote/unquote, ``are the heart
of the program,'' but there is problems with the lungs and the
other organs, if you will, that need treatment too. And so what
we are saying is, well, maybe shuttered venues got some help as
a name specifically, and certainly they are worthy of help, but
then when we look at the SBA and say, hey, basically if you
have got chairs bolted to the floor and unless you have a stage
and a curtain and fixed lighting, you are not eligible for any
of this.
I don't think I need to tell anybody of the witnesses on
this program--it is like, listen, there are all sorts of things
that are intertwined with attending a performance, whether it
is a play or whether it is a musical performance or if you are
simply going to a street fair--when Mr. Slaughter says, you
know what, there is a lot of people who don't think they are
artists, but art will find a way, whether that is balloon
races, special events, all sorts of things that are part of our
cultural heritage and our cultural lifeline.
And so, Madam Chair, I would like to hear some thoughts
from these folks in terms of--of course we continue to support
who we have supported. But when we have agencies that are
basically saying, oh, by the way, you haven't been impacted,
when we think about those street fairs--the Boston Marathon, is
that a cultural thing, you know? Or how about the St. Patrick's
Day parade in Boston? Or we all have things in our--you know,
we have got national championship balloon races in Reno.
Those things, in terms of supporting culture and the arts,
which I think are pretty much intertwined, are all things that
I think we need to take a look at in terms of trying to make
sure that where those impacts are is where we are trying to
make sure we look all the way around the neighborhood as
opposed to just some narrow ones.
And I am not accusing anybody on this panel of doing that
sort of thing, but I am looking for your recognition or
disagreement that, quite frankly, arts and appreciating the
arts often involves travel, whether that is in your car, or
beyond that.
So anybody on this panel got any thoughts? And let me--and
let me make it real objective. I mean, when you look at the
U.S. Travel Association's coding on things, I mean, they talk
about tour operators, destination and marketing organization,
performing arts productions and festivals. You know, these are
all things that, quite frankly, are in phenomenal need, and
other than some programs for employment, unemployment, that
sort of thing, because, look, they have all had losses and
impacts.
So I would appreciate it if I could start with Mr.
Slaughter, maybe you have some thoughts on that? Quite frankly,
I think we need to treat the whole patient instead of just
parts of it.
Mr. Slaughter. I couldn't agree more, sir. And I think that
one of the things that I have been saying is that we have to
demystify what the arts are all about. There is this thinking
that arts are over here and everything else is over there. And
the fact of the matter is that art is integrated in everything
that we do, and, therefore, we have to treat the whole system.
The whole system has to be re--it is almost like, you know,
coming up, my grandmother was--she did a lot of sewing, and,
you know, she had a jumpsuit back in the 1970s--dating myself
here--had a jumpsuit. You know, the whole jumpsuit was
connected. You slipped it on. The arms, the back, the legs, the
whole thing had to be taken seriously or otherwise the jumpsuit
didn't come off well.
So I think that we have to figure out a way to look at the
whole thing artistically speaking and make sure that we are not
saying, no, the hardware store is not an art place. Absolutely,
it is an art place. It is where we get our tools from. The
mechanic is an art place. The hair salon is an art place.
All these places are art places, and it is just a matter of
switching our perspective on the arts that will make the
difference in how we fund these different things.
Mr. Amodei. I appreciate it.
I yield back, Madam Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Joyce, for letting me take cuts.
I yield back, Madam Chair. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Oh. Oh, sorry. I was not unmuted. You would
think I, after I have to tell everybody else to unmute, could
remember.
All right. I recognize Chair McCollum for 5 minutes.
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you so much. And I want to thank
all the witnesses for sharing your work in your communities and
how the pandemic has impacted your organizations, as well as
the creators and the performers and the audiences you all work
with.
Chair Pingree, this is a fabulous hearing to start out
with, and it is important, because sometimes people don't think
of the arts and the humanities and their importance as job
creators and economic development opportunities in our
communities. The crisis that has been facing the arts and the
humanities is just so important to our economy, and it is a job
engine. It is one in my district.
So workers in the arts and the humanities sectors, you
know, they range from everything from proud union members that
I work with to independent artists, people in the academics,
and our nonprofit employees.
In normal times, these creative professionals in the arts
power a sector that generates 4.5 percent of our country's GDP,
and that is supporting 5 million jobs. But we know because of
COVID-19, the arts sector has now lost over $15 billion in
economic activity, and a lot of people, our fellow Americans,
are out of work.
And I just want to give a shout-out to our subcommittee,
while I was chair, and our subcommittee worked very hard to
include in the CARES Act a supplemental relief funding, and
that was $75 million to the National Endowment for the Arts and
the National Endowment for the Humanities. And I am very proud
that Congress continued those investments under Chair Pingree's
leadership with an additional $135 million in the American
Rescue Plan.
But when it comes to this pandemic, we are going to need
the arts and the humanities to be there for us in order to
heal, in order to move forward. I can't tell you how many
people are eager to take their first trip back to the theatre--
I am ready to go to Penumbra--or an art class in a studio. I
think my sister is ready to sign up. And then I hear from
families all the time how they want to go to their favorite
museum and cultural institution.
But I heard from all of you today of how many institutions
are at risk of never opening their doors again. So that would
leave a devastating hole, not only in our economy, but in the
richness and diversity of our community life, especially for
our artists of diversity who are struggling on a shoestring,
most often, to begin with.
So I want to assure you I am going to be working hand-in-
hand with Chair Pingree. I know we will all work together to
build on the investments we made in the NEA and the NEH.
So building a little bit more on what Mr. Amodei said--and
he went broad; I am going to go narrow again. I would like all
of you to kind of take, in the next 2 minutes, what do your
institutions anticipate needing to do to successfully reopen
and reengage? And does the arts and humanities sector--do we
need to do some additional flexibility in the use of funds or
in language that is surrounding the use of these funds to help
your communities through these tough times?
Ms. Pingree. Any of you like to answer that?
Ms. Lenk. I will jump in here if that is okay.
Ms. Pingree. Absolutely.
Ms. Lenk. You know, since we are right on the verge of
reopening, if you will, we are looking at what we are excited
about and what we are concerned about. And one of the issues
is, as we were closed, we could really control our costs. And
along with the funding we were getting, we could keep things
balanced and not suffer huge losses.
But one of the keys for us is, as we reopen and we bring
all the staff back to serve the community and we start up all
of our programming, costs really will go back to pre-COVID
levels, and there is a concern on how quickly our audience will
return.
And we believe people, like you have mentioned, are eager
to get back and see the arts, but there is a reality to how
will that balance occur, and could there be funding that helps
fill in those gaps while the visitorship numbers are increasing
and improving and while we are getting our feet on the ground.
Ms. McCollum. Good.
Ms. Pingree. Anyone want the last 30 seconds to reply?
Mr. Cage. Chair Pingree, this is Caleb Cage from Nevada, if
it is okay?
Ms. Pingree. Absolutely.
Mr. Cage. I think that it is a great question and one, of
course, we are asking in every sector here in the State, from
restaurants and our resort industry and everything else, is one
of recovery. And I will just say that I believe that humanities
councils are essential to that statewide recovery, and I think
that the support that you are providing going forward--and I
will end it there, but it will be critical.
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. And as a social
studies teacher, the arts and the humanities, for me, they go
hand-in-hand.
Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you.
Mr. Kilmer, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kilmer. Thanks, Madam Chair.
First, I just want to thank all of our witnesses. And I am
pleased that Director Lenk is here from the Museum of Glass in
Tacoma. I have the honor of representing that museum, and it
really is just a crown jewel of our community.
I have to tell you, we have a lot of memorable moments in
these jobs, and, to me, one of the most memorable was visiting
the Museum of Glass and hearing from a veteran who participated
in the museum's Hot Shop Heroes program, which provides access
to arts programming for servicemembers and veterans often
experiencing post-traumatic stress and other disorders.
And he said something to me that I will never forget. He
said, I spent years in the Middle East learning how to break
things, and now it means a lot that I have a chance to learn
how to make things and create things.
And so I wanted to start off, Director Lenk, just asking
you: How is the NEA funding advancing your museum's Hot Shop
Heroes program for wounded soldiers and for veterans, and how
can Congress be a partner in the continuation of this type of
important programming?
Ms. Lenk. Thank you. You know, participants in Hot Shop
Heroes are different people when they leave the program from
when they entered it. And they are much more social, they feel
a greater sense of belonging to the community, greater self-
efficacy.
And the NEA has been a partner with us all along that
journey of developing this program. They helped us initially
understand why glassmaking was therapeutic. And they have been
a partner in creating the relationships that we have here with
the bases, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and the Veterans Affairs
Medical Center here locally. Those therapists that work on base
and at the center are key in providing participants that can
benefit from the program.
We wanted to document and develop the curriculum for our
program so that it could be expanded to other sites around the
country where there is a military presence and glass-blowing
capability. The NEA has supported that, and we were actually on
the verge of just moving that to the next--this program to the
next location when COVID hit.
And so it has just been very, very crucial to us to have
this partnership and the funds, and then the recent CARES Act's
funds, which allowed us to learn how to adapt the blowpipes and
the classes so that we could resume doing this with the
soldiers now that we are opening up again.
Again, without that funding, we wouldn't have been able to
bring the team back ahead of opening and really get to the
bottom of how to do that. So it has been very, very important
for us.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you for that. And I know the impact that
you are having.
I was taken by all of the witnesses' comments around just
the financial strain that the pandemic has meant.
I know, Director Lenk, that your museum has--and like a lot
of arts institutions, have really made the effort to reach out
to underserved communities and make sure that these cultural
institutions are serving everybody.
I am curious how the pandemic has impacted the museum's
ability to engage with underserved communities. And I will
start with Director Lenk, but if others want to weigh in on
that, I would welcome that too.
Ms. Lenk. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, initially, we were out
working with community centers in neighborhoods and wanting to
take more programs off site, but one of the silver linings of
COVID was bringing back our education team and converting some
of the key programs, like Science of Art, for instance, that
connects scientific principles with the properties of glass,
and being able to convert that to a video program and connect
with our schools. And we piloted that with the underserved
schools and the Tacoma Urban League, for instance, and made
those connections. Glass Breaks, which are videos of great
moments in the Hot Shop that we were able to develop.
One of the silver linings is that our reach will be
extended even after COVID because of having programs that will
endure and can reach into these neighborhoods that maybe can't
visit our site or are not within driving distance.
So I think there has just been a lot--you know, that is one
thing we can look to and say we will be better in the end for
having done that.
Mr. Kilmer. I see my time is up. So, with that, Madam
Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you.
Mr. Stewart, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am not going to take
5 minutes. I actually had a few questions, but some of the
previous members have already asked those questions.
I am going to make a comment, though, and it is a little
bit outside of the intent of the hearing. But before I do, I
would like to thank the witnesses. I know that they traveled
here. They sacrificed their time. I appreciate what you do. I
appreciate the community that you represent.
I don't consider myself an artist, although, in a way,
perhaps I am in the sense that I have spent much of my life
writing, made a living as a writer, and I guess that is a bit
of an art in a way.
And I have an appreciation for the community that--the Utah
Cultural Alliance is an organization I work with frequently. I
consider many of them friends. I certainly support their goals.
We do as much as we can to help them, and we have since I have
been in Congress. And I would extend that same help to the
witnesses and their organizations.
I would maybe make this comment. And this isn't directed
towards the witnesses as much as it is towards the other
Members of Congress, and that is: The money that we have
appropriated for this--for these efforts, although I support,
we also have to recognize that it is entirely unsustainable.
The additional--and it is an additional $135 million for NEH or
for National Endowment for the Arts. I mean, at some point, we
have to ask ourselves again, as Members of Congress: How much
money can we spend? At what point do we say we think we have
spent too much? And what are our priorities for that?
I know that that is another conversation, and it is not the
point of this hearing, but to--again, to the witnesses, the
people who have shared their arts and their talents, the
Federal Government can't be the only source of revenue for
these artists. We can help, and we should, but they have to be
sustainable on their own as well.
And I think most of these artists, that is their goal. They
want people to appreciate their art and to be willing to pay
for the appreciation of that art. And, again, the Federal
Government can have a role in sustaining them in some way, but
it can't be the only source for them.
Again, the questions that I was going to ask related to the
pandemic have already been asked. And I will yield back my
time.
Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Stewart.
And let's see. I recognize Ms. Kaptur for--or Chair Kaptur
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Chair Pingree. This is
just a fantastic hearing. I am having a good time. I hope that
the wonderful witnesses are.
The first thing I want to say is, in my hometown of Toledo,
Ohio, which is the [inaudible] Museums in the country, the
Museum of Art has posted and is actively recruiting for a
curator of American art, the first position of its kind in its
120-year history. The museum was able to move forward with
hiring because of a grant opportunity awarded through the
National Endowment for Humanities.
So I wanted to give a big salute to the endowment. I know
this organization of the Toledo museum. They are--they are
extraordinary.
I wanted to say, secondly, that I don't know, Mr.
Slaughter, if I am allowed to steal your phrase of ``What
Chester Makes, Makes Chester,'' but I would like to apply that
to every community I represent. And, frankly, what America
makes, makes America, and one of our problems is we are not
making enough anymore.
And so I don't know who invented that phrase, but I hope
you have trademarked it. If you haven't, I will shamelessly
steal it and probably put up billboards. I just think that is a
way of capturing people's attention and thinking about how one
creates real wealth--real wealth in this country. Every single
individual who has testified this morning--or this afternoon is
doing exactly that.
I wanted to mention the baskets. As I look at the baskets
and listening to the--Ms. Mundell discuss some of the Maine
work that is done, I keep thinking about artists I represent,
and they are beautiful people, but they are not necessarily
good businesspeople. In other words, they are creative. They
don't think about the worth of what they do.
And I am wondering if any of our witnesses have found that
the National Endowment for the Arts or the National Endowment
for the Humanities creates a 10,000-village sale site or helps
our artists go to that and breach the market they are in?
So, for example, in Chester, you probably have items that
can be sold beyond Chester. Have you ever accessed that kind of
opportunity? I have found that extremely difficult in my area.
I have found it very difficult to provide trademarks and, for
instance, artists that do--we do an arts competition of young
people every year, the Congressional Arts Competition. And
there are pieces submitted where we could design belt buckles.
We could design fabric for Martha Stewart. We could do all
these things, but they don't have the business advice.
So my question is: Have you found NEA, NEH helpful in
breaching the boundaries of where you live, and should we be
aiming more toward that? Boy, I have got more--more goods here
that could be sold, but we can't breach our own market.
Do you have any comments on that?
Ms. Mundell. I would like to comment just in terms of one
of the things that we have built into our work with Wabanaki
basket makers through this nonprofit that was created was to do
marketing and business development, so that each of these
artists were trained in how to present their work, how to get
into shows, how to go to Santa Fe.
So that was built into working with the artists at the
beginning so that, over a period of time, they became more
self-sufficient.
And the previous comment about sort of the idea of always
having to have grant funding, they actually are now sustaining
their own incomes and get very good prices for their basket.
So I think if that becomes part of the training or the
grant program, where artists are also skilled in marketing and
promotion and business management--and I think there is a lot
of that that is going on in the country. So--because to be a
practicing artist today, you have to have those other skills
too.
Ms. Kaptur. Yes. I appreciate--let's see. Is this on? I
appreciate your comments, because I have found that is a
difficult hurdle. And many of these artists are businesses that
are under stress, and they need to have a piece where they can
produce or hire others to do their work, but then selling to a
broader market. And I find that is really where there is a big
problem.
We have individuals making little cards, you know, where
they sell a stationery and so forth, but for them to sell
outside their market is a step above where they are. They could
be creating new enterprise, not just for our region, but, you
know, exporting to different towns, to different places,
obviously first in North America, but not necessarily only
here.
So I just wanted to put that out there. Maybe you can give
comments to the record also as we seek to--as the prior member
mentioned, you know, create more business.
Oh, I just see a--it is like a volcano. It is there, we
just haven't found a way to lift it further.
Thank you, all.
Ms. McCollum. Chellie, you are muted.
Ms. Pingree. Yeah, I don't know why I can't get it straight
now. Sorry. Thank you, though.
Marcy--Chair Kaptur yields back.
And, Mr. Joyce, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Slaughter, can you discuss how Chester Made was able to
use support from the NEH to build new platforms and find
creative ways to engage with people amid the pandemic? And,
further, what impact did these platforms have on the community?
Mr. Slaughter. I almost jumped out of my seat when the last
speaker was talking about the things that we have been able to
do through arts and humanities with NEH funding to help artists
become businesspeople. I couldn't agree more. A lot of times,
the best artists are not the best businesspeople.
So we actually started an entrepreneurial process in
conjunction with some of our artwork. We have artists in the
city of Chester that have taken what we would call junk and
turned it into treasure. So we have got a concept we call
Broken Pieces, where people have learned how to take pieces of
throwaway stuff and create art out of it.
And I think it is extremely important for people to be able
to use what they have got around them to make business out of
that. And it is a strange thing, except when you look at, you
know, the Picassos and you look at some of the other things
that some people would look at and go, that is just a piece of
junk. The way that we are able to take some of these pieces of
stuff, re-create it into a beautiful piece of art, is
impressive.
And when we add the humanities to that--because there is a
slight difference between the arts and the humanities, and the
humanities is the talking forum part of this whole thing. We
need to be able to talk this out. We need to be able to put it
in a museum. We need to be able to get into the libraries with
this stuff.
In Chester, we have been thinking constantly about ``What
Chester Makes, Makes Chester.'' And that is just--that is not
just the conversation of it; it is also the promotion of it. It
is the things that we are building. It is the conversations.
And it is the things that we convert from conversations to
concrete stuff.
So we are looking at a--we are trying to figure out a
continuity here that says build, promote, sell. That is very
important to us. We want to make sure that people can make a
living with this stuff, not just feel good. The feel good is
good, but we actually have to be able to make this thing
sustainable, and that is where the humanities, talking it out,
becomes very important for us.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you.
Mr. Cage, as humanities organizations have closed, delayed
programs or canceled events due to the pandemic, what impact
has this had on local economies and businesses across Nevada?
Mr. Cage. Thank you, Ranking Member. Caleb Cage for the
record.
You know, what impact it has had, you would have to really
define what sort of metrics and measures you are looking at,
and I think that I can talk about it as a whole in the State.
We have seen in the State of Nevada considerable--
obviously, the public health crisis associated with an economic
and fiscal crisis for State and local governments, but also a
public mental health and behavioral health crisis that we have
seen here throughout our educational institutions and
throughout our communities here in the State that, you know, I
don't want to draw too sharp of a causal line between the
closure of humanities organizations and these things, but I
would say the fact that we have had to isolate and quarantine
and reduce social interaction and social distance and all of
those things seems to have had a direct impact on our ability
as communities and otherwise to be resilient to the pressures
that we would normally be able to endure or persevere through
and be able to address.
If that answers your question, sir.
Mr. Joyce. Yes. Thank you.
I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you.
Chair Cartwright, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cartwright. Thank you, Chair Pingree.
And, first off, I want to acknowledge our friend and my
classmate, Congressman Stewart, and his comments about, you
know, this program can't go on forever. And I want to say,
let's not lose our nerve. We all recognize this is not going to
go on forever, but COVID-19 is an emergency, and we need to
keep all corners of our economy alive--all corners, even parts
that people don't think of frequently.
And this is not new either, the idea of supporting all
parts of our economy, including the arts and humanities. During
the depths of the Great Depression and into the early years of
World War II, the Federal Government supported the arts in
unprecedented ways. For 11 years, between 1933 and 1943,
Federal dollars employed artists, photographers, musicians,
actors, writers, and dancers, and that--in fact, the legacy
goes on.
I made my living as a courtroom jury trial lawyer and tried
a lot of cases in Federal courthouses that were built during
that time. Federal courthouses at that time were filled with
murals that still remain, and are amazing, sweeping things. I
mean, anyone venturing into these courtrooms would see these
murals and not fail to be struck by the enormity and the
solemnity of the delivery of justice.
So this is not unprecedented that we do these things.
I want to invite the attention of Mr. Slaughter for a quick
question. In your testimony, you briefly discuss one of the
Pennsylvania Humanities Council's signature programs,
Pennsylvania Community Heart & Soul, which applies a
humanities-based approach to community and economic
development.
Can you elaborate on the importance of incorporating the
humanities into community and economic development,
particularly as communities look to heal and rebuild after
COVID-19?
Mr. Slaughter. In Pennsylvania, the Heart & Soul project is
a phenomenal project where people get an opportunity to discuss
what needs to happen in their communities. These Heart & Soul--
and we have got 14 of them across Pennsylvania. These Heart &
Soul communities--and one is in your district.
These Heart & Soul communities are the place where people
have an opportunity to evaluate their culture, to talk about
what they are, where they have come from, where they want to
be. And it is in these conversations, these symposiums, these
forums, where people build the actual concrete stuff.
The money that we get gives us an opportunity to plan. That
is what these conversations are. These are real planning
conversations. You know, nobody wants to just try to do
something without any consideration for the variety of
cultures, the variety of people, the variety of ideas that
there are in any given community.
So to be able to have funding to sit and discuss these
things so that we can build the best communities possible is
crucial. Without it, we get real sloppy. I just don't think
that we can do our best if we don't have a certain kind of
support that says, yeah, sit, take your time, and figure this
thing out, because the future is depending on you figuring this
thing out. So spend the time to talk it out, figure out how
your differences can be complementary versus competitive, and
let's move forward with some good ideas based off of a
collective approach to getting things done.
Mr. Cartwright. Well, Mr. Slaughter, you read my mind about
Community Heart & Soul being in Carbondale, Pennsylvania, in my
district. It is one of the greatest places in northeastern
Pennsylvania. It is home to the first commercially successful
railroad in the United States and one of the cities that fueled
the industrial revolution. Carbondale is steeped in history.
And, if you would, tell me, how exactly would the Community
Heart & Soul program in Carbondale work to incorporate this
rich history and the other untold stories into that community's
revitalization efforts?
Mr. Slaughter. That community, like the others, sir, what
they would do is they would get together, and I think getting
together, whether it be virtual or whether it be face to face
when that can happen, they are going to look at their historic
assets and that history that you talked about as crucial--they
are going to look at those historic assets. They are going to
look at some of the emerging ideas, and they are going to
figure out how can we package this stuff so that Carbondale
might be a destination for people to show up to again.
I think that that is important. And so a lot of people are
talking about, how can we get people to show up here? The first
thing we have got to do is figure out who we are together, what
our culture represents, and the value and richness that will
have people coming our way.
Mr. Cartwright. Well, terrific. I thank you for your
testimony.
And I yield back, Chair Pingree.
Ms. Pingree. Mrs. Lee, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Lee. Thank you, Chairwoman Pingree, Ranking Member
Joyce, for this hearing, as well as all of our participants.
I am especially thrilled to welcome one of our own Nevadans
here with us today, Mr. Cage. Although you are representing
Nevada Humanities today, I want to--I would be remiss if I did
not point out the important role you have taken during this
past year as the response director helping Nevada navigate this
horrific time for our State.
I also appreciate it--I think nothing to me exemplifies
this year than the statement, absence makes your heart grow
fonder, especially with respect to the arts and the humanities.
And so, you know, I appreciated how you mentioned the role
of the humanities in helping nurture resilient communities, and
I couldn't agree more. And I am happy to point out that there
are some incredible programs in southern Nevada that really
highlight this, one of them being the city of Henderson hosting
a community performance and educational workshop celebrating
Nevada's past, present, and future. And, you know, these
workshops really foster community, especially during these
difficult times.
Or even Boulder City, in my district as well, the
Chautauqua, which is bringing history alive through the great
American humorous performing arts community event. Those are
just a few of the many that, you know, especially during these
times, we have missed so much. But not only are these programs
educational, they also--you know, they drive community activity
and resilience.
And, Mr. Cage, can you tell us about the broad benefits of
arts and humanities programming and how Federal funding for
endowments multiplies far beyond individual organizations that
initially receive those grants?
Mr. Cage. Yes. Thank you very much for the question, and I
agree with your comments introducing that.
So a couple--at least three kind of key points I would like
to make in response to the various questions included there,
and I will try to be brief. But we--as an emergency manager
previous to my current role with the pandemic, we tend to look
at emergency response and emergency disaster recovery in very
engineering-based mathematical terms, which is very important.
We know a bridge in a community is very important, and buying
down the risk through FEMA programs and mitigation programs for
that bridge is going to help sustain that community in the
event of an earthquake or flood or otherwise. That is an
extremely critical way of looking at this.
The resilience approach allows us to look at it from a
human and community-based perspective as well and to look at
what does it mean to not just allow people to continue to go to
hospitals and grocery stores on the other side of that bridge,
but how does this--how do crises, disasters, emergencies affect
them on a very personal and human level? How do we work with
them as a community in order to better understand what the
vision of that community--a very bottom-up driven approach to
recovery and resilience looks like?
And that is done through human interaction. That is done
through making meaning. That is done through all of the aspects
that I talked about previously with the humanities.
The dollars that were provided through the programs that we
have talked about today have been absolutely critical in
addressing the profound impact for local arts and--or--excuse
me--humanities organizations that have--they have relied on
these dollars in order to keep their doors open, and they have
provided a lifeline to these organizations.
And I will point out--and I will stop here, but my final
point will be, these dollars and programs are woven into State
and nonprofit and other community support dollars that are
provided to support the humanities, such as our university and
college system here in the State, which is providing humanities
education and training to tens of thousands of Nevadan
students.
Thank you.
Mrs. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Cage.
You know, what we have also seen during this time, many of
our humanities organizations pivot to virtual programming. What
is the importance of ensuring public humanities remain
accessible in our community especially during these crises?
Mr. Cage. In a State like Nevada, Congresswoman, you know,
with its huge, vast geography, we have seen it in education, we
have seen it in the humanities, but just the ability to have
folks throughout the State, whether they are in our population
centers like Hart County and Washoe County or throughout the
remainder of the frontier and rural State, is absolutely
critical just to make sure we are serving everyone and
providing that access.
Mrs. Lee. Thank you. And, you know, I couldn't agree with
you more on the human-to-human interaction that gets fostered
through arts and the humanities and how it was so important in
bringing our communities together, you know, whether it was
setting up food banks to help people, you know, it is sort of
weaving that resilience in the community that really helped us
get through this difficult time.
And, with that, I will yield. I don't have any time to
yield, but I am finished. Thank you, Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mrs. Lee.
Well, I want to thank this panel. You have really done a
wonderful job of talking to us about the importance of the
funding for the arts and some of the COVID relief funding, the
challenges that your organizations are experiencing.
I know we all noted when, you know, Mr. Stewart expressed
his concerns about what the future of funding can be and how
we, you know, support the organizations in the future, but I
think all of you have made some really important points about
how you treat this as an emergency and really look to ways to
make sure your organizations are sustainable for the long run
and that you are supporting artists and communities in being
sustainable in the long run.
It is a great privilege to serve on this committee and to
have the interaction that we do with the NEA and the NEH and to
both see what happens behind the scenes and also to understand
how the funding is used.
And it is also occasionally a challenge, because I think it
is our job as well to explain to our colleagues and to the
taxpayers the importance of this funding, and it often takes
extra explaining so that people understand the number of
professions that are impacted, the number of employees, the
importance to the economic sector in, you know, urban and rural
areas across the country, and you certainly represent a broad
range of that.
So I appreciate all of you helping us in helping to explain
to our colleagues and to the taxpayers why this funding is so
important, why it has been so critical during the pandemic to
try to keep as many organizations afloat and artists working as
we possibly can. And we look forward, like all of you, to
seeing the end of this pandemic and making sure that you can
put your organizations back together and people can get back to
pursuing their work.
So thank you again to all of our witnesses. We really
appreciate your time today.
And if there are no additional questions, this hearing is
now adjourned.
Thank you.
Thursday, April 15, 2021.
U.S. FOREST SERVICE
WITNESSES
VICTORIA CHRISTIANSEN, CHIEF, U.S. FOREST SERVICE, ACCOMPANIED BY
ANDRIA WEEKS, ACTING DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC PLANNING, BUDGET, AND
ACCOUNTABILITY, U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Ms. Pingree [presiding]. Good afternoon. This hearing will
now come to order.
As the hearing is fully virtual, we must address a few
housekeeping matters.
For today's meeting, the chair or staff designated by the
chair may mute participants' microphones when they are not
under recognition for the purposes of eliminating inadvertent
background noise. Members are responsible for muting and
unmuting themselves. If I notice that you have not unmuted
yourself, I will ask if you would like the staff to unmute you.
If you indicate approval by nodding, the staff will unmute your
microphone.
I remind all members and witnesses that the 5-minute clock
still applies. If there is a technology issue, we will move to
the next member until the issue is resolved, and you will
retain the balance of your time. You will notice a clock on
your screen that will show how much time is remaining. At 1
minute remaining, the clock will turn to yellow. At 30 seconds
remaining, I will gently tap the gavel to remind members that
their time is almost expired. When your time has expired, the
clock will turn red, and I will begin to recognize the next
member.
In terms of the speaking order, we will follow the order
set forth in House Rules, beginning with the chair and ranking
member, then members present at the time the hearing is called
to order will be recognized in the order of seniority, and
finally, members not present at the time of the hearing is
called to order. Finally, House Rules require me to remind you
that we have set up an email address to which members can send
anything they wish to submit in writing at any of our hearings
or markups. The email address has been provided in advance to
your staff.
So now, we can begin.
I would like to welcome back to the subcommittee the 19th
chief of the USDA/Forest Service, Vicki Christiansen. We are
very excited to have you here and look forward to hearing your
thoughts on the fiscal year 2022 budget request for the Forest
Service. Joining the chief today is Andria Weeks, acting
director of strategic planning, budget, and accountability.
Our hearing today will address the President's 2022 budget
request for the USDA Forest Service. While we do not yet have
the full details of the President's budget, I am encouraged by
the themes highlighted so far, including conservation and
climate science. To this end, the budget includes such items as
$1.7 billion for hazardous fuels and forest resilience
projects, an increase of $476 million over the 2021 enacted
level, significant investments to encourage private forest
conservation, and a major increase for USDA's climate hubs. I
am confident this budget will change course from the budgets of
the past few years, which proposed critical shortfalls in
research and State and private forestry, which play important
roles in maintaining the health of our forests across the
Nation.
Our forests do and will play an important part in the fight
against climate change, and the Forest Service plays a crucial
role in ensuring the continued health of those forests so that
we can depend on them to continue to store carbon. One of the
keys to maintaining healthy forests is to reduce the amount of
high-intensity fires which are affecting our landscapes. I look
forward to hearing today how increased investments in
preventing these fires are helping and what more needs to be
done.
I would now like to yield to our ranking member, Mr. Joyce,
for his opening remarks. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you for yielding, Chair Pingree. I
appreciate you holding today's hearing with the U.S. Forest
Service to learn more about the Administration's fiscal year
2022 discretionary budget proposal. I would also like to
welcome Chief Christiansen back to the subcommittee, as well as
Ms. Weeks for joining us this afternoon. I look forward to
discussing the Forest Service's ongoing work to manage and
protect our Nation's forests and grasslands. I regret that we
cannot be together as we officially kick off this year's
appropriations process, but I am hopeful that we will be able
to hold a few budget hearings in person again soon.
Last week, the Administration released its initial fiscal
year 2022 budget request, which proposes over $1.5 trillion in
discretionary spending. Over half of the proposal, $769
billion, is for non-defense programs, including the Forest
Service. Though the Administration has not provided a
comprehensive budget proposal, today's hearing remains an
important first step in the fiscal year 2022 process. It
provides us with an opportunity to hear directly from the
Forest Service about the Agency's initial funding priorities
and goals outlined within the request. In the coming months,
this information will be critical as the subcommittee works
together to examine the programs under its jurisdiction to
ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent most effectively to
benefit our natural resources and the American people.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress has provided
trillions of dollars in economic stimulus and relief to help
Americans tackle unique challenges. On the heels of this
unprecedented spending, it is essential that we, as
appropriators, work together to restore fiscal responsibility
when examining this request, which calls for more than a 15
percent increase in non-defense spending.
Chief Christiansen, I was pleased to see the Administration
prioritize funding for high-priority hazardous fuels and forest
resilience projects. Now that we are entering the 3rd year of
the fire funding fix and have largely eliminated the need for
fire borrowing, it is important to focus similar attention on
non-fire programs that improve forest health. Effectively
managing and treating our forests helps improve wildlife
habitat, mitigate the risk of catastrophic wildfires, and makes
forests more resilient to diseases and invasive species. Though
the details are limited, I am also interested in discussing how
the fiscal year 2022 request will support and build upon prior
year funding for State and Private Forestry programs.
In my home State of Ohio, 85 percent of the forest land is
privately owned. Programs like the Urban and Community Forestry
Program and Forest Stewardship Program are critical to keeping
our State and private forests healthy so that we can continue
to provide communities with clean air and water, recreation
opportunities, mineral and energy resources, and jobs. Finally,
I am sure many of us, especially Mr. Simpson, would like to
discuss the Forest Service's efforts to implement the Great
American Outdoors Act, particularly how the bill will help the
Forest Service conserve public lands, tackle maintenance
backlogs, and increase visitor access and recreational
opportunities.
Chief Christiansen, thanks once again for joining us today.
As more budgetary details become available, my colleagues and I
anticipate working with you to move forward a budget, within
reasonable spending caps, that provides the Forest Service with
the necessary resources to protect our Nation's forests and
help the communities who rely on them. I look forward to our
discussion. Thank you, Chair Pingree. I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Joyce. And, Chief Christiansen,
before I yield to you for your opening remarks, I just want to
apologize in advance. We have multiple votes this afternoon,
and because of our voting schedule, we have to vote in groups,
so it makes it a little more complicated for the members. I
know they are all anxious to hear from you, but please don't be
surprised if you see a lot of coming and going on the screen.
And we will make sure that we fill anyone in who misses some
part of the hearing because I know everything that you all have
to say and all the questions will be important. So with that,
Chief Christiansen, we would love to hear your opening remarks.
Ms. Christiansen. Wonderful. Chair Pingree, Ranking Member
Joyce, and members of the committee, thank you for the
invitation to come before your subcommittee. Today, I would
like to highlight the work we are doing to steward the Nation's
forests and serve the American people. I will share how this
work lines up with the new Administration's highest priorities.
Specifically, I will detail how the Forest Service is backing
the effort to end the COVID-19 pandemic. I will share our
resolve to employ science to tackle climate change, fight
wildfires, and sustain productive, resilient forests. We are
also doing our part to spur job growth, and boost economies,
and rebuild infrastructure. Lastly, I will touch on our staunch
commitment to advance racial equity as we create an inclusive
workplace where every employee at the Forest Service feels
respected and valued.
So, I am proud to say that last year, despite the pandemic
as well as historic natural disasters, the Forest Service, we
rose to the challenge. We hosted three times the number of
forest visitors and recreationists as they sought respite from
the surge of the COVID-19 pandemic on their national forests.
We continue to respond to FEMA's request for emergency medical
technicians and other incident management support for
administering the vaccine. The Forest Service played a sizable
role in helping all of USDA recently administer a million
COVID-19 pandemic vaccines over the past two months.
For the long challenge, we must confront the crisis facing
America's forests and grasslands. The crisis results from a
changing climate, and it induces severe wildfires, droughts,
insects, disease, and invasive species infestations. The
severity and the frequency of wildfire seasons is increasing
significantly, impacting our Nation's forests at an
unprecedented rate and destroying homes and businesses. The
2020 fire year became a call to action. We saw the most acres
burned on Forest Service lands since the Big Burn of 1910. In
many places, forests will not come back on their own, which
impacts the potential for carbon storage and limits the land's
capacity to mitigate further climate change.
Despite the pandemic, the Forest Service sustained our
hazardous fuels reduction work, but we know it is not enough.
We need to conduct high-priority hazardous fuels reductions and
forest resilience projects at a scope and scale to meet the
challenges we face. We anticipate another long and arduous fire
year in 2021, and we are prepared for it. With a focus on
health and safety, preventing the spread of COVID-19 remains
our highest priority for our employees and the communities we
serve. We stand ready with over 10,000 firefighters, 35 air
tankers, and more than 200 helicopters available for wildfire
suppression.
Our infrastructure needs are pressing, as are the economic
needs of Americans, and we are committed to job creation
through improving our infrastructure. When we improve
infrastructure of the national forests by upgrading trails and
recreation sites, it spurs jobs and boosts economies and
communities surrounding the national forests. And thanks to the
Great America Outdoors Act, we expect to create an additional
4,400 jobs and contribute an estimated $420 million to the
Gross Domestic Product annually.
So, I understand the expectations that come with the fire
funding fix, which went into effect in fiscal year 2020. I want
to assure you that the Forest Service remains a good
investment. We understand congressional expectations for
increasing accountability and oversight for fire spending. And
during fiscal year 2021, the Forest Service has transitioned to
a new budget structure that will help us increase the
transparency of our spending.
Finally, the national forests and grasslands belong to
every American. There should be equal access, and every
American must feel a personal invitation and connection to
their land. Every American deserves to have a motivated
workforce that reflects our values, provides exemplary service,
and mirrors our population. We are committed to both, starting
in our own house. The Forest Service continues to work hard to
end harassment, manage conflict, and create a work environment
where every employee feels safe, valued, and respected.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The statement of Ms. Christiansen follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Chief Christensen. I really
appreciate your outline of the coming year, and thank you so
much. I am going to recognize myself for 5 minutes for
questions and jump right into fire since I know that is an
important part of what you are dealing with today, and it is
always shocking to hear the magnitude of the fires in 2020. And
my heart goes out to those members whose districts are severely
impacted, have been, and really face some of the biggest
challenges, particularly on the western side of our country.
So some fires have a natural role to play in keeping our
forests healthy. However, the high-intensity forest fires we
have experienced too many of in recent years are so detrimental
to our forests, in addition to their cost in human lives and
property. There is, as I said, an intense bipartisan interest
on this committee in ensuring we are utilizing the best tools
available for fighting these fires, whether it is utilizing
predictive and machine learning tools in the initial planning
stages, new technology to help prevent those fires, or tools
for increased coordination and safety for those working to
fight the wildfires. We know that technology can help with
every stage of your efforts.
Last year, the committee directed increased investment in
these technologies and other reforms called for in the Dingell
Act, as well as a focus on this subject in future budget
requests. So could you give us an update on the Forest
Service's finding on what opportunities exist for increased
investment in technology to predict and prevent, as well as to
fight, fires?
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you, Chair Pingree. Yes, you know,
a contemporary fire response is very important for us to meet
the complexities of what we call our wildland fire system
across America, and the Forest Service is a major leader
nationally. Thanks to your help and the additional investments,
we are developing relationships and investments. For example,
over $8 million dollars were invested last year to begin a
pilot program for tracking, how we for the safety of every
firefighter.
We also have made good progress in standing up our unmanned
aircraft systems program with the purchase of our first 20
UASes in the fleet. We flew, in partnership with the Department
of the Interior, over 1,000 UAS missions for fire intelligence,
post-fire recovery, and other natural resource missions, and we
are learning, and we are getting great leverage out of the UAS
programs. We have also invested funds in an agreement with the
Department of Defense for satellite fire detection services and
capabilities, which has already supported over 500 fires just
this year alone, in 2021. We have launched a very important
modernized National Interagency Dispatch System, which
processed over 575,000 resource orders in 2020 alone. With the
new system, it worked very efficiently.
Of course, there is always more to do, and we are always in
a tradeoff with the amount of resources we have, so we are, you
know, putting the right investments and incrementally improving
our fire technology, and we really thank the committee for your
support and look forward to working with you on these this
important subject.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you. I am going to yield back the
balance of my time and let other people start asking their
questions. I have plenty, but I know I will get lots of
opportunities. So I recognize Mr. Joyce for 5 minutes.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Chair Pingree. The State of Ohio has
prioritized improving water quality with focus projects in the
Lake Erie Watershed, including a State-led program called H2
Ohio. These water quality efforts involve a multifaceted
approach that includes agricultural incentive programs, land
protection, wetlands restoration, and expansion of riparian
forest buffers. Investments in the Forest Stewardship Program
are directly tied to improving water quality through technical
assistance to landowners on tree plantings and riparian forest
buffer management. Chief, in a State like Ohio where 85 percent
of the forests are privately owned, can you discuss how the
Forest Stewardship Program provides downstream benefits,
improving water quality for the rivers flowing into Lake Erie
and potentially helping address harmful algal blooms?
Ms. Christiansen. Yes. Congressman Joyce, thank you for
that question. We just signed a shared stewardship agreement
with the State of Ohio, and it is based on their State Forest
Action Plan. I know that the greatest threat to forests
identified in Ohio is soil and water quality impacts from poor
land management practices, and, of course, urbanization, and
the conservation of soil and water and smart growth is really a
top goal. The Forest Stewardship Program, which is funding
that, you know, comes through the Forest Service, it is a
State-driven program to provide that technical assistance to
private landowners. They are specific, which meets their
interests, their own forest management plans, inclusive of
protecting watersheds. The key strategy is to focus on keeping
forests as forests so these landowners, you know, they have a
choice to convert the land to other use. So keeping forests as
forests is the number one water quality enhancement that you
can do with 85 percent of Ohio being in a private forest.
So, the forest does help with the soil retention and the
water quality, and, particularly, the use of riparian forest
buffers. So, in addition to water quality and riparian
management, restoration of our forests or good management
through the Forest Stewardship Program helps impact the damages
from flooding. We all know the benefits of wildlife habitat and
for habitat in reducing stream temperatures.
So, I could go on and on about the benefits of the forests.
There are public benefits that flow from private lands, so a
way to assist private landowners in meeting their own goals is
to continue the important public benefits that flow from those
lands.
Mr. Joyce. Great. Thank you. In fiscal year 2021--I am
switching gears here a little bit--to foster additional
production of wood utility poles that meet modern size specs of
the U.S. electric industry, and ensure the ecological needs of
local landscapes, Congress included language encouraging Forest
Service to work within existing programs to foster additional
production of wood utility poles. Recognizing the Agency
doesn't typically design timber sales or manage for specific
timber products, how could the Forest Service work to help meet
this demand, especially in areas affected by wildfire?
Ms. Christiansen. Yes, that is a really good question. We
could look at a product mix, we could sell different products
in a timber sale. Now, that is a little bit of a heavy lift.
When I was State forester in Washington State, that is what I
would have done. We would do a product mix sale where we
advertised the good utility poles so those could be taken and
not just put into regular saw timber. So, we need to do some
specific marketing, and I would be happy to work further with
this committee on how we can best meet that need.
Mr. Joyce. Former Chair McCollum and I went out to visit
the beautiful areas in Derek's District. That was one of the
things that they were discussing.
Ms. Christiansen. Yes.
Mr. Joyce. But how could the Forest Service help connect
the utility pole industry personnel with particular National
Forest System timber sale purchasers, to determine if there is
material within a particular sale that could fit their needs?
Ms. Christiansen. Yes, we work with the electrical energy
sector very closely, obviously with the threat of wildfire, so
we have those relationships, and it is really those purchasers.
We need to get the purchasers of the Federal timber sales
involved so that we could identify what the market needs are,
and then we could establish our timber program according to
those needs.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you very much. I yield my non-existent
time back, Chair Pingree.
Ms. Pingree. It looks like abundant time to me. I now
recognize Chair McCollum for 5 minutes for her questions.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Well, welcome
back to the subcommittee, Ms. Christiansen. It is a pleasure to
see you again, even though it is through screens. And I have to
say I am a lot more enthusiastic about the budget you are
presenting us today than I was about the one at the last
hearing.
So President Biden's plan to consider 30 percent of the
land and water by 2030 is something that I am all supportive
of. Conserving and increasing forest cover is important for not
only reducing global warming, but for protecting our
watersheds. We don't place a dollar value on water, we really
don't, but life can't survive without water. And as you know,
the Forest Service has the responsibility of protecting the
priceless reserve of clean water located in the Boundary Waters
Canoe Wilderness Area.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to be with Secretary
Vilsack, and he confirmed with me that the USDA is working with
the Department of Interior to review the past Administration's
actions and consider next steps. So I know you can't comment on
that any further because you are in the process of working on
that. But I just wanted to re-emphasize my support for the
Forest Service retaining its ability to deny consent for
mineral leases and other activities that you might feel
threaten the land, especially the water you manage. And 20
percent of the water in the forest, it is, you know, going to
be hugely impacted with this new type of mining that they want
to do that is so toxic. So thank you for looking out for the
water not only for today, but for future generations.
I also want to just take a second to commend you again for
the work that you helped with in the Forest Service
International Program. I have been in embassies. I have
traveled around the world, and the Middle East, and Africa, and
all around. And non-governmental organizations and embassies,
they are working to protect and clean up watersheds, fight
climate change, reduce illegal logging and habitat destruction.
That is the kind of soft power we need to be projecting, so
thank you for doing that.
I just want to take a second to touch on the value of
outdoor experiences, which many Americans have rediscovered
during the pandemic, and you mentioned the Great American
Outdoors in your remarks. But those experiences are not equally
accessible to all Americans, especially many of our youth.
Getting outdoors is good for your mental health, it is good for
your physical health, and it also helps to build the next
generation of conservationists. So I believe we need to invest
in our outdoor opportunities in our national forests and
wilderness areas for youth from diverse backgrounds. Especially
I am going to speak to urban youth.
So I want to highlight the Forest Service program in Region
9, which includes Minnesota and Maine, Madam Chair, and it is
doing that work of connecting our youth to forests. The Urban
Connections Program creates relationships with urban youth
leaders and organizations to create recreation and learning
opportunities. Last year, I included language in our House
report to increase funding for Urban Connections and to boost
our regional-wide opportunities. Can you maybe tell the
committee your feelings on how those increased funds were used?
Ms. Christiansen. I would be delighted to, Congresswoman
McCollum, and we really appreciate the acknowledgement of this
important, we call it our Urban Connection Program, in the
Northeast States that we call Region 9. It is really a region-
wide youth engagement and activities, and it is to connect all
peoples. We have a leadership intention here at the Forest
Service to create a culture of inclusion that awakens and
strengthens all people's connection to the land.
We have to start where people are, and sometimes it is
connectivity to an urban open space or an urban park. But we
want all people to have that full connection all the way into a
national forest and a wilderness area. Through our Urban
Connections Program, we have coordinators in these urban
centers across the northeast, and we leverage great
partnerships. It just takes a little bit of coordination to
leverage, the synergistic approach on how we can build a future
of natural resource professionals, natural resource advocates,
or just an experience of life of connecting to the outdoors and
what that means.
There is an incredible statistic of this past year during
the pandemic that 81 percent of Americans had some kind of
outdoor experience. That is a high number of all Americans
because, you know, the alternatives weren't very great during
this past year, but 31 percent of them were first-time
experiences in the outdoors. Now, that is a huge opportunity,
and it is a bit of a challenge because if they don't have a
good experience, are they going to come back? Are they going to
connect to their natural resources? So, we are laser focused,
and the Great America's Outdoors Act, by the way, really helps
us increase and improve the user experience and build our
capacity to have connections for all Americans.
So, with additional funding from the 2021 Omnibus, we are
developing a much deeper ladder of engagement where youth can,
again, incrementally gain that outdoor recreation experience
all the way up to a wilderness experience, and where we can
encourage them to think about what they care about and whether
a career potentially in natural resources is working for them.
And I am very proud to say we will be able to continue to
increase our safety protocols of bringing youth into the
national forests. The Boundary Waters is one of the most
significant wilderness experiences for these youth.
So, more investment with our Urban Connections and more
into our partnerships to leverage more. As we get deeper into
investing these funds this year, we would be happy to continue
to keep you updated. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you. Next, I recognize Mr. Simpson for 5
minutes for his questions.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman Pingree, and Chief,
Andria, welcome back to both of you. It is good to have you
before the committee, and thanks for the job that you and the
Forest Service have been doing. You mentioned in your opening
statement, and I think Chairwoman Pingree followed up on it,
the devastating forest fires that occurred last year. I think
you said the worst since the Big Burn. It was devastating,
particularly in the West, the communities. So I want to ask you
a couple questions. You can answer each one of them, I guess. I
know the Forest Service has been looking at the issues affected
by these last year's forest fires. So, Chief, what would it
take, say, over the next 10-year period for the Agency to make
significant progress on this front, and how many acres would we
need to be able to treat to reduce these wildfires? Are we
going to see a 10-year plan so the committee knows what we can
expect from year to year instead of reacting to the fires as
they happen each year? If we have a year that is down in fires,
we don't pay as much attention to it as we do a year like last
year.
And along those same lines, this is the, I think, 19th year
I have served on this subcommittee. Different Administrations,
different chiefs, so forth. And one of the issues I have been
dealing with and trying to address is the aviation assets of
the Forest Service and where we are going with that, because it
seems like we take one step forward and two steps back, or vice
versa, and change directions all the time. Are we going to have
a clear outline for the next, say, 10-year plan of what the
Forest Service needs in terms of air assets, how the 5- and 10-
year contracts that you are looking at will affect us and
benefit us, and what we need to put into our budget so that the
Forest Service has the necessary equipment to address these
wildfires?
Ms. Christiansen. All great questions. But I have to say,
16 years ago I was the new State forester of the State of
Washington and the first time before this committee. You were
ranking member with Mr. Dicks, so I remember it well, and you
have always been very passionate and ask really good questions,
Congressman.
So, we have to do a paradigm shift, quite frankly, and we
have to get it right. There are two things. We have a scale
mismatch in treating our lands, so we definitely have to treat
more lands. We have to up our game, and we have really
incredible scientists that are showing this. We call it fire
shed modeling. But we also need to be strategic in where and
how we treat those lands.
So, I did ask our scientists to give me a 10-year plan. Our
researchers, through this modeling, showed how we need to
strategically treat an additional 20 million acres of national
forest system lands in the West, and 650,000 acres in the East
just on the national forests alone to make significant progress
in reducing risk. These treatments, as I said, need to be
strategically placed at these large landscapes. We call them
fire shed scales. And ``Strategic'' means we don't have to
treat every acre, but we need to, for example, strategically
treat and replace 40 percent of the fire shed, and that will
reduce the 80 percent of the bad outcomes. So that is a pretty
good investment when we can show we can get results if we treat
40 percent of these highest at-risk fire sheds.
So, we treat between two and three million acres per year
on the national forests. So, to make this paradigm shift, we
would have to add another 2.65 million acres a year for the
next 10-years to execute this strategy, so that is obviously
more than double what we are doing now. We also have done this
modeling. Forest Service land certainly transmits a lot of
significant catastrophic fire, without a doubt, but it is on
all lands as well, and, as you know, we need to look at the
whole landscape. So, I want to do a call-out to our State and
private lands that we need to treat an additional 30 million
acres in the next 10 years, so that would be 3 million
additional acres per year, or 5.6 million acres per year for
the next 10-years to execute a big difference in really putting
resilience back into these fire sheds that are most at risk.
But there is a good side. I mean, it would create, we
estimate, between 300,000 to 575,000 jobs, and, of course,
protect significant communities and small businesses, and
enhance local economies. So, I know it is a big lift, but the
science is leading edge, it is real, and we can show we can
make a difference.
Relative to your question about air tankers, the
contracting air tanker community has really come online. They
are meeting our needs of contemporary air tanker capacity for
wildland fire in the U.S. We are studying the question about
going to a 10-year contract, what the pros and cons are. We are
nearly complete with that report. It will be going through
clearance in a matter of a few days, and it will be coming to
the committee here shortly. So we would be glad to discuss more
about air tankers, but we think we really are on the right
track with our air tankers, and I thank you for being such a
help and an advocate for getting us the right resources.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Next, I recognize Mr.
Harder for 5 minutes for his questions.
Mr. Harder. Well, wonderful. Thank you so much, Madam
Chair, for holding this hearing. Thank you to our witnesses for
participating. This is a very important hearing for me
personally since I represent a district in California that has
been severely impacted by the California wildfires. We used to
have a world in normal years where the fires wouldn't start
until late summer or fall. We have, you know, all of May to pen
the forests and clear the buffer zones, but not anymore. Now,
dry winters are bleeding into the dry summers, we are having
many times as many wildfires, and I am very worried about the
season that we have coming up this year, let alone what could
be coming in in the future.
One thing that I have heard a lot from my community is
about the need for reliable fire crews. I have heard from some
of our local volunteer firefighters that in order for them to
volunteer to go fight fires on Federal land, they have to take
several weeks off of work. The State of California pays these
volunteer firefighters for their time when they work on State
fires, but the Forest Service currently does not. The demands
of fighting fires for weeks on end have actually led to some of
our volunteer departments having to ask if a fire is State or
Federal before they agree to help in the first place, which I
don't think makes a lot of sense given the need that we have
for even more manpower to fight these fires.
So I guess the question is, you know, while I know a lot of
volunteer firefighters are hired locally, what can we do in
this budget to better support volunteer firefighters and
hopefully reimburse them more for all the time that they are
taking off, especially as the fire season continues to expand?
Ms. Christiansen. Yes. Thank you, Congressman Harder, and I
really appreciate that you recognize that, in this country, in
America, we need all wildland firefighting resources. It takes
a network of the rural, the municipal, the State, the tribal,
and all the Federal in these, what we now call, a fire year. It
is no longer a fire season when we think about the country.
The specifics of your question I am a little concerned
about, and maybe we can dig into that offline. If a rural fire
department is on a Federal fire, they certainly will get paid
for that. There is probably more about the details of the
agreement. Again, I would like to dig in in more detail with
you. But at a big level, we do, thanks to Congress, have a
program called Rural Fire Assistance, and that is to help the
rural fire districts build the capacity, the training, the
equipment, the resources that they need to be able to respond
to ever-increasing wildfires in this Nation because, again, we
need all the wheels and the boots on the ground to respond to
the complexity of wildfire in the Nation. It is a very
important program that, of course, has limited dollars, and so
additional resources to help build the capacity of the rural
fire districts has been very important.
Mr. Harder. And specifically, Chief, it is volunteer
firefighters. My understanding is currently, under Federal
guidelines, volunteer firefighters are not being significantly
reimbursed, unlike by some States, including California that do
reimburse them, so it is not about a rural issue. It is about
the volunteers.
Ms. Christiansen. Yes, and I apologize. Rural is generally
volunteers, but I am making an assumption. It is not always. My
husband is a structural fire chief of a combination department
where they have volunteers and paid, and they are generally on
the border areas. But, I would glad to dig into that question
more specifically about the agreement. They definitely should
be getting paid for their services on Federal lands, no doubt.
No question about that.
Mr. Harder. Terrific. Well, we would love to work with you
and explore some ways we can further incentivize that work. I
never want anybody to be asking for fire State or Federal
before they get in a fire truck, and that is great to hear. And
the last couple remaining points of your time, would love just
to hear a little bit about what is limiting our ability to take
some of the fuel away from these fires, to move towards more
controlled burns. It feels like we are incrementally moving in
that direction, but, you know, we need to go 100 times faster
than we are going right now if we are going to limit these
fires to hundreds of acres instead of hundreds of thousands of
acres. Can you expand on using your budget to actually prevent
these fires from escalating as fast as they are?
Ms. Christiansen. Yes. Congressman Harder, it is
strategically doing these fuel treatments across our shared
boundaries, and fuels treatments certainly means prescribed
fire. It means thinning the density out of the forests. We need
markets for the low-value forest products because it costs so
much money when we don't have a market for them. So, in
California, we are working very aggressively on biomass-related
infrastructure and markets. It is the cost of hauling the wood.
There are several factors that we are breaking down.
I know that we are low on time, but, we are this close to
the cusp of naming what the breakthroughs are in prescribed
fire. We are working with the States on the air quality
standards because of how do we take our smoke? Do we take it an
incremental way, prescribed fire, or these massive,
catastrophic wildfires? So, there are many things, and we would
be glad to come brief you more about what those opportunities
are.
Mr. Harder. Sure. Great. Thank you so much, and I yield
back.
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Harder, and I am happy
to recognize Mr. Amodei for 5 minutes for his questions.
Mr. Amodei. Thank you, Madam Chair. Hey, Chief. Good to see
you again. I want to just hit a couple things quick. First of
all, we are going to be hooking up with you just to ask you
guys come in and brief us on what you are doing with the
drones, you know, what missions they got, where they are
centered, who your contractors are, stuff like that. Second of
all, on the large air tankers, I think the news is pretty good.
We want to circle back with your folks because I think they
have been problem solvers. You know, just the usual stuff that
you fight in terms of some specs that, quite frankly, nobody
complies with or adheres to that are still in there. But the
times we have had that happen, your folks have been pretty
proactive, and I wanted to basically give them a thank you for
that so it didn't go unnoticed or taken for granted.
Now, I want to kind of switch to what we talked about last
year, and we will do it in the context of this year. When you
talk about executing the strategy as far as fuels management
and things like that, which means you have got to add X million
acres a year and things like that, can you tell me, real
generally, so how does this year's budget request compare to
allowing you to execute that strategy in the context of a
decade?
Ms. Christiansen. In the context of, what was the last
word?
Mr. Amodei. Getting it done in a decade.
Ms. Christiansen. In a decade. It certainly gets us a step
closer, a big step closer.
Mr. Amodei. Okay. So if I used, and this is my phrase, not
yours. I don't want to get you in trouble with anybody. But we
are still going to need some help in terms of resources if we
are going to put you guys in terms of the medium lane, not the
fast lane, in terms of fuels treatments. And I was listening
when you said, hey, guess what, this amount will ameliorate 80
percent of the negative effects. If we want to start getting to
the point for the national forest lands where we can say our
stewardship is in the medium lane as far as fuels management,
then you are going to need some more help in the resource
department.
Ms. Christiansen. You know, what I can speak to,
Congressman, is the science. And, you know, it is a policy of
Congress and the Administration on how fast we go, you know. We
put----
Mr. Amodei. No, I get that. I get that.
Ms. Christiansen. Yes.
Mr. Amodei. I am not trying to cut you off. Maybe I should
pick on Ms. Weeks. But it is, like, as a budget reality, if
this committee wants to help you with fuels, I am just going to
tell you, and you can disagree with me, but we need to do
better.
Ms. Christiansen. We need to do better.
Mr. Amodei. Okay.
Ms. Christiansen. We need to do better.
Mr. Amodei. I'll let you stop right there. I don't want to
get you in trouble.
Ms. Christiansen. As I said in my statement, we have more
to do to make a significant difference on the landscape, no
question about it.
Mr. Amodei. Okay. The second thing I want to touch on is,
does the Forest Service have, if you will, by national forest
or by region, a list of infrastructure--that is everybody's new
favorite word. Do you guys have a list of infrastructure
projects or maintenance projects by region or by national
forest?
Ms. Christiansen. You bet we do, sir.
Mr. Amodei. Can I get a copy of that?
Ms. Christiansen. I am sure we can get it to you.
Absolutely.
Mr. Amodei. Thank you very much.
I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you, sir.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you. We are about to see Representative
Lee I think, but I will just ask a quick question in the
meantime since that is where we are. Can you talk to me quickly
about carbon sequestration? The President's efforts to combat
climate change are not only dependent on efforts to reduce the
sources of greenhouse gas emissions, but also to preserve our
resources which sequester carbon. These efforts include the 30
by 30 goal of conserving 30 percent of our national lands and
waters by 2030. Our forests are one of the most important
carbon sinks in the country. I don't have to tell you that or
anyone in the State of Maine. They play a central part in our
conservation plan.
I am interested in how you are working collaboratively with
other land management agencies to give us a comprehensive
picture of the state of carbon sequestration on public lands.
It seems to me the data is extremely important.
Ms. Christiansen. Oh yes, absolutely. I couldn't emphasize
that more. The lands and waters of the United States are really
important for carbon sequestration, but I am going to focus on
the forest piece of it, 766 million acres of forest, all
ownerships in this Nation, and every bit of forests and those
areas that could be afforested are very important for carbon.
The forests and the harvested forest products that store carbon
and the urban trees in this Nation, they offset 14 percent of
the CO2 emissions annually in this Nation. So that
is pretty important that we pay attention too. We could
increase that by 50 percent more, so 20 percent to 28 percent
more offsets if we really worked on afforestation where there
are open spots that could support a forest, we reforest the
areas that we are not reforesting at the pace we need to, and
of course, we do the restoration and build the resiliency in
the lands and the forests so they stayed healthy. I know my
eyes light up when I talk about the importance of healthy
forests just for carbon sequestration, let alone important
water, watersheds, wildlife, outdoor experience, and the list
goes on.
Relative to how we work with all landowners and across the
Federal government, in our own house here at USDA, I am very
proud of the last 7 years of the climate hubs. This is to
support all landowners, from the agriculture sector all the way
to the forest sector, on really helping them on building their
plans for climate resilience and how they can do climate-smart
practices. The hubs have really taken hold with all landowners,
and the demand for services is higher than the needs we can
meet. You will see the initiatives in the President's budget
true, true to the goal of tackling climate change, is an
increase to help with the science-based support of these hubs.
It also helps us connect to urban areas and underserved
communities because sometimes these communities don't know what
they don't know, and services like folks in their own community
saying, hey, so you know trees store carbon, they improve
health effects, et cetera, et cetera. So, it is really
exciting. There are lots of opportunity in the climate hubs.
Ms. Pingree. Chief Christiansen, I am going to stop you
there. I have to run, and climate hubs are my favorite topic,
so maybe I will get a chance to finish that one. But I am going
to turn it over to Representative Cartwright to hold the gavel
to ask Representative Lee to ask her question, and I will be
back after I get a chance to vote. So I apologize for that.
Ms. Christiansen. No problem. Thank you.
Mr. Cartwright [presiding]. Happy to step into the breach,
Madam Chair. The chair recognizes the gentlelady from Nevada,
Representative Lee, for 5 minutes of questions.
Mrs. Lee. Thank you. I want to thank the chair as well as
the ranking member for hosting this hearing, and also thank you
to Chief Christiansen for being here. While we haven't yet seen
the specifics of the budget, I am pleased that the
Administration has made a clear commitment to prioritizing
climate, conservation, and wildfire prevention in the Forest
Service.
In southern Nevada, where I represent, we don't have a
significant forest presence--some, but not significant--but we
are certainly feeling the impact of climate change, and we
understand the importance of national forests in that
discussion. The chairwoman, believe it or not, asked my
question for me, so we don't have to go into how the Forest
Service is working on climate change. But I want to recognize,
which has been recognized earlier, the record-breaking
wildfires we have seen in recent years, obviously both the
symptom of and a contributor to climate change. And I was
pleased to see that the Administration has committed to
investing in science-based measures to prevent wildfires and
rectify the historical underfunding of forest resilience
projects.
Chief Christiansen, could you just speak to the metrics
that the Forest Service uses to evaluate its wildfire
mitigation programs, and what those results have shown about
the efficacy and the return on investment of those programs?
Ms. Christiansen. I absolutely would, Congresswoman Lee. It
is really a great question. So I am a person that stores
numbers in my head, and these stick with me. If we are talking
about wildfire prevention, now that is the unwanted starts to
wildfire. Fire in mini-landscapes is not bad, but we want it on
our terms, right, so just fire prevention alone, the human
starts. When we invest $1 in fire prevention, it saves $35 in
suppression costs and wildfire-related losses, so that is a
pretty good return on investment. We have worked for years, and
it is our researchers that have showed this cost benefit or
return on investment.
We switched to treating the lands, okay, the hazardous
fuels treatments. Wildfire in the right conditions is a
necessary part of many of these landscapes, but we want more of
the low-intensity fires, so we do treatments, whether they are
usually prescribed fire and some thinning, and then they are
tested by a wildfire. These thinnings are tested by a wildfire.
We have had a program in place for over 10 years where we go
out and then we evaluate that, and 86 percent of the time, the
wildfire conditions are changed significantly into the right
kind of wildfire, the low-intensity wildfire. So, it brings it
down from a crown fire to what we call a ground fire, so that
is an 86-percent efficacy in the treatments.
The thing we have to do now is to get enough of those
treatments, i.e., on 40 percent of a fire shed, to really make
the big-scale difference. So, we have shown that fire
prevention has a return. We have shown that the actual field
treatments, when it is tested by a wildfire, has a great
return. Now what we need to show is to treat 40 percent of a
fire shed and show the fire shed as a whole as back in balance
of a regular, we call it a resilient forest.
Mrs. Lee. How realistic is it to be able to treat the 40
percent of a fire shed?
Ms. Christiansen. Well, that is where we have to up our
game 2 to 3 times what we are doing now.
Mrs. Lee. That is all I have. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you.
Mr. Cartwright. Thank you, Representative Lee, and I am
going to recognize myself for 5 minutes of questions. Ms.
Christiansen, thank you for being with us here today. My
district in northeastern Pennsylvania is particularly
interested in the Forest Service. My district was the home of
Gifford Pinchot, who, together with Theodore Roosevelt, founded
the U.S. Forest Service, and that is not a coincidence.
Northeastern Pennsylvania has an awful lot of forest land,
including two State forests and thousands of acres of
privately-owned forests used for recreation, forest products,
and natural resource conservation. My constituents and I value
the forests in the region, and we want to ensure that the
Forest Service has the funding necessary to carry out the
important work of maintaining and managing our Nation's forest
resources.
The first question I want to get into is about President
Biden's skinny budget that came out last week. It calls for the
Forest Service and the National Resources Conservation Service
to promote the health and resilience of public and private
lands, including specific appropriations for the reclaiming of
orphan oil and gas wells and abandoned mine lands. I recently
reintroduced the Abandoned Mine Land Reauthorization Act to
help, aid, and fund such efforts. While my legislation focuses
on the programs and the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation
and Enforcement at the Department of the Interior, it is the
Forest Service that also has a role to play, and the proposed
budget envisions expanding this role.
Many AML sites, abandoned mine land sites, border and
interact with our Nation's forests, creating susceptibility to
pollution and an opportunity for the Forest Service to be
involved in restoration efforts. So question one is, what has
been the Forest Service's historical role in AML reclamation,
and how do you envision this role growing, and have you been
partnering with other agencies to address the challenges posed
by AML sites?
Ms. Christiansen. Yes, great question. It is important that
we work together with our State and other Federal partners, and
we have been doing that for over 20 years, to mitigate
thousands of hazards and abandoned mines located on the
national forests, but certainly in the area of national
forests. So, for example in the Eastern region where
Pennsylvania is, we are working with State and private
companies to address the legacies of the contamination and the
dangerous hazardous materials to protect ecological health. So,
it really does take all of us.
The Abandoned Mine Land Trust Fund, those funds go to
States, but that gives States the capacity and the leverage so
we can all work together. In the President's blueprint budget,
there is a provision for $100 million for the Forest Service to
create good union wage jobs to address these orphan oil and gas
wells and abandoned mine lands. So just to give you an example,
on our natural forest lands, we have 40,000 abandoned mines
across the whole system, and 20 percent of those do pose some
level of human health and ecological hazard, and up to 70
percent of them have some kind of physical safety hazard. So,
it is a priority. There is a lot of work that needs to be done,
a lot of jobs that can be created.
Mr. Cartwright. I am glad to hear you share the concern,
Ms. Christiansen. I want to talk about State forests very
briefly. While my district is not home to any national forests,
our State forests, Delaware State Forest and the Pinchot State
Forest, named after Gifford Pinchot, are critical components of
the economy and the lifestyle of our region. The State and
Private Forestry organization is one of the smallest budget
lines at the Forest Service. How do you utilize and maximize
this modest funding with additional funding at the State and
local level or through nonprofits?
Ms. Christiansen. Yes, it is a really, really important
synergistic effect. I was a State forester in two different
States, and I can tell you the funding I received through the
Forest Service and the State Private Forestry funds, quite
frankly, helped me go to the State legislature and get them to
match the funds to say, if the Feds are putting in for
important public benefits that flow off of State lands or even
private lands, we are all in this together. When you talk
watershed, when you talk human health, when you talk wildlife
and recreation economy, I mean, everybody knows the importance
of that programming, and it is with that strong relationship
through the States.
We call it ``the little engine that could,'' and we could
do more with more, but we make a lot happen marrying up the
funds with the State funds and great, great partners in the
nonprofit sector to really enhance the health of our State and
private forests.
Mr. Cartwright. Well, that is a great answer. I like how
you talk. But I am out of time, and at this point the chair
recognizes the gentleman from Washington, Mr. Kilmer, for 5
minutes of questions.
Mr. Joyce. I don't think he is here.
Mr. Cartwright. Hmm. Well, in that case, the chair
recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Joyce, who appears to
be on my screen and ready to ask 5 minutes of questions.
Mr. Joyce. Well, thank you, Acting Chair. I appreciate your
studio-like facility there. Chief, I wanted to ask you about
something else that is near and dear to Ohio. At last year's
hearing, we discussed the important work the Forest Service is
doing to fight the emerald ash borer, or EAB. Given EAB is
responsible for the destruction of over 150 million ash trees
in 35 States across the country, it is critical for the Forest
Service to maintain its outreach, education, and research
activities to reduce the harmful and costly effects of EAB.
Does the fiscal year 2022 request support ongoing EAB research
partnerships, like those with Ohio State University and other
universities, to develop EAB-resistant ash trees and integrated
pest management strategies? What EAB activities within State
and Private Forestry does the request support?
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you, Ranking Member Joyce, for
remembering our interchange, and I wonder how many EABs you
have detected with your detection kit, but I won't ask.
Mr. Joyce. I can tell by the decimation of the ash trees in
my woods.
Ms. Christiansen. Okay. Well, I can't speak to the
specifics in the fiscal year 2022 budget request. But I can
speak to the importance of the joint work we do together, our
State and Private Forestry program and our Forest and Rangeland
Research program, with partners like the State of Ohio and Ohio
State University in the early detection, and the outreach and
the technical assistance for urban landscapes to individual
landowners and quite frankly, the different treatments, whether
they are the insecticide, the biological parasitic controls of
the wasp that were on the leading edge with Ohio. The big game
changer is the breeding, getting the ash-resistant trees, which
we are in close partnership with Ohio State University. So, I
suspect all of those programs will be able to continue. They
are highly important, and we would be glad to talk further when
the full budget comes out.
Mr. Joyce. Okay. I appreciate that. Can you explain why
these activities are critical to slowing the spread of the EAB?
Ms. Christiansen. Yes. So early detection helps us jump on
the treatments earlier. The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) is in 35
States. We are not going to stamp out the EAB, but now, as you
said appropriately, it is slowing the spread. It is how we can,
in place of these beautiful ash trees and important ash trees
that are now dead, we can replace them with EAB resistance. So,
it is the early treatments to slow the spread, but it is being
on the proactive side of establishing new ash-resistant trees
that is the real game changer that we need to work on together.
So, the Forest Service is the funder behind the EAB
website, ask EAB. It is to get every citizen to have awareness
about what is around them and how they can report the emerald
ash borer, and we work with partners. We give a little funding
to partners, and they are the ones in communities doing the
early detection to do the early treatments to slow the spread.
So, it really has to pulse deep into the community, and it
brings greater awareness of the importance of our trees in our
urban areas, right?
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Chief. I yield back, Acting Chair.
Ms. Pingree [presiding]. I guess I am back. Mr. Cartwright,
thank you very much. I am not sure who is up next in the
question lineup. Let's just go to you. Mr. Simpson, do you have
a second question?
Mr. Simpson. Yeah, I do. Thanks, Chairwoman Pingree. Chief,
let me ask you a question. This is kind of out of the realm of
what I was going to ask and stuff, but maybe you will want to
get back to me on this and stuff. But we have talked a little
bit about abandoned mines and the safety hazard, the
environmental hazard that some of them possess, and addressing
those is very important. But the other side of that question is
this: we are moving into more and more green technologies,
whether it is wind, solar, batteries, et cetera, et cetera. All
of those things, as well as even nuclear and stuff, require
critical minerals, critical minerals that we are almost 100
percent dependent on adversaries that don't like us to deliver
it, whether it is China, Russia, other places, and stuff.
Is Forest Service working with the USGS to map those
deposits of critical minerals that we are going to need,
because most of them are, at least a bit percentage of them,
are on public lands, Forest Service, BLM lands, those types of
things. We need to have an accurate assessment of what is
available to us. And because of land withdrawals and other
types of things, we are making it more and more difficult to
get some of those critical minerals that we are going to need
if we are moving into a greener society with, as I said, solar
or batteries, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It is easy
to talk about just land withdrawal and not doing any of that
kind of stuff, but, you know, mining today is not the same as
it was 100 years ago. You can do it a lot safer and a lot more
environmentally friendly, as I have talked with some mining
companies and stuff. But the permitting and the access is a
challenge.
So is the Forest Service working with USGS on this and
coming up with any ideas of how we might access these critical
minerals and these rare earth minerals that we have an abundant
supply of in the United States, but today, oftentimes we are
100 percent dependent on people who don't like us? And if that
is not a question you want to address right now, you could get
back to me with that. I know it was not on the radar.
Ms. Christiansen. Well, in general, I can say yes, we
cooperate with USGS and the layers of access across the whole
Federal estate, but we would be glad to get you more
information about that.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. I yield back.
[No response.]
Mr. Simpson. You are on mute.
Ms. Pingree. Sorry. It is all the back and forth. Okay.
Representative Kilmer, it is wonderful to see you back. I
recognize you for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Chief,
for being with us. I want to start out by just renewing the
invite I extended to you last year to come visit my neck of the
woods to learn more about the challenges and the opportunities
we are facing on the Olympic National Forest when it is safe to
do so. We would love to have you. I know the last year has been
very challenging, but the truth is, we were facing some real
challenges and missing some great opportunities even before the
pandemic started. First, let me talk about some of those
challenges.
For years, the Olympic National Forest has really struggled
to produce meaningful harvest levels necessary to improve
forest health, to restore critical salmon spawning habitat,
and, importantly, to support timber-dependent communities. I
know that resource limitations have impacted operations service
wide, and that is something our committee has been working to
address. But we are experiencing some acute challenges on the
ONF that I could really use your help on. I honestly can't
remember the last time that the Olympic National Forest met its
annual harvest target, and we have got to do better.
And that brings me to the opportunities. We have got the
Olympic Forest Collaborative that has united folks from the
conservation community and the timber industry around a common
goal of increasing harvest levels on the ONF. I am proud to say
that we have executed a few pilot projects that have helped the
ONF produce additional board feet of timber, while also
accomplishing some important restoration goals. And these
projects have demonstrated the power of collaborative forest
planning for meeting the goals of our region, but we need to
scale up in order to achieve those benefits. So especially as
rural communities throughout my district continue to take it on
the chin, this is very important. I am very grateful for the
partnership we found in the regional forester, Glenn Casamassa
and our new forest supervisor, Kelly Lawrence, who both share
my commitment to supporting the work of the collaborative, but
there is only so much we can accomplish without dedicated
support and resources.
So three questions. One, can you tell me how you plan to
support our region's efforts to increase harvest levels and
forest restoration projects on the ONF; two, what can I do,
what can this committee do to support those efforts; and three,
will the fiscal year 2022 request include dedicated resources
to support new and established forest collaboratives like the
Olympic Forest Collaborative, who don't qualify for the
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program dollars?
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you, Congressman Kilmer, and I
would love to accept your invitation to get out to the
beautiful Olympic National Forest. I hear you and I hear the
concern, and we have been in limited tradeoffs of the
investment in our timber program. I know the Olympic National
Forest is still a concern, but our Pacific Northwest region,
even in a very difficult year--that is, all the forests in
Oregon and Washington, 25 of them--they did meet their timber
target by 101 percent. I am absolutely committed, and I know
that Glenn Casamassa and Kelly Lawrence are eager to work with
you. I will be personally involved in how we can get some more
directed resources to build that important leverage and
collaborative capacity that is important on the Olympic
National Forest.
You and I talked about the no-bid sales that were pretty
high on the Olympic National Forest. I am pleased to report
that there is good progress going on there. We were at 20
percent of the timber sales were no-bid, and that has gone down
to 5 percent. We still want to get it to zero. We are meeting
the needs of the local market conditions, but at least there is
a good trajectory. We are in a really tough tradeoff right now.
So much of the landscape was burned in that region and other
regions, and we are using our regular appropriated dollars just
to get the stabilization done on these landscapes.
So that is where conversations with this committee are
important so you can really know the stark realities of the
tradeoffs. We know that that every community matters, and the
dependency, as you so well described, and I don't have to
remind you that I grew up looking at the Olympics. I am from
the Puget Sound. I was the Hood Canal District Manager that
partnered with the Olympic National Forest when I was in State
Natural Resources. The importance of those watersheds, and the
salmon, and other fisheries resource and wildlife resources are
absolutely critical. So, I want to affirm our commitment and
affirm that we would be glad to work with you to figure out the
good pathway forward for appropriate resourcing.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you.
Mr. Kilmer. I think I am out of time. Thank you, Madam
Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Kilmer. I am going to recognize
Representative McCollum for a second question.
Ms. McCollum. My co-host has unmuted me. Thank you, co-
host. Now you can hear me? Kilmer can hear me. That is good. So
going back to what Mr. Simpson was talking about with minerals,
and what I was talking about with withdrawals in the BWCA area,
which is in the Superior National Forest, that forest holds 20
percent of fresh clean drinking water. And the water flows
north, and it is like a sponge. If you have ever been up in the
Boundary Waters area, all our water is interconnected. And so
the challenge is, is when people talk about safe mining, we
have learned how to taconite mines safely. We didn't in the
beginning, but we know how to do it now. This is new mining.
Every single one of these sulfite ore mines have failed, and
when they fail, it is generation after generation after
generation before there is any recovery of the land.
But my point was, you know, when we are looking at critical
minerals, we also have to look at something else that is
critical, and that is water. So I am all about protecting the
wilderness, but this is water you can literally be in a canoe
on, dip a cup, and drink straight out of there. And, you know,
future generations and future wars will be fought over water.
And with climate change, access to and having a potable, fresh
water supply is going to be really critical. As the Federal
government, we really don't, and as a people, we don't place a
value on water. Yeah, we maybe go buy a bottle of water, but we
look at water as disposable. It will rain. It will come back
again.
So is not part of the charge when you are looking at what
to do with some of these critical minerals and where they are
located is also to take in the assessment and the quality of
water? And then before you answer that, one other statement. I
chair the Defense Committee. I am all about having strong
national defense, but many of these mines that are being built
and mined right now, they are owned by foreign companies, and
the resource is being taken out of the United States. And what
they are not telling you, it is going to China to be smelted.
So if we are going to talk full circle national security, then
let's have the full discussion and not just pick and choose
what we want to talk about.
Ms. Christiansen, how does the Forest Service value the
importance of water, and remind us again how important our
forests are for water. And I will mute myself.
Ms. Christiansen. You bet. I will go back to the Organic
Act that established what were called the Forest Reserves at
the time. They were for two purposes, and that was to create a
sustainable supply of timber for this new Nation to be built,
and it was to establish the critical watersheds to supply water
for the Nation. So, the importance of water goes back to the
origins of the national forests, and even before the Forest
Service itself was created.
Fifty percent of the waters of this Nation depend on
forests. Forests are at the head water of all of the water of
this Nation, and one-fifth of the waters in this Nation are
dependent on the national forests. So, water is an absolutely
essential part of the Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act and
the origins preceding all of that for the national forests,
without a doubt.
Ms. Pingree. Representative Kaptur, did you have questions
you would like to ask? I would recognize you for 5 minutes.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Madam Chair, very much. Thank you
for a very interesting hearing. I haven't been able to be
present for all of it, but my staff has informed me, and I just
wanted to thank you for your leadership in this area. And I
wanted to ask Chief Christiansen, I am a huge supporter of the
Urban and Community Forestry Program at the Forest Service, and
most of the bills that I have seen that deal with restoring the
civilian climate core, or whatever, focus on our national
forests and parks, which I support. However, I represent
Cleveland, Lorraine, Sandusky, and Toledo, Ohio, and we have
historic levels of asthma. And we have had 20 million trees
removed from Michigan and Ohio, and we have been working with
the Cleveland metro parks, the Cuyahoga Valley National
Recreation Area, the Lorain County metro parks, the Lucas
County, Toledo metro park system to try to replant, including
in those cities. So I am wondering what your thoughts might be
about the potential of the Urban and Community Forestry Program
to partner somehow with localities, and to do some of the tree
planting that we know is so unnecessary after the devastation
of the emerald ash borer and the Asian long-horned beetle. And
I am concerned that local people living in these communities,
in these urban areas will not be recruited, and they won't be
able to work in their own areas to try to restore the
environment. Could you help me understand how Interior thinks
about this and the Forest Service?
Ms. Christiansen. Yes. We are a part of USDA, and we are
working daily with the Department of the Interior to bring some
recommendations forward about President Biden's call for a
Climate Conservation Corps. Let me just tell you the space and
area that you named, Congresswoman Kaptur. So, the Forest
Service has a huge footprint of working with the conservation
corps. We go back to the origins of the original Civilian
Conservation Corps, which now are the Job Corps centers, and we
operate 24 of those Job Corps centers, which bring both rural
and urban kids into these Job Corps centers and teach them
skills. We are converting to a more natural resource base, and
we have urban community forestry programming in a couple of
these Job Corps centers.
But then we have nearly 100 Service Corps partners. These
are the nonprofit partners that bring these Service Corps
together, and we have nearly 1,000 agreements with these
Service Corps to do work, natural resource work across the
spectrum, and yes, a good portion of it is on the national
forests. But what we have at the Forest Service is we have
these broad authorities and networks through our State and
private forestry authorities. We are working with our State
forestry partners and the plethora of other partners that are
in these urban areas.
So, we feel confident we could connect enhanced climate
conservation corps capacity to needs in State and urban areas
because one of the absolute essential pieces of a climate
conservation corps would be that we would bring employment for
underserved and underrepresented communities. And going to
where the needs are is really essential, and we have these
shared stewardship agreements with 26 States. I just signed the
Great Shared Stewardship Agreement with the State of Ohio in
December, and it names these kinds of priorities that we have
to get beyond our own programming and cross boundaries for what
is most important for natural resources, for employment, for
climate, for equity. All the Administration's priorities fit
right in.
Ms. Kaptur. I would appreciate a copy of that agreement,
and your openness to working with partners, if you could send
me a list of who those partners are.
I will just tell you a recent experience I had anticipating
Earth Day. I went to NRCS and I said to them, I want to hand
out trees, and I want to go into each of my counties. And so
they found me a location that is out in the 'burbs, not in the
heart of the cities, and they wanted to give me sycamore trees.
I said, I don't want sycamore trees. I said, find me trees that
don't make such a mess in the city that are still good
hardwoods, whether it is maple trees that don't have so many
twirlers or whether beech trees. And they said, oh no, we can't
do that. No, no, we don't have that supply.
So this is the reality in Ohio 2021, and a member willing
to go out of her way, right, to go to all my five counties and
plant trees and pass them out, and a little bit of
arteriosclerosis over at USDA, you know. And I realize you have
only been in there a few months under Biden--thank God there is
leadership--and things are going to change, but that is the
continuing frustration of the inability to adapt to the urban
metro areas. And so thank you for listening very, very much.
Ms. Christiansen. You know, that is not USDA, and we will
be glad to connect you with the great urban partners that we
have there in your district, Congresswoman.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
Ms. Christiansen. You bet.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you.
Ms. Christiansen. You bet.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Chair Kaptur. Representative
Cartwright, would you like to ask another question or a
question?
Mr. Cartwright. Yes, I would. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cartwright. Thank you, Madam Chair. Now, Chief
Christiansen, we were talking about State forests the last time
I was talking with you, and I want to finish that discussion up
by asking you how can private owners and State forests obtain
funding from the State and private forestry programs, and is
there assistance in that process?
Ms. Christiansen. Yes, sir. The funding flows through the
State forestry agency, so the Pennsylvania DNR, your State
forester, Ken Shellenberger, they oversee this programming, and
they would put it out to the State for us and to the private
forest landowners. There are several areas of opportunity.
Forest stewardship is probably the gem. You are a private
forest landowner. You have 20 acres, and you really don't know
the best way to manage it. You really care about wildlife, but
you don't know how to even go about thinning your forest
appropriately, et cetera. You want to get some technical
assistance, and you want it to lead to some other programs for
financial assistance. Well, that takes a Forest Stewardship
Plan.
So through the funding that the Forest Service would
provide, and often the State puts in funding, too, they would
bring out what we call a service forester to you and your
property, and it was the best days of my career when I did
that. Talk about the landowners' objectives, what they want to
get from their land, and you would write them a specific forest
stewardship plan, and you would help provide them pathways on
how then they could get grants and funding to help manage their
land.
There is forest health programming. You have an invasive
pest. You don't know what to do about it. Again, from the
funding the Forest Service provides through our Forest Health
Program to the State forestry, you would get a consult from
your State forestry organization about this pest and how to
treat it or detect it.
Mr. Cartwright. Well, thank you. I read your resume, and I
knew I was asking the right lady that question. I appreciate
that. You mentioned invasive species, and I want to bump over
that really quickly. The plant and wildlife in our forests are
in danger from invasive species that are reducing available
habitat for native wildlife. Pennsylvania alone has 18 tree
species, 39 herb species, and 17 vine species on its invasive
species plant list, and according to the Forest Service's
Invasive Species Research Model, invasions by plants, animals,
and pathogens cost the United States $137 billion every year. I
know that we have an overabundance of Japanese knotweed in
northeastern Pennsylvania, and I see that all over the place.
It is further expected this number will only increase due to
the change in climate and the increase in extreme storm
frequency.
I recently introduced the Native Plant and Species Pilot
Program bill that would aid in combating invasive species and
reintroducing native species. I also have several bills focused
on climate change, including the SAFE Act that would bring
together Federal agencies that work on developing regional and
local adaptation plans for our natural resources in the face
climate change. The Forest Health Protection Program covers
invasive species. It is a State and private forestry program,
whose budget is one of the smaller of the accounts of the
Forest Service. Do you feel that the Forest Service has taken
appropriate measures to try to combat invasive species, and is
there an increasing emphasis on this moving forward in the new
Administration?
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you, Congressman. You said what I
would say, $137 billion annually in economic damage in the
U.S., it is a significant, and the environmental effects of
invasive species they take up more water, the plant invasive
species. The insect invasive species, we have talked quite a
bit in this hearing about the emerald ash borer and the
devastation, again, an invasive species and what that brings to
community. So, it is significant.
In addition to our State and Private Forestry program,
which we prioritize invasive species, but it is always a
prioritization. Invasives are getting more acute, and we are
learning more and more about the environmental effects. We do a
significant amount of research with our Forest Rangeland
Research program. We invest nearly $8.5 million a year in
research to these invasive insects, disease, and plants, and
how we can combat them. So, what I can share with you,
Congressman, is we will always prioritize to the highest need.
With additional resources, it will be a good investment to work
on in the next highest priorities.
Mr. Cartwright. Thank you, Chief, and I want to invite you
to accompany me as well at some point to the Upper Delaware and
look at all of this Japanese knotweed that is all over the
place.
Ms. Christiansen. I would be delighted to do that. You bet,
and so many great flowers as well.
Mr. Cartwright. I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Cartwright, and thank you,
Chief Christiansen. You have really been wonderful today. And
we could ask you questions all day, but as you can see, it has
been somewhat of a chaotic day with so many votes going on. So
I apologize for that, all the comings and goings, but you guys
have been wonderful, and I want to thank you so much for
appearing before us today.
And if there are no additional questions, this hearing is
now adjourned. Thank you.
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you. I really appreciate it.
[Answers to submitted questions follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Tuesday, April 20, 2021.
FISCAL YEAR 2022 BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
WITNESSES
HON. DEB HAALAND, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
RACHAEL TAYLOR, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF POLICY,
MANAGEMENT, AND BUDGET, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Ms. Pingree. Good morning. This hearing will now come to
order.
As the hearing is fully virtual, we must address a few
housekeeping matters.
For today's meeting, the chair or the staff designated by
the chair may mute participants' microphones when they are not
under recognition for the purposes of eliminating inadvertent
background noise. Members are responsible for muting and
unmuting themselves. If you notice that you have not unmuted
yourself, I will ask you if you would like the staff to unmute
you. If you indicate approval by nodding, the staff will unmute
your microphone.
I remind all members and witnesses that the 5-minute clock
still applies. If there is a technology issue, we will move to
the next member until the issue is resolved, and you will
retain the balance of your time.
You will notice a clock on your screen that will show how
much time is remaining. At 1 minute remaining, the clock will
turn to yellow. At 30 seconds remaining, I will gently tap the
gavel to remind members that their time is almost expired. When
your time has expired, the clock will turn red, and I will
begin to recognize the next member.
In terms of the speaking order, we will follow the order
set forth in the House rules, beginning with the chair and
ranking member, then members present at the time the hearing is
called to order will be recognized in order of seniority, and
finally members not present at the time the hearing is called
to order.
Finally, House rules require me to remind you that we have
set up an email address to which members can send anything they
wish to submit in writing at any of our hearings or markups.
That email address has been provided in advance to your staff.
Okay. That is the end of the technical part, so let us go
ahead and start our hearing.
I am so excited to welcome Secretary Deb Haaland to her
first hearing since being confirmed as the 54th Secretary of
the Interior and the first ever Native American to serve as a
Cabinet Secretary. We are all very happy to congratulate our
former colleague on assuming this important new role, and we
are really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the
fiscal year 2022 budget request for the Department of Interior
and other initiatives that the President has introduced.
I want to mention that joining the Secretary is Rachael
Taylor, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Policy,
Management, and Budget. So just to note for our colleagues on
the committee, Ms. Taylor was the Senate Appropriations clerk
for the Interior Subcommittee. And, of course, as
appropriators, we think that was an excellent move that
Interior appointed her to this important position.
So thank you so much and welcome, Rachael.
Today's hearing will primarily focus on the President's
fiscal year 2022 budget request for the Department of the
Interior. As we all know, the administration is still
developing their full request, but this budget blueprint makes
it clear that President Biden is committed to long overdue
investments in being good stewards of our planet and fighting
the climate crisis.
I am very encouraged about what has been outlined,
specifically the return of science as the foundation for
decisionmaking, the focus on climate change, and maintaining
healthy ecosystems, all through the lens of environmental
justice. I am also heartened by the executive orders in the
American Jobs Plan that the President has initiated.
From my perspective, this budget is a refreshing change
from the draconian budgets the committee has received over the
last 4 years. I am looking forward to learning more details
about how the Department plans to get us back on the right
track and to advance the important work of being a good steward
of our Nation's natural and cultural resources for future
generations. I am also interested in how you will strengthen
collaboration across the Interior's bureaus and with other
Federal agencies, NGOs, and stakeholders.
We recognize the interrelatedness between health and well-
being of our species and habitats, the impact that
anthropogenic actions have on clean air and clean water, the
need to preserve biodiversity, and the other important
ecosystem services we rely upon to ensure the economic
prosperity and the American public's health and well-being.
The President has laid out an ambitious agenda, and I hope
today's discussion will be an opportunity to discuss the goals
and objectives that you have established for the Department to
support that agenda.
I would now like to yield to our ranking member, Mr. Joyce,
for his opening remarks.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair.
It is truly a privilege to join you in welcoming our
distinguished witness, a former colleague, a member of the
Pueblo of Laguna, and 54th Secretary of the Interior, the
Honorable Deb Haaland. For many of us on this subcommittee
dedicated to upholding the Federal Government's trust and
treaty responsibilities to Native American Tribes, today is a
special day. So glad to have you here.
Let me also extend a warm welcome to your Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary, Ms. Rachael Taylor. Ms. Taylor is a highly
respected former staffer to the Senate Interior's
Appropriations Subcommittee, with a knack for finding
bipartisan solutions to problems. Welcome.
Secretary Haaland, conserving our Nation's natural
resources, preserving our diverse cultural heritage, and
upholding our trust responsibilities are goals we all share.
While we will disagree on many of the details, we remain united
in pursuit of these goals. May we begin this new working
relationship united in the recognition of this shared
commitment and as our disagreements are amplified in the media
and threaten to divide us, I hope we can remember that we are
in this together and that only by working together can we
achieve long-lasting solutions.
We worked well together during your time in Congress, and I
am committed to continuing to do so. You have already begun to
demonstrate the same commitment to me and my Republican
colleagues here today, and I want to thank you for that.
Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton recently said,
``Every Interior Secretary takes office saying, `I want to do
more for Indian Country.' '' And every Interior Secretary
leaves office saying, I wish I had been able to do more for
Indian Country.
I am not sure yet, but I can imagine the same holds true
for those who have held the gavel of this subcommittee.
Because, as the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has reported,
there is so much more to do. Madam Secretary, your proposal for
a $600 million increase certainly does more. And I am guessing
you would have done even more if you could have.
Still, I think it is fair to say that you will find that
several of us on this subcommittee are willing partners ready
to follow your lead in Indian Country. I think what Secretary
Norton was saying, though, is that the Interior Department,
like this subcommittee, faces the reality of budget allocations
handed down from above that force us to make choices with
finite funding.
Lately, the Federal Government has been spending money it
does not have at such a rapid clip that I fear the term
``finite funding'' may lose its meaning. Though much of it was
justified to overcome the pandemic and subsequent economic
devastation, my concern is that the spending has gotten so out
of hand that people will begin to think it is normal.
As we continue to restore our way of life and reignite our
economy, it is imperative that the Federal Government finds a
way to live within its means so that we do not have to saddle
future generations with even more economic burden than what
already awaits them.
To do that, this Congress and this President must return to
the practice of evaluating and funding programs based upon
their performance. We must be willing to make the difficult but
responsible choices as stewards of taxpayer dollars. The
initial fiscal year 2022 Department of the Interior budget
proposal before us today is at $17.4 billion, a $2.4 billion or
16.3 percent increase. Because the administration has not yet
released a comprehensive request, there is no indication of any
program evaluations or offsets and it is unclear how much of
the Department's $17.4 billion proposal is within this
subcommittee's jurisdiction.
In the absence of budget details, today's discussion will
instead likely focus on the Department's policies. So, let me
take a moment to focus on a few.
Thursday marks another Earth Day. I count myself among
Leader McCarthy and many other House Republicans who recognize
that human activity is contributing to the changing climate. I
believe we should be doing everything we can to help our
constituents mitigate climate risk in their everyday lives,
while we pursue realistic, free market, and innovative
solutions to climate change that protect the interests of the
American people, our communities, and our country's economic
well-being.
The U.S. and most of the world are dependent upon fossil
energy for the foreseeable future, whether people like it or
not. So, I urge you not to lock America out from the domestic
energy and minerals it needs for a smooth transition to a
cleaner energy future.
Top-down policies that force hardship on Americans never
works when the costs outweigh the benefits in their everyday
lives, and we need only to look at the pandemic for recent
examples. The President set a goal ``to encourage broad
participation'' in ``conserving at least 30 percent of our
lands and waters by 2030.'' I am concerned by what I am hearing
from outside interests about locking up Federal lands from
sustainable, responsible use. I am also concerned that a
singular focus on acreage shifts the conversation to open lands
out West and misses the broader point.
All of us can participate in conservation. Programs like
Homegrown National Park and others show that an increasing
number of people in urban and suburban areas want to be part of
the solution. I urge you to invite them into the 30-by-30
initiative.
Finally, in northeast Ohio, the Great Lakes are our
lifeblood. From preventing the spread of invasive carp to
preventing harmful algal blooms to restoring resilient coastal
habitats, there are several important programs within your
purview that are of vital importance to my district. I hope we
can work on these together. I invite you to come visit and see
how these programs are making a difference.
Thank you again for being here today, Secretary Haaland. I
look forward to our discussion. And I also want to pass on
greetings from Representative Davis, who I had breakfast with
this morning, who also said that he is honored that you are in
your position as Secretary.
With that, thank you, Chair Pingree. I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Ranking Member Joyce.
And I would now love to recognize Secretary Haaland for her
opening remarks.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you very much.
Chair Pingree, Ranking Member Joyce, Members of the
Subcommittee, it is an honor and privilege for me to be here
with you today on behalf of the Department of the Interior.
It is deeply meaningful for me as the first Native American
Cabinet Secretary to be here on the ancestral homelands of the
Anacostan and Piscataway people, speaking before this
subcommittee. It also means a tremendous amount to me that the
first hearing since my confirmation is before you, my former
colleagues from the House of Representatives. I understand the
important role that all of you play in the success of the
Department of the Interior and our many programs.
I want to particularly recognize the work that you have
done on a bipartisan basis to lead the way on priorities like
the Great American Outdoors Act and funding Tribal programs.
Your leadership has made a real difference in the lives of
Native Americans and Alaska Natives in communities across our
country.
I am here today to roll up my sleeves to work with you as a
partner now on this side of the legislative process and help to
build upon your passion and hard work. I want us to work
together to make sure that the Department is ready to meet the
challenges we have in front of us, like the existential threat
of climate change and the effects it has on our country. The
President has laid out a clear vision for a whole-of-government
approach to addressing the ongoing climate crisis and
challenged the Department to play a leadership role in meeting
this moment.
On Friday, I issued two secretarial orders, one to
prioritize action on climate change and establish a
departmental climate task force, the other to rescind a number
of policies from the previous administration that favored
energy production at the expense of other priorities. My hope
is that these orders will begin to restore balance to how the
Department makes land management decisions, elevate the role of
science, and reaffirm the importance of stakeholder engagement
and environmental justice.
Addressing the climate crisis is also a recurrent theme in
the President's discretionary request for 2022. The budget
before the subcommittee today reflects the President's
ambitious vision to lift up the Nation in this unprecedented
time. By addressing the climate crisis, we will provide much
needed resources to Tribal nations, invest in conservation of
public lands and waters, advance environmental justice,
recognize the important role of science, and chart a path
toward a clean energy future for all Americans.
The President's 2022 budget request proposes a total of
$17.4 billion for the Department of the Interior, a $2.4
billion or 16 percent increase above current funding levels.
Specifically, the President's proposal invests in America with
$4 billion, a $600 million increase to honor and strengthen our
commitments to Tribal nations; more than $450 million to
remediate orphaned oil and gas wells and reclaim abandoned
mines on Federal and non-Federal lands, bringing thousands of
jobs to communities across the country; investments to promote
racial justice inequity in underserved communities, including a
National Park Service voting rights center project at the Selma
Interpretive Center, honoring the legacy of civil rights
leaders including the late, dear Representative John Lewis; a
$550 million increase to accelerate clean energy deployment and
expand climate adaptation and ecosystem resilience on our
public lands; $200 million in climate-related science to better
understand climate impacts and how best to mitigate, adapt, and
increase resilience in our communities; a $200 million increase
for science-driven conservation to manage the Nation's natural
resources in line with America's climate biodiversity and clean
energy needs; and a $100 million increase to address the
growing threat of wildfire through our Hazardous Fuels and
Burned Area Rehabilitation Programs, which is especially
important as we face drought in the West like we will during
this fire season.
Complementing this request is the American Jobs Plan, a
longer-term strategy to create millions of good-paying jobs,
rebuild our country's infrastructure, and position America to
outcompete others on the global stage.
We must use every lever at our disposal to make necessary
progress. This Nation has the opportunity of a lifetime to
strengthen our country, fight climate change, and improve our
way of life for generations to come. To build back better, we
need both a strong annual budget for the Department and the
President's jobs plan. I look forward to working with each of
you to achieve these important goals. I commit to you that I
will continue to honor and respect the role of this
Subcommittee with a confident expectation that, working
together, we can accomplish great things on behalf of the
American people.
And just like you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member Joyce, I
am pleased to be joined this morning by Rachael Taylor,
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Policy, Management, and
Budget. She is here to help out with some details, if
necessary.
This concludes my opening remarks. Thank you again for
having me, and I am very happy to answer any questions that any
of you have.
[The statement of Secretary Haaland follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Well, thank you so much, Madam Secretary. We
are so pleased to have both of you in front of our committee,
and thank you for your opening remarks.
I will now recognize myself for 5 minutes to begin the
questions.
So I just want to reiterate, we are so pleased to have you
in this role, and we are really looking forward as a committee
in a bipartisan way working together with you in this
partnership. So this relationship between the committee and
your department is a high priority for us, and thank you for
being with us today.
I am going to dig in on biodiversity and climate change and
let you talk a little bit more about that. You have certainly
taken on an awesome responsibility at a very challenging time
for our country and for our planet, and we know the enormous
challenges that are confronting us with climate change, the
impact on our air, our water, our land, and our communities in
particular and that there is a lot of work to be done.
I have also been very concerned and, frankly, just shocked
when I read the May 2019 United Nations report about the
decline in species, over 1 million species facing extinction.
Scientists have also told us that 2.9 billion birds have been
lost over the past five decades. I know that the President's
budget includes another $550 million over the 2021 enacted
level to decrease pollution, accelerate clean energy
development, expand efforts around climate adaptation, and
ecosystem resilience.
So I would love to hear a little bit more about the work
that you intend to do to protect and sustain biodiversity on
our public lands, to mitigate for those changes, and also how
you are thinking about an inclusive, equitable climate and
conservation agenda.
So that is a lot of stuff to cover, but go for it.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, Chairwoman.
And absolutely this problem is big. It is--it is so big
that it is going to take a lot of different programs and tools
to tackle it. And I think that it would be an important
investment in the long-term resilience of our economy and well-
being for communities across the country.
And basically, we know that we need to strengthen the
health and resilience of our land, water, and ecosystems, the
habitats that those species that you are talking about rely on.
That is absolutely important with drought in the West. As I
mentioned in my opening remarks, some of those habitats are
disappearing as we speak.
So, we are working hard to deploy clean energy
alternatives. The President's plan to create jobs through the
Civilian Climate Corps will be an amazing opportunity for folks
to enter this space, if they haven't had opportunities like
that before, creating benefits for generations to come. We are
empowering folks who will care about our environment and carry
this work on into the future, and the big investments in
science, applying science to help communities plan and respond
to drought, floods, extreme weather, and all of those issues.
A proactive forest and rangeland management program to
reduce the wildfire risk is also in the plans. And wildfire, of
course, in and of itself destroys that habitat again.
So, we have many, many opportunities with the budget, with
the President's Jobs Plan to make these things a reality, and
we are going to get to work to make sure that it happens.
And, of course, always happy to continue this conversation
with you anytime.
Ms. Pingree. Great. Thank you. I think this will be an
ongoing conversation as we tackle the budget for these many
important issues.
Last week, you issued a secretarial order establishing a
climate task force, which seems like an important component.
How do you envision the task force operating? How is it going
to help the Department meet its commitments under the executive
order that the President signed? Can you tell us a little more
about that?
Secretary Haaland. Of course. Part of the President's
priorities since he came into office is an all-of-government
approach. Yes, the DOI has important obligations to our
climate, to our land and waters, but we also feel that many
other departments can do their part in ensuring this. We will
be happy to have more conversations with you about that as
well, but I think it is an exciting time in this administration
to put priorities like climate and science at the top.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much, Madam Secretary.
I will yield back the small balance of my time, and happy
to recognize Ranking Member Joyce for 5 minutes for his
questions.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair.
As a former prosecutor and cofounder of the Bipartisan Task
Force to End Sexual Violence, I am encouraged by your recent
announcement to form a new unit within the Bureau of Indian
Affairs Office of Justice Services to provide leadership and
direction for work involving missing and murdered American
Indians and Alaska Natives.
While serving in the House, you provided the task force
with critical insight on steps Congress should take to address
the persistently high rates of violence experienced by Native
women and men. I was also proud to cosponsor your legislation,
the Not Invisible Act, during the 116th Congress. That bill,
now law, increases the coordination of efforts to reduce
violent crime within Indian lands and against Indians.
Under the bill, the Department must designate an official
within the Bureau of Indian Affairs to coordinate prevention
efforts, grants, and programs related to missing Indians and
the murder and human trafficking of Indians. I am pleased to
see that you have continued doing this important work at the
Department, given it remains a shared priority and this
subcommittee has been supporting the Operation Lady Justice
initiative started during the previous administration.
What parts of Operation Lady Justice have been working
well, and where do you see room for improvement that led you to
establishing this new unit?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, Ranking Member Joyce. And
thank you so much for your attention, and I am grateful for the
support that you gave me on this issue when I was in Congress
and I know that your experience can help us to move forward in
this space.
Operation Lady Justice turned attention to this important
program. And there has been a lot of engagement across the
government. We felt that it was important for this unit to
provide leadership so that everyone is moving in the same
direction. The new unit will improve coordination within and
outside of the BIA to make sure that we are not missing
anything, that we are making a bigger tent to ensure that we
are not missing a thing on this issue.
As you know, this is an issue that has been going on for
500 years, since Europeans came to this continent. And I think
that it's going to take a lot more effort. You know, we've
started to scratch the surface and will continue digging
deeper. And so, thank you again for your support.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you.
What is the proposed fiscal year 2022 budget for this work,
and are there other pieces in the FBI or other agencies budgets
that we should be funding to help you succeed?
Secretary Haaland. Well, I know that when Operation Lady
Justice was first created, there was a $1 million budget, and I
believe we are increasing that by $5 million this year. We will
absolutely get you all the details you would like for the
record. And, yes, I feel like with that added budget and the
leadership of the Justice Services that we will be able to make
some inroads and really make a difference for communities
across the country.
Mr. Joyce. That is great.
Another question. The opioid epidemic has been affecting
every person in households across the country, and the COVID-19
pandemic has made the situation worse, unfortunately. That is
why Representative Kilmer and I are working hard together to
pass our bill, H.R. 654, the Drug-Free Communities Pandemic
Relief Act. The situation is perhaps more dire in Indian
Country than anywhere else, which is why the subcommittee has
strongly supported the Department's Joint Opioid Reduction Task
Force begun under the previous administration and led by the
Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Last year, the task force led 14 operations across seven
States, resulting in more than 313 arrests and the seizure of
more than 2,600 pounds of illegal narcotics with an estimated
street value of near $20 million, more than double the price
tag from the previous year.
Do you intend to keep the task force going during your
tenure? And if so, what additional recourses are needed to
build on last year's success?
Secretary Haaland. Absolutely. The task force is part of
the government-wide efforts targeting this problem. And we know
that in terms of successes, the BIA's K-9 teams, for example,
have been very effective in disrupting drug trafficking routes.
We are going to keep up the work on this issue and appreciate
your support on that as well.
This terrible problem continues to plague our community. So
we will keep building on the efforts of the task force and make
sure that we are doing everything we need to.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
And, Madam Chair, I have no time to yield back.
Ms. Pingree. You timed that so exquisitely well, just to
the last second.
So I am pleased to recognize Representative Kilmer for his
5 minutes for questions.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you, Madam Secretary, for being with us today,
and congratulations on your confirmation. It is a humbling
moment to recognize our Nation's first Native American
Secretary of the Interior and someone many of us are pleased to
and proud to consider a friend.
It should come as no surprise that I want to touch on a
subject that I know we share a deep commitment to and that is
ensuring that the Federal Government finally fulfills its unmet
treaty and trust responsibilities to Native American
communities. I am so grateful for your longstanding partnership
on advancing this essential priority, certainly as my colleague
in the House and throughout your leadership as the former co-
chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus. And I know
this will remain a key priority for you in your new role.
As you know, in 2003, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
issued a report titled ``A Quiet Crisis: Federal Funding and
Unmet Needs in Indian Country,'' that documented the failures
and outlined clear actions the Federal Government needs to take
in order to meet its obligations.
In 2015, I led an effort in Congress, along with several of
my colleagues on this subcommittee, to call on the Commission
on Civil Rights to publish an update to this report to
determine whether any progress had actually been made. And 3
years later, the Commission published its update, and to ensure
that there was no confusion about their findings, they titled
the report ``Broken Promises: Continuing Federal Funding
Shortfall for Native Americans.'' Indefensibly, almost nothing
had changed.
When the Broken Promises report was published, I made a
commitment to then-president Fawn Sharp with the Quinault
Indian Nation, who first drew my attention to the Quiet Crisis
report and called for leadership in updating this report, as
well as the 10 other Tribal leaders that I have the honor of
representing, that I would not let those recommendations fall
on deaf ears again.
In my view, Congress has a moral and a legal obligation to
fulfill the promises made to Indian Country, and I am so
grateful for your shared commitment to achieving that goal. In
fact, my colleague, Representative Simpson, and I led a letter
signed by many of the members sitting here today to President
Biden last month, calling on him to ensure his fiscal year 2022
budget reflected these priorities. And I am encouraged to see
that the President's budgets blueprint includes $4 billion, a
more than $600 million increase over current levels, to honor
our Nation's commitment to Native American communities.
But I know the decades-long pattern of systemic funding
shortfalls outlined by the Commission on Civil Rights can't be
resolved in a single fiscal year. So I would love to hear from
you, one, about how your agency and the Biden administration
plan to work with Congress toward fulfilling these long overdue
promises. And, two, I am especially eager to hear how your
agency will support Tribal efforts to combat the growing threat
caused by climate change, including sea level rise and more
frequent and severe coastal hazards, which are already forcing
many Tribes certainly in my region to abandon sacred sites and
homelands that they have occupied since time immemorial in
order to move to higher ground.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you so much, Congressman, you
championing these issues for such a long time. It means a
tremendous amount to me personally as well.
So, yes, we have a more than $600 million increase to
uphold U.S. treaty and trust responsibility and to empower
Tribal Nations to govern their own communities. I think one of
the biggest issues of President Biden is his priority to ensure
that Tribal consultation is an all-of-government approach. It
is not checking the box. It is not texting a Tribal leader 2
hours before a big decision is made. It is sitting down. It is
meeting them in their space to make sure that we are talking
about the issues that they care about, and there is no other
way to do this than to truly engage.
And I am very proud to be a part of this administration who
has made that commitment to Indian Country like never before.
And I feel very confident that if we are talking to Tribes, if
we are talking to them about sacred sites, about funding, about
education and healthcare and broadband internet service and
water, for heaven's sake, running water to some of these
places, that there is no doubt we are going to know fully what
Indian Country needs to move forward. They deserve
opportunities like every community in this country, and we are
committed to that.
I appreciate you and the work you have done. And we realize
that it is not just going to be one administration that
essentially cures this issue once and for all, but we are going
to do our best to make sure that we document what it is that
Tribes need and move in that direction and move in that
direction for a very long time. So, we are going to do our
best.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
And thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you.
I am pleased to recognize Mr. Simpson for 5 minutes for his
questions.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
I had to jump out of my chair there to get ready for this.
Madam Secretary, thank you for being here today. And thank
you for our conversation that we had yesterday. I find that
there are many things that we agree with and will work together
in harmony, trying to enact, whether it is, as you have heard,
this committee's commitment to trying to meet our treaty
obligations with our Indian brothers and sisters. Whether it is
on Indian Health Services or Indian education or Tribal
justice, this committee has worked in a bipartisan fashion,
regardless of the chairman, over the last--as long as I have
been on this committee now I guess for 20 years, 21 years,
something like that. We have worked in a bipartisan fashion, as
I said. And I look forward to working with you on those issues.
Also, the Great American Outdoors Act, the implementation
of that act, we have talked about wildfires and the need to try
to reduce these rangeland wildfires that are the biggest threat
to sage-grouse habitat in the West, and as well as giving the
11 States in the West the chance to have their conservation
plans work with sage-grouse--they are working with sage-
grouse--and trying to prevent the listing of that, because the
States want sage-grouse not to be listed and to be healthy
populations as much as anybody does. So working with States and
the private landowners is very important.
But much of the conversation that we have had so far has
been on climate change and rightfully so, something I agree
with, something that needs to be addressed, that we have been
working on for a number of years. But there are--and you
mentioned it will direct our land management decisions and
decisions we make in this department.
One of the things that hasn't been talked about when we
talk about climate change is this, and I am going to bring this
up. I apologize for not having brought it up yesterday when we
had our conversation, and maybe you will want to comment on it
or maybe it is something that you will take for advice and we
can work on together, but I look forward to working with you on
this.
And that is the fact that, as we move toward a greener
economy, if you will, bringing in--or reducing our dependence
on fossil and fossil fuels and moving to things like solar and
wind and battery technologies and so forth, as we green our
economy and try to reduce carbon emissions, it also brings up
some challenges. And one of those that I have been studying
over the last while is the fact that these new technologies
require access to critical minerals and rare earths. The fact
that we import many, many, in fact, far too many of our rare
earth and critical minerals from sources overseas and
oftentimes from countries that don't really care for us, that
we are trade advisor--they are our trade adversaries and as
well as others. But these rare earths and critical minerals are
vital to our national defense, as well as greening this
economy.
We have sufficient supplies of these rare earths in the
United States but, unfortunately, because of restrictions,
making it difficult to get permitting for mining some of these
resources, we have made it almost impossible to access these
minerals in the United States and, consequently, we are
dependent on foreign countries for supplying a lot of these
critical materials.
I want to work with you to make sure that we can have--we
can improve our access on our public lands, because with the
Federal estate and the millions of acres that you are going to
be managing, many of those rare earths are found on Federal
lands, but to make sure that we do it in an environmentally
responsible manner. When you talk about mining, you know,
everybody kind of goes, oh, mining is not a good thing. We have
kind of gotten away from it in the United States. I would tell
you that it is vitally important economically to this country.
And so you can--you know, the old days of mining where you
take a firehose and blow away the side of a mountain and then
sort out the minerals, those are gone. Mining today is much
different than it was in years past and we can do it
environmentally, safely, but we have to have access to some of
those mineral deposits in this country and on our Federal
lands.
So that is an issue I want to work with you on to make sure
that we can improve our mining laws and our permitting access
for mining, to access these critical minerals that are going to
be depend--that are going to be critical as we move into a
greener economy.
So if you want to comment on that, fine. You have got 2
seconds left.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you. Thank you very much,
Congressman.
First, I want to thank you for your leadership on the Great
American Outdoors Act. Second, the Department and the President
recognize the importance of critical minerals. And, yes, we
have to have development. And as you said, it needs to be
environmentally responsible. We need to have an eye toward
protecting workers and all of those issues that we know we are
good at. I would love to visit with you more, and our door will
be open. I look forward to further conversations about it and
happy to go into detail on the record.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Simpson.
Pleased to recognize Representative Lee for her 5 minutes
for questions.
Mrs. Lee. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank you and
the Ranking Member Joyce for this hearing.
And it is an honor to be with my colleague, former
colleague, Deb Haaland, as the Secretary of the Interior. It is
great to see you again, and thank you and Ms. Taylor for being
here today.
As you know, over 80 percent of my home State of Nevada is
Federal lands. This is the highest proportion in the Nation,
and of that land, the vast majority of it is managed by the
Bureau of Land Management. And the budget request submitted
today mentions rebuilding the core functions and the capacity
at the Department of Interior as a top priority. But more
specifically, the prior administration's move to move the BLM
headquarters from Washington, DC to Grand Junction resulted in
the loss of 287 out of 328 headquartered employees. That is an
87 percent loss of staff, significant loss of institutional
memory and experience for the Bureau.
Secretary Haaland, are you able to provide an update on the
current number of vacancies both at the BLM headquarters and at
field offices around the country?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you very much, Congresswoman. Yes,
close to 300 positions were impacted during that move, and we
know that it was an upset. And, first of all, I should also say
that, in light of that, 90 percent of those positions for BLM
were actually outside of D.C. So we know that it has been an
issue. We are assessing the impacts of the structural changes
that were made to BLM. And I want you to know that since I have
been here, career staff have been a priority for me, their
morale, making sure that we express our appreciation. We have
an amazing team of professionals here at the Department.
And we will identify those positions. Actually, less than
half of the positions of the 300 were vacated, and some remain
vacant to this day. So we are working on rectifying the
institutional memory and experience losses. And just know that
it is a priority for us, especially during this time of drought
and climate change and all the other issues that are happening
specifically across the West.
We have had a townhall already with BLM employees. I am
committed to treating them with respect, and we are happy to
continue this conversation with you as we move forward and make
the changes that we need.
Mrs. Lee. Thank you. Yeah, this is an incredibly important
issue in my home State, given that BLM sort of is the
gatekeeper for any type of land use decisions being made there.
So appreciate the focus on that.
You know, during your hearing, your confirmation hearing,
you said that you were examining whether or not to move the
headquarters back to D.C. Have you developed any criteria to
facilitate your decision on--or facilitate that decision?
Secretary Haaland. We are still gathering information
currently, Congresswoman. And when we begin to answer those
hard questions, we will absolutely loop you in on those
decisions as they are being made. You know it was sort of an
upset when they moved across the country, and the last thing we
want to do is cause that again. So we are being very careful
about how we are approaching it. But certainly the first step
was ensuring that we are communicating with the career staff to
assess how they feel about it, and we will get some of that
information in soon and certainly be in touch with you about
that.
Mrs. Lee. Great. Thank you.
Just one other thing. As you know, the Southern Nevada
Public Land Management Act--it is also called SNPLMA in its
short form--has been a success story of Federal-State
collaboration on land use management. Since its inception in
1998, SNPLMA has generated $4.1 billion for the preservation,
acquisition, and maintenance of precious Federal lands in
Nevada. It has been responsible for protecting lands around Red
Rock Canyon, creating visitor-friendly walking trails in our
wilderness area, and providing critical capital improvements.
Can you commit to keeping the SNPLMA fund dedicated as a
special account in the Treasury, and can you speak to your
expectation on the next opening of the next round of money?
Secretary Haaland. I appreciate that question. We will
absolutely include this in our details in the record. We
appreciate your leadership on this issue. It is working. And so
I don't intend to upset anything that is working. So we
appreciate that, and we will provide more details as we move
forward.
Mrs. Lee. Thank you.
And I am over my time. Thank you.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Ms. Lee.
Pleased to recognize Mr. Stewart for 5 minutes for his
questions.
Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And, Madam Secretary, again, thank you for being with us.
Thanks for your leadership. We are proud and want to support
you.
Thank you for coming out to Utah last week. It was great to
see you in one of the most beautiful parts of our Nation. And
thank you for your commitment to working with a delegation and
with the governor's office as you look at the monuments. We
appreciated your time there.
Very quickly, I know that Mrs. Lee has concerns or at least
I suppose that she does based on her question about the
location of the BLM headquarters, and I would just add very
quickly that, I mean, my view and I think this is--I am not the
only one that feels this way, but I think that BLM is best
served when the leadership is living in the location of which
they have great responsibility. And we think there is real
advantages in having that leadership out West, as they have
such stewardship over enormous swaths of land in the West, as
you know from your own State, and has already been expressed
for Nevada and Utah as well.
One thing I want to mention, and I am not going to have a
question, at least not directly, but just to give you some
background. When I came to Congress, I didn't know that I would
become involved with the Wild Horse and Burro as much as I
have. I have become kind of the horse guy, among other things,
and I am a little bit of a one-trick pony on this, if you will,
in the sense that--no pun intended, by the way. It is just this
has become very important.
And, Secretary, I know that you know this, because Nevada
has a huge problem with overpopulation of horses. We have got,
you know, we think 80,000 of these animals out on the range.
The range is designed to support or able to support about
27,000. We know the number this year is going to be over
100,000 wild horses, and that doesn't include the 35,000 or so
that are kept in pastures.
And I wish I could show you this coalition that we have put
together over the last 5 years. I want to read you just a few
of them: Humane Society, the Return To Freedom-Wild Horse
Conservation, the national Horse and Burro management group,
the National Cattlemen's, the American Mustang, National Farm
Bureau. I mean, we have got an incredibly diverse coalition
here of people who have decided there is one thing we hold in
common, and that is we love these animals and we want to
protect them, and to starve them to death on the range is not
compassionate, nor is it humane.
And we, after an intense effort, got $35 million from
Department of Interior, BLM last year, to actually fix this
problem. We are hoping for $50 million this year.
And I would just ask briefly if you would be willing to
support that budget request and help us with actually fix
these--this problem on the range with our wild horses and
burros.
Secretary Haaland. Congressman, thank you. And thank you
again for your hospitality when I was in Utah.
I really want to thank this Subcommittee for the leadership
on this issue. I know that so many of you care deeply about
this. We are also, agreement with the plan of the previous
administration. We know that there is not enough habitat for
that many animals when they are sharing it with many, many
other species. And so we are going to absolutely let the
science guide us, as well as understanding the ecological
impacts to all the animals.
So thank you. We will absolutely be in touch with you. Know
that it is a priority for us as it is for you.
Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Secretary. I really appreciate
that.
And I am going to mention one other thing and then ask one
more question. In the 30 by 30 rule, I mean, that scares the
life out of those of us from the West. Again, Madam Secretary,
as I know you will appreciate, coming from the West, and our
fear is that 440 million acres in the next 10 years, and if
history proves, you know, any guide, we know that much of that
land is going to be taken from the West. And, again, I am not
going to ask a question. I would like to hit one other topic,
but just ask for your consideration of the disproportionate
effect that that has on western States.
One final question, if I could, Madam Secretary. And you
are aware in the 116th Congress we passed a great piece of
legislation named after someone that I think we both admire,
the John D. Dingell Conservation, Management, and Recreation
Act. To review what it does, it sets forth so you have an
expanded access of opportunities for hunting, recreational
shooting, fishing, the things that we enjoy who live in the
West.
Please share with us, if you would, how the President's
fiscal year 2022 budget demonstrates his commitment to this
bipartisan and important piece of legislation. How can we
assure that that legislation will be implemented in--it is
historic and, again, bipartisan, but it is no good unless it is
implemented. Could you share how that--your administration or
the President's administration will do that?
Secretary Haaland. Well, first of all, I will just say that
we are absolutely in support of outdoor recreation of that
nature. I am from New Mexico. I am from a Pueblo household. I
understand that, and we want to absolutely support it.
I would really love to just give Rachael Taylor an
opportunity to provide some details on this, if I may.
Ms. Taylor. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
And thank you so much for the question. I think the
importance of the legislation passed through the Dingell Act
and other major pieces of legislation, like the Great American
Outdoors Act, speak to the need of the Department to balance
multiple equities when it is allocating funds, and that
includes recreation access the Secretary mentioned, the respect
for hunting and angling, the importance of access for
backcountry, for all kinds of important work to be outside.
We are going to be looking at our land acquisition budget,
and the Secretary will be submitting that as part of the
President's budget request. That would include both Federal
land acquisition and grants for States. We are very excited to
be able to tell a bigger story when the President submits his
budget and expect to be back with you to fill in some of the
details very soon.
Thank you.
Mr. Stewart. All right. Ms. Taylor, thank you.
And my time has expired. But, Secretary, whether New
Mexico, Utah, Nevada, I mean, the western States, we have much
in common, much of the same concerns, we look forward to
working with you. And thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Stewart.
Mr. Harder, you are recognized for 5 minutes for your
questions.
Mr. Harder. Thank you, Chair, for holding this hearing.
And thank you to Secretary Haaland for attending it. I
can't tell you how much it warms my heart to see you sitting in
that chair. We miss you in the House, but I am so excited to
see your work in your new role.
I want to focus on the importance of water storage across
the western United States, especially in a year like this one
when we are dealing with a drought. The last 7 years are the
seven hottest years on record for California. Many of our
reservoirs are currently below historical averages due to a
lack of strong winter storms and below average snowpack at only
61 percent of the historical average in the Sierra Nevada
mountains.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 77 percent of
California, including Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties that
I represent, are experiencing severe drought where conditions
expect a fire season that is longer and more intense, increased
water and decreased river flows, impacting reservoir
capacities. The reality is drought is here. We no longer have
the option of preparing for it. We must address it. And in the
boom-and-bust cycle of water, the best way to prepare for the
dry years like this one is to store water in the wet years.
In my district, we have a particularly important water
project which was authorized in the WIND Act, the Del Puerto
Canyon Reservoir, as well as the conveyance project that is
also essential. It is my top priority in office to help advance
these desperately needed projects.
So, Secretary Haaland, I would love to hear from you, how
will your department's budget support investments in water
infrastructure especially in water storage in the western U.S.?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you so much, Congressman. And,
yes, this is an important issue for us too. And we recognize
that this drought year is like no other. There is just not
enough water to go--to go around. And so I appreciate that you
championed the science initiative on snowpack measurement to
better predict these water supplies. That is very important,
and I feel all of us need to work together and we are happy to
take your ideas and see how we can work with them.
It is going to take a lot of coordination. We are in close
touch with States, western States, regarding the drought and
water issues, and I would be so happy to provide details on
this issue at a later time on the record and certainly want to
continue to have conversations about your ideas and how we can
better prepare for months or years when we don't have enough
water.
Mr. Harder. Thank you.
While I understand the purpose of this hearing is to
discuss the fiscal year 2022 budget, I want to register my
strong interest in the Department's submission of storage
projects and the respective funding levels in wind. Do you have
a sense of how your recommendations differ from the previous
administration's, and when do you expect to submit those
recommendations?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you so much. As Rachael mentioned
earlier, the President's budget details are not quite out yet,
but they will be very soon. And as soon as they are out, you
will absolutely know about those. And we appreciate all of your
support on those issues.
I believe very strongly that President Biden is working in
his request to have an eye on the future while also keeping our
other eye on the fact that we have to do catch-up on a lot of
things. And not only that, climate change is wreaking havoc in
so many areas on wildlife habitats and everything imaginable.
So I look forward to submitting that full budget when the
time comes and know that the issues that you have mentioned
today are issues that we care about as well and look forward to
working with you as time goes on.
Mr. Harder. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for that.
I will just say in closing that I really look forward to
following up, to briefing you on two projects that are very
critical to my district, the Del Puerto Canyon project, as well
as the Patterson conveyance project. I think those will go a
long way towards helping us mitigate some of the drought
conditions that we are facing in California, and I look forward
to working with your office and hope that they are reflected in
the budget submissions.
Thank you so much for coming. It is so good to see you.
And with that, I yield back to Chair Pingree.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you for your questions, Mr. Harder.
I am going to recognize Mr. Amodei. And I see the full
committee chair has joined us, and we will go to Representative
DeLauro after Mr. Amodei.
So, Mr. Amodei, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Amodei. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Good to see you, Madam Secretary. Look forward to working
with you, and I--as we discussed yesterday, I have got some
areas that I want to kind of go through your liaison and talk
with you directly about that are kind of major jurisdictional
areas.
So I would kind of like to just say the first one I would--
my request is, is that we make the Bureau of Indian Affairs
realty operations a secretarial priority. And you say, well,
what are you saying? We have been working at it for a while to
cure the situation where members of Tribes are given property
and then it takes years--and I am not talking 2 or 3--for that
to grind through the BIA realty process so those people can
treat the property as their own.
For instance, if they want to build a house on that
property, to get a loan, they have to prove that they own it.
And that requires action from BIA's realty division.
I will just say that in preparation for this, our
experience has been that that is a subject which needs
secretarial authority so that Native American people who are
granted property through the appropriate processes actually get
the title, in some cases, you know, sooner than a decade and
beyond. So I will leave it at that for that.
Also, I want to follow up on my colleague from Nevada's
discussion about personnel, and that is it is kind of a ground-
level operations thing but, quite frankly, realty staffing at
BLM is something that needs some attention from your incoming
director in terms of just keeping existing slots filled so that
they can process in accordance with whatever the applicable
rules and regulations are, requests and those sort of actions,
which, quite frankly--and I know COVID's had an effect on that.
So I am, you know--but when the positions are empty and you
have a State, for instance, like Nevada, which is one of the
most urbanized States in the Nation, your Las Vegas district
office and your Carson City district office's realty sections
are kind of busy places to work.
And so when there are slots--and it is not like you just go
out and hire somebody. It takes a while to bring those people
on and train them. Anyhow, that needs--that is another area
that is in need of pretty constant--or it needs some attention
where it hasn't had it perhaps in the past. And that is not
your State directors' or your district managers' fault. I think
they need some more tools to do that, which also brings us to
my colleague, Congresswoman Lee's, comments.
The previous administration, when it comes to the Southern
Nevada Public Land Management Act, had a habit of sweeping the
SNPLMA accounts for purposes of budget submission. So Ms.
Taylor might want to take a note of this. It would sure be
nice, since it is against the current law to do so, if this
administration did not do what the last administration did,
which is at least on a budget submittal, in order to make the
budget balance, they swept the SNPLMA BLM Interior accounts for
purposes of balancing them.
Also, there has been much talk about abandoned mines, which
is a legitimate thing. I would hope that when that subject
comes to Nevada, that perhaps you take a scalpel instead of
something larger and might even use that as a model because,
quite frankly, we have got a very successful program in Nevada.
And so I would submit it ain't broke. It has been supported by
the industry, and the State is working well. So I would ask
that before we write a prescription for Nevada and public
lands, that we probably ought to take a close look at what the
patient really looks like in Nevada.
And then finally on the issue of fuels, everybody talks
about fuels, which they should, and even in Nevada where a lot
of people go, well, you know, you are a little short on trees
there, even the sagebrush steppe ecosystem is at least a 50-
year ecosystem which it takes to regenerate after it has been
burned.
So when we talk about endangered species and habitat loss
and stuff like that, it is no secret to anybody that it has
been a pretty tough neighborhood in the Great Basin in general
with wildfires lately. And so I think to concentrate on
restoration of those lands, because it is a long process, but
we need to start talking about how we put those lands back in
the inventory, if you will, and then that has an impact on what
we are doing for our ecosystems for endangered species.
All of these things are things that I appreciate your
gracious offer to take up with on--with you, not on committee
time, and so I will look forward to that. We will be reaching
out to you on those various topics to schedule those, and thank
you for your graciousness in the offer.
I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Amodei.
We will now recognize the full committee chair,
Representative DeLauro.
Chair DeLauro, thank you so much for joining us.
The Chair. Thank you. Thank you to you, Chair Pingree, and
to Ranking Member Joyce.
And what music to our ears. Madam Secretary Haaland, how
wonderful it is to welcome you to the Appropriations Committee.
And we are all so excited about your historic nomination, 54th
Secretary of the Interior, and really your passion on so many
issues--you know, honoring the commitment to Tribal nations,
looking at global climate change, resiliency to our country's
food system. What a pleasure it was to work with you in the
House, and I treasure that friendship and look forward to
continuing our work together in the administration.
I am going to try to get in two questions.
Your testimony talked about an additional $550 million
included for discretionary requests for tackling climate change
with our Nation's public lands. The Department manages 500
million acres, a fifth of our country's total lands. Given the
scale of that, I am particularly interested in how we can
better utilize the lands in the fight against climate change as
crucial carbon sinks.
In what ways is the Department working to increase the
ability of public lands to naturally sequester carbon from the
atmosphere?
And then my second question would be: Where is the greatest
need and in what ways can the Congress and the committee
provide the resources and investments necessary to support our
Tribal communities and help them rebuild from the pandemic?
Brookings Institution recently found that the COVID-19 age-
adjusted death rate among racial and ethnic groups was highest
for Native people.
So those are my questions.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And it
is wonderful to see you as well, even if it is virtually.
So, we know that we need to accelerate clean energy
deployment, and we are working on that with respect to
addressing climate impacts on public lands. And, if we have
healthy ecosystems, that is the best way to tackle so many of
these crises that we are dealing with, right? Habitat loss due
to the loss of species and drought issues and all of those
things.
So we feel very confident that, with a budget that can help
us to achieve those goals, we can absolutely unleash science in
our department and make sure that the career staff who are here
who have been trained to do that work have the opportunities to
just get out there and do everything that they need to.
I also appreciate your championing of Native-American
issues in everything that you do. I have always appreciated
that, and we are so grateful. You probably know that President
Biden is committed to Indian Country and, with respect to
COVID, wants to make sure that Tribes have what they need.
One of the big issues with this administration is ensuring
that broadband internet service is actually a reality for these
communities. I know you know there are still Tribal governments
who are still using dial-up because they don't have broadband.
Imagine that, if our government had to use dial-up in the work
that we do every day.
So, with broadband that gives Tribes opportunities to run
their governments effectively, for children in Tribal
communities to have opportunities for education--because we
know that they didn't have those opportunities during the
pandemic, in many cases. Imagine if rural Tribal communities
had opportunities for telehealth, what a difference that would
have made in the ways that they suffered through this pandemic.
I also am proud of that the President's priority for Indian
Country has helped Tribes across the country to lead in
vaccinations across their communities. And, as you know, the
President feels that when we are a healthy country again that
we will be able to address every other issue that is important
to us.
And so I appreciate your questions. And I would defer to
Rachael very quickly, she might have a few details to add. And
thank you very much, Madam Chair.
The Chair. Thank you.
Ms. Taylor. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
I think you hit the high points, but I would just like to
emphasize with respect to your question about carbon
sequestration, the Secretary mentioned that the investments
that we have in the budget request for science are top of mind
for the Department, and I would emphasize that we are very
focused on science-driven conservation.
So, when we talk about going into ecosystems and landscapes
and making sure we are doing the most effective work on the
ground, we need the science and the data collection and the
resources to back that up and make the best decisions. And so
we are very proud of the investments not just in conservation
but also in science put forward by the President.
Thank you.
The Chair. Thank you.
And my time has run out, and I am going to dash back to the
Labor-HHS Subcommittee, which I chair, but I want to again
welcome you, Madam Secretary.
And I am sorry to go over my time. And I want to say a
thank you to the chair of the Interior Committee, Congresswoman
Pingree, and Ranking Member Joyce.
Thank you very, very much, and look forward to working with
you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you for joining us, Chair DeLauro.
I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to Chair McCollum, who I
think is probably also in two or three other hearings at the
same time.
So thank you for joining us.
Ms. McCollum. Just one other one, but this is a very
important hearing, Madam Chair.
Secretary Haaland, you know, I am absolutely thrilled that
you are here with us today in your new role leading the
Department of the Interior. And I am so excited about the
opportunity of working with you in this new direction that
President Biden has moved us forward on, because we share these
priorities, including honoring our trust and treaty
responsibilities in Indian Country, the conservation of our
public lands and ecosystems, and the science-based approach to
addressing climate change.
And I was so pleased to see that President Biden proposed
an additional $200 million for climate science in the U.S.
Geological Survey. This is a dramatic change from the previous
administration, when I had to fight attempts to slash climate
change research, including the new Midwest Climate Adaptation
Science Center.
After years of delay, I am grateful to see the USGS is
finally accepting applications for that center, which will be
vital for our understanding so we can protect our region's, the
Great Lakes region's, freshwater and other resources that we
are facing during an ever-changing climate.
I am also looking forward to working with you closely to
better the fulfillment obligations of our Federal Government to
provide health, safety, and education and well-being for our
Native-American brothers and sisters. This is a profound
responsibility that our Nation has failed to meet. Your
leadership hails a new era of government-to-government
relationships with Tribal nations.
You have the hopes of all of Indian Country resting on your
shoulders, and I hope you know that you have nonpartisan allies
in this subcommittee who are shouldering that responsibility
alongside you and look forward to working with you.
In addition to increasing DOI's Tribal programs, I would
like to work with you on legislation that we will be
reintroducing with advance appropriations for the Bureau of
Indian Health Services, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the
Bureau of Indian Education. It is wonderful to see that the
President's budget will include a request for advance
appropriations for his, but I would like to know what more you
are going to be doing in your agency to prepare the same option
for BIA and BIE schools.
So you mentioned broadband. I think it would be helpful for
the committee to know, either now or later, if there are other
areas that this committee doesn't have direct responsibility
for but that are severely impacted in our ability to move
forward, like broadband, which is in other committees, so that
we can work with you to inform our colleagues of those
interconnections in order for Native-American programs to be
successful.
I want to take a second to just follow up with the
discussion I had with Cabinet Secretary Vilsack last week on
the protection of the priceless reserve of clean water which is
in our Nation's most visited wilderness area, the Boundary
Waters.
The Trump administration, as you are well aware, took
multiple actions that placed the watershed in the BCA area at
risk of pollution from toxic copper sulfide ore mining.
Secretary Vilsack confirmed to me that the USDA is working with
the Department of the Interior to review past administration
actions and consider next steps.
I know you cannot comment on that, but I didn't want this
opportunity to go forward without me bringing it up with you.
So, Madam Secretary, if you could, things that we can work
together on to build on the ability to take the success Indian
Country has shown in COVID when given the resources to improve
the health and well-being of its community and what we can do
more to support the future of our country, Native-American
children, attending our schools.
Thank you.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you so much, Vice Chair McCollum,
and thank you for always being a champion of Indian Country. I
am so grateful and was always proud to work with you on these
issues.
So the President, of course, understands this
responsibility. He understands the trust and treaty obligations
of the Federal Government and is working very hard to make
those a reality. Tribal consultation, as I mentioned earlier,
is going to be critical in moving forward to make sure we are
capturing what we need to do.
The President includes strides for the Indian Health
Service, and even though that is not under our purview, we feel
and he feels that the all-of-government approach is going to be
critical to moving Indian Country forward as well.
And I appreciate you for everything that you mentioned here
today. We are going to look at all those issues. We want to
work with you moving forward. We will take your ideas and be
happy to support the issues that we know will help Indian
Country. So thank you so much.
With respect to BIE schools, we are especially grateful for
the Great American Outdoors Act, for their part in helping to
make those schools viable places of learning for children
across the country. And happy to provide any details on any
issue that you would like moving forward.
So thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Miigwech.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Chair McCollum.
I see we have been joined by Chair Cartwright.
You may have 5 minutes to ask your questions.
Mr. Cartwright. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you, Secretary Haaland, for appearing before the
committee today. It is a pleasure to see you. We miss you in
the House.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you.
Mr. Cartwright. Look, from managing national parks,
reclaiming abandoned mines, working with Tribal communities,
and protecting endangered species, the Department of the
Interior impacts my constituents on a daily basis.
My district is home to the Delaware Water Gap National
Recreation Area, which last year saw over 4 million visitors,
last year alone, placing it among the top 10 most visited parks
in the country.
We are also home to over 300 of the thousands of abandoned
mines that desperately need remediation. President Biden--I am
so thankful for him highlighting this need in both his skinny
budget and the American Jobs Plan.
I recently reintroduced two bipartisan, bicameral
abandoned-mine-focused bills, one to extend the Abandoned Mine
Land Trust Fund for another 15 years and, second, the RECLAIM
Act, to accelerate the spending of the AML, abandoned mine
land, funds to reclaim abandoned mines faster and spur economic
development. There is no reason to wait. The need is there now,
and the money is there now.
These are bills that are soon to be marked up by the
Natural Resources Committee, a committee that I believe you are
somewhat familiar with, Madam Secretary. RECLAIM also passed
out of the full House last year, you will remember, as part of
a larger package, but was dropped in conference, unfortunately.
With crushing reclamation needs across the country and the
AML fee set to expire on September 1 of this year, passing
these bills and focusing on reclamation is an urgent priority.
And I am glad the President's budget reflects this reality.
These abandoned mines pose a serious risk to the health of
our constituents, to our environment. They impede economic
development. Parts of the Susquehanna and Lackawanna Rivers are
stained orange from the iron oxides in abandoned mine drainage.
The towns of Nanticoke, Swoyersville, and the area surrounding
Hazleton, Pennsylvania, have to deal with abandoned-mine issues
on a daily basis: coal refuse leaks; harmful chemicals like
arsenic, lead, and mercury that go into the surrounding land
and the surrounding water.
The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement
estimates it will cost at least $10 billion to reclaim the
remaining high-priority abandoned mines across the country.
As I discuss these issues, I also have to remember the
greatest champion I know for abandoned-mine issues, my friend,
Louise Dunlap, who passed away a few days ago. Louise was a
pioneering environmental advocate, a good friend, and an
inspiring force for everybody who knew her and worked with her.
My team and I are deeply saddened by her passing this week.
She continued engaging with us and building support for our
legislation up until her final days, fighting for this cause as
she fought for her life. She will be deeply missed, not only as
an advocate but as a friend as well.
Madam Secretary, my question is: What are the long-term
impacts on the ability of the Office of Surface Mining
Reclamation and Enforcement to address the huge demand for
reclamation projects if SMCRA, S-M-C-R-A, and the AML Trust
Fund are allowed to expire?
Would it even be possible to remediate all of the Priority
1 sites, defined as protection of public health, safety, and
property from extreme danger of adverse effects of coal mining,
if AML is not reauthorized?
What is going to happen, Madam Secretary, if you don't do
these things?
Secretary Haaland. Congressman, thank you so much for the
question.
Let me first offer my condolences for the loss of your dear
friend and champion. I am sorry for that loss.
Building capacity is job one for us. And, of course, I have
mentioned this before, that extending the AML program is a
priority for me, it is a priority for the President, and along
with the funding in the budget and the American Jobs Plan.
So I thank you so much for your leadership on the abandoned
mine lands issue. Your constituents deserve to have clean
water, clean land, clean air. We all deserve that.
And so I really feel like we can support each other on this
issue and hopefully see a brighter future and not one where we
are struggling to get by. So I am happy to talk with you more
about this and do whatever we can to help with you on the
funding and the reauthorization.
Mr. Cartwright. Well, thank you, Madam Secretary. It is a
comfort to have a Cabinet official of your expertise weigh in
on these questions. And I appreciate the budget's reflection of
abandoned mine lands.
I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Chair Cartwright.
I am pleased to see Chair Kaptur and happy to recognize you
for 5 minutes for your questions.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I apologize to you,
members, and the witnesses. We had a concurrent Defense hearing
this morning which I had to attend.
And I want to say to Secretary Haaland, we are just so
proud of you. I almost forget my questions just because I am
just so thrilled to see you in your position.
Obviously, I come from a part of the country where we have
a lot of freshwater in the Great Lakes and, for many years,
have had a bill called ``America's First Frontier, the
Northwest Territory.'' I would like to send the Secretary
information on that. The Cuyahoga River at the eastern end of
my district used to be the boundary of the western United
States, but, as the Nation expanded after the original
colonies, there is not much interpretation for the next rung of
settlement.
So, for example, when we commemorated the War of 1812 and
what is called the Battle of Lake Erie, I had to fight like the
dickens to try to get Native Americans included in the program.
The Department of the Interior told me that it really wasn't
proper because we had no Tribal lands in Ohio. But I said, I
represent Lake Erie, I represent Cuyahoga County, I represent
Ottawa County, I have the Maumee River, we have Seneca County.
There is a history here that is untold.
And so my first question really--and we have pow wows in
our region that thousands of people come to. And the Tribes
were pushed west. Well, that is a part of our history. Why
can't we commemorate that?
And I just want to present that to you as a challenge I
have had in my own career, and would very much appreciate the
help of the Department of the Interior in reviewing my bill,
America's First Frontier, and trying to enhance departmental
interpretation across our region, starting at the Cuyahoga
Valley National Recreation Area, one of the most visited parks
in the country, one of the top 10, but then extending across
the coast and way over to Minnesota, all of the States that
were a part of the Northwest Territory.
So I don't expect you to say, Madam Secretary, that, you
know, you will absolutely do it, but I would just tell you, the
difficulty in getting the Park Service to work with the Federal
wildlife refuges that exist across our fresh lakes system is
really hard, and I think that there is the opportunity for
enhanced interpretation there.
So that is one issue.
The second issue I wanted to bring up: With the Civilian
Conservation Corps, or the Climate Corps, I am struggling
because I represent heavily urbanized communities. And I am
worried that the CCC, whatever it is, will focus and bring
volunteers from rural areas and that whatever they will do will
be important in planting trees and so forth and retrofitting
relative to climate change but that the people that live in the
cities won't be encouraged to become members and that, if they
do, they will be shipped out to Denali and they won't work in
areas like ours, where, just in Ohio and Michigan, we have to
replant 20 million trees because of the emerald ash borer and
the Asian long-horned beetle and the destruction of our cover.
Cleveland, Ohio, used to be known as the forest city. It is
no more because we have high asthma rates, we have issues all
along the lakes related to urbanization and neglect and
poverty.
And so I just wanted to say that I would hope that perhaps
in your work you and Secretary Fudge over at HUD and Secretary
Granholm might have a good cup of coffee together someday and
think about what all this means for regions like I represent.
Again, you don't have to comment. I will send you a note on
that.
And just wanted to tell you that at a place called the
Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge and the Cedar Point National
Refuge we have had historic visitation levels, 360,000
visitors. And this is really exciting for us. When I was first
elected, we had about 4,000 acres that were Federal wildlife
refuge; we now have over 10,000. And birding has become a major
tourist draw across our region. We are so proud of that. On
Mother's Day, people come from all over the world.
And I would love to meet with you at some point and some of
your staff to think about regions like this and how we can
enhance environmental tourism for economic growth.
So those are issues I wish to bring to the table and will
send you more. And if you wish to comment, I just have a few
minutes left in my time. But thank you so much.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, Congresswoman. And everything
you mentioned I care about, so thank you so much.
I am happy to work with you and take a look at your
legislation for America's First Frontier, and thank you for
thinking of that. Yes, there were people here on this continent
before our country was the United States. So thank you for
recognizing that and feeling that it is important enough to
create legislation over.
Just quickly, the Civilian Climate Corps, it is important
everywhere, every single----
Ms. Kaptur. Yes.
Secretary Haaland [continuing]. Place in our country, and
absolutely includes urban and suburban areas. That is where we
need more trees. That is where we need to pay attention to
parks and make sure that kids have places to go where they can
recreate.
So I am happy to just be in touch with you. Feel free. We
will reach out to you, you can reach out to us, and we are more
than happy to continue this conversation. And I thank you so
much.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Chair Kaptur, for joining us today
and for your great questions.
We have completed one round of questions, and we are going
to go for two. I don't know how many members will be able to
participate, but thank you, Madam Secretary, for sticking with
us here.
I will recognize myself for the first 5 minutes.
I want to just bring up again something that has actually
been discussed a little bit, but I am just so pleased to have
both of you there, and if you want to weigh in on this any
more--and this is really about this war on science.
Having been on this committee for the last 4 years, I can't
really describe it in any other way except a certain level of
disdain and discrediting of science. We have seen it in our
budget requests in the past 4 years--reductions in science
funding, elimination of significant climate change and
conservation science programs.
So we are so pleased to see the President's budget
proposing over $4 billion across multiple agencies, including
the Department of the Interior, and specifically the support
for science at the USGS and other bureaus by investing another
$200 million to obtain information about the impacts of climate
change and how best to implement mitigation, adaptation, and
resilience efforts.
I know, as I said, this came up earlier, and I think Deputy
Assistant Taylor talked about it a little bit. But can you
elaborate any more--or should we wait until we have the full
budget--about how you will allocate this additional funding,
for what purposes you will use it, and also the steps you see
yourself taking to elevate science and its importance as a
foundational way to inform our decisions going forward?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you. I am going to ask Rachael to
provide some details as well.
But what I will say is I had a meeting with some folks from
the USGS the other day, and we just talked about unleashing
science, right? Unleash science. That is what the scientists
are here to do. And we have to give them the opportunity to put
all of their experience, knowledge, and passion into this
moment in our country, when we have an opportunity to do so
much. And we need that, because we know with climate change
that we are on a precipice, and it is going to take all of us
to work together to pull us back from that.
So I would really love to give Rachael an opportunity to
provide a few details. And, of course, this is not our last
conversation. I want to speak with you more and more about
this. And I appreciate your passion about this, Chairwoman.
Rachael.
Ms. Taylor. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
And thank you so much, Madam Chair, for the question.
As we said earlier, I think the details for the budget,
when it is released, will promote a more detailed conversation.
But, I think investing in the scientific capacity at the
agency, which the subcommittee has also championed, is a huge
priority of this budget.
And you can imagine that to get into the effective climate
change policies that the Department will need to do, we are
going to have to have better tools at our disposal. And that is
going to include modeling. That is going to include satellite
technology. That is going to include things like better
hydrology information. We have to have stream gauges. We are
going to have to have different tools to model potential future
impacts of climate science.
So exactly how the funds will be allocated, we will be more
than happy to follow up with the subcommittee once the budget
is out. But, as I said earlier I think we feel really good
already at the story that the President's budget is telling on
the importance of science in land management responsibilities.
Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Yeah. Thank you both for that. And I just
can't say how excited I am to be able to discuss science again,
to look at actual data, and the importance of retrieving the
data that has been lost, continuing to preserve important
information, because we just can't make good decisions without
adequate science.
I only have a minute, but just quickly, on the National
Park System, we are so excited about the Great American
Outdoors Act. We had an opportunity to talk to the Chief of the
Forest Service, and she talked to us about some of the positive
impacts.
And for all of us who have parks in our home States,
deferred maintenance is really a significant issue, but there
are a lot of critically important projects that don't fit under
the deferred maintenance umbrella, and I think some of those
may be possible under the American Jobs Plan.
So do you want to just quickly touch on where you see the
opportunities there to put our important national parks whole
again, make them whole again?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, Chairwoman.
And, once again, I am going to thank the committee so much
for enacting the Great American Outdoors Act. It was something
I was, of course, proud to support when I was there. And we
need that, absolutely, to reduce our deferred maintenance
backlog.
So what is not covered, essentially? Deferred maintenance
in bureaus outside the scope of the Great American Outdoors
Act, including the BIA and USGS. And we have heard where those
shortfalls are now, and we will work to move those forward. And
basically projects that don't primarily address deferred
maintenance. It leaves out infrastructures associated with
relatively new designated areas.
So that leaves a lot of space for us to move those other
funds into creating the best possible public lands that we can
have.
Ms. Pingree. Great. Well, thank you. We are going to look
forward to working with you on that.
My time is long overdue, and I will recognize Ranking
Member Joyce for his 5 minutes.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Secretary Haaland, as I mentioned earlier, I see my dear
friend Marcy Kaptur has joined the hearing. The Great Lakes are
especially vital to both of our districts, and we have fought
together to protect them for a long time.
The Lakes are the largest freshwater system in the world,
providing drinking water for 48 million people and generating
more than 1.5 million jobs and $60 billion in wages annually.
Given the environmental and economic importance of the Great
Lakes, I have made it, and together we have made it, a top
priority to fight for their protection in Congress.
That is why I was pleased to see the administration's
infrastructure plan recognizes the need to invest in the
protection and restoration of major water resources like the
Great Lakes and the continuing work to prevent the spread of
invasive carp, harmful algal blooms and why it is important to
the long-term health and economic vitality of the Great Lakes
ecosystem.
Does the fiscal year 2022 budget request support ongoing
Great Lakes restoration projects that your bureaus, including
Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey, are
carrying out in partnership with EPA through the Great Lakes
Restoration Initiative?
Secretary Haaland. Yes. The Great Lakes remain an extremely
important issue to all of us here at the Department, and we are
really happy to make sure that we are continuing our
conversations about this issue.
Yes, invasive carp is an issue. We appreciate the
partnership and really want to make sure that we continue
conversations. When the budget actually comes out, we will
contact you. We can talk about more details then. But,
absolutely, we will want to include your priorities for this
area.
Thank you.
Mr. Joyce. Well, thank you. I am the nice guy. You do not
want to incur the wrath of my friend Marcy Kaptur, because she
will make sure you understand the priority.
Madam Secretary, as I mentioned in my opening, market-
driven development of energy and mineral resources on Federal
lands and waters remains essential to our Nation's security,
our economy, and a smooth transition to a clean-energy future.
I am deeply concerned that the President's so-called
``pause'' on new oil and natural gas leases on public lands and
waters may be the first step of a larger strategy to price
domestic fossil energy out of the market and force Americans to
pay more for less reliable, less secure, and less clean sources
of energy. And I know my colleague Ms. McCollum had brought up
the interest that she had in a project in her State.
I want to know if, as you review these, whether you are
going to do so in an open and transparent way, so we can have
buy-in from everyone and get input.
And could you update us on the Department's comprehensive
review and reconsideration of oil and gas permitting and
leasing and what changes you are looking at and why and the
transparency that will be used through that process?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, Ranking Member.
And, of course, energy independence is absolutely
important. It is a priority of the President. As you know, the
leasing pause only paused new leases. Existing leases were not
paused at all. And, in fact, permitting continues right now in
this department, so our department is signing off on permits
regularly. So I want you to know that that industry continues
to roll.
The energy review is still ongoing, and we have been taking
input from diverse stakeholders. We will continue to take input
from diverse stakeholders. In fact, we would be happy to sit
down with you and talk more about this, if you would like. But,
you know, we had a gas and oil forum last month. We are
reaching out to various States and communities across the
country to make sure that we are capturing everyone's input
into this important issue.
We want to make sure that the review is complete. We want
to make sure that it is done correctly. And just know that we
know and believe that the fossil fuel industry will continue
for years to come. It is not going to get shut off like a
faucet.
So we thank you for bringing this up and, of course, I
always welcome your input into this important issue.
Mr. Joyce. Well, thank you very much.
And, as you can see, once again, Madam Chair, I am right
there at my 5-minute timeline for you, so I can't give you any
time back. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. It is truly brilliant how you are able to do
that down to the last second. I don't know that any of us could
achieve that as well as you do.
I am pleased to recognize Representative Kilmer for 5
minutes.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And, Madam Secretary, I wanted to start where I ended in
the first round, which was discussing some of the Tribes around
the country but certainly in my region that are in the process
of trying to move to higher ground because of persistent
challenges related to climate change.
And, to some degree, I guess I want to use my time to ask
for your partnership. I am hoping that something can be done in
a more comprehensive way for Tribes in these circumstances.
Because right now it is nearly impossible for Tribes to piece
together the resources to fund everything from water systems to
fire halls, to new housing, to--you name it.
And to the credit of this subcommittee, you know, I was
very grateful that Chair McCollum and Ranking Member Joyce
visited our region. We heard from one of the leaders of the
Quinault Indian Nation, who said, you know, when I was a kid,
the ocean was a football field's length away from our village,
and now it is our front porch, and every time we have a severe
storm, you know, our community is below sea level, and it just
fills up like a bowl.
Now, we heard from a leader from the Hoh Tribe, who said
they were able to build a new fire hall. And former Chair
McCollum asked what resources were made available and did the
Federal Government help. And they said, well, we don't have
water yet at the fire hall, but the Federal Government helped
provide body bags. And it just strikes me, we need to do better
than that.
And I would love to get a sense from you of: One, I would
just obviously appreciate your partnership; two, I would
gleefully invite you out to the region to see for yourself some
of these challenges; and, three, would just love a sense from
you of, you know, whether a roadmap can be provided to these
communities that desperately need the Federal Government to
step up to its obligations in a way that it hasn't so far.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, Congressman. And, of course,
the minute I can get out to see you, I would love to come and
would consider it an honor to meet with the Tribes in your
State, in your district.
And my goodness, thank you for raising those issues. Indian
Country is a priority for us; it is a priority for the
President. I just want you to know that I feel like it is a new
era. This administration has committed to that partnership with
Tribes and committed to living up to our trust and treaty
obligations. And I feel very confident about the team I am on
right here at the Department. Everybody here is committed to
that charge.
And I just know that, with your partnership and that of
this subcommittee, the full committee, and so many dedicated
Members of Congress right there, Indian issues were always
bipartisan because everybody always rallied around to do the
right thing. And so we will continue to just make sure that we
are all working together. You have my commitment for that.
And I am not sure if Rachael would like to add any details.
Ms. Taylor. I think you addressed the situation well.
I mean, I appreciate the question from the Congressman. I
mean, there is no doubt that Tribes are being impacted by the
effects of climate change in addition to other capacity issues.
And I think, to the Secretary's point, this administration
is totally committed to looking at all programs, and so that
would include building capacity more generally as well as
addressing the climate crisis. And so I think when you see our
budget request we will be able to have a more fulsome
discussion.
But we are looking forward and all committed, to a person,
at the Department. Thank you.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you.
I am pleased to recognize Mr. Simpson for 5 minutes if he
has a question.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman.
I just had to leave for a second from the hearing because
we were doing a press conference on a bill that Senator Bennet
and Representative Crow and I just introduced called the
Outdoor Restoration Partnership Act, which will help restore
some of our forest lands and other lands that have been
destroyed by wildfires and, I think, would help the Department
of the Interior greatly in this.
But I hope that the Secretary would take a look at this. It
was just being introduced, and, as I said, we just had a press
conference on it.
But, as has been mentioned by both you, Secretary, and
others, the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act was signed
into law last year, and with it came resources to address our
public land maintenance backlog as well as permanent funding
for the LWCF.
Can you give us an update on the rollout of the Great
American Outdoors Act and what we can expect to see and how the
projects funded by the LWCF and other things will be rolled out
so that we can see exactly what we are funding now with the
Great American Outdoors Act?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you so much. And I will continue
to thank you all so much for making sure that we have those
resources at hand to do the work we need.
I would love to just pivot to Rachael, because she has all
the details in front of her. And, of course, many more
conversations to be had, and always welcome your input,
Congressman.
Rachael.
Ms. Taylor. Thank you so much for the question.
The Department is fully committed to implementing the act
and working with Congress to make sure that it is done the
right way, that it is done effectively, and that we are making
the progress that the investments demand, because this was a
huge trust placed in the Department and the Forest Service to
do this work.
With respect to the fiscal year 2021 projects, the ones
that were articulated in the Interior bill last year, the
projects are moving forward. There is a full list of both the
deferred maintenance projects and the Land and Water
Conservation Fund projects available on the Department's
website. And we are committed to transparency and to providing
Congress with regular updates on the progress that we are
making.
With respect to the fiscal year 2022 budget, we would
expect that the full budget request, when it is delivered by
the President, would include the detailed information on
projects and where they will be. And then, at that point, we
are happy to engage the subcommittee and have further
discussions on how the bill will be implemented as part of the
fiscal year 2022 appropriations process.
Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Well, thank you. I appreciate that response.
As you know, a lot of people look at the Great American
Outdoors Act as just funding the LWCF on a permanent basis and
full funding for it. But one of the really important aspects of
it, to me, was addressing the backlog of maintenance that we
have in our national parks.
Everybody knows, that has been to our national parks, knows
that we love them to death. And they are really facing some
backlog of maintenance in these national parks, and we need to
do a better job.
As this pandemic has hit, more and more people are
discovering America, where they are not traveling abroad and so
forth, and I think you are going to see vast increases in the
numbers that go to our national parks. As I understand it, RVs
are the number-one-selling item in terms of vehicles and stuff,
because people have decided that they want to see America
again. And that is going to put pressure on our national parks
and other public lands, and we need to make sure that we can
address this backlog of maintenance.
So I appreciate the work you are doing on that. I look
forward to working with you on it, as we see how this is going
to be implemented. Because it was passed with a great deal of
hope, and I think it is our job to make sure that we fulfill
those hopes.
Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Simpson.
Mr. Cartwright, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cartwright. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And, Madam Secretary, I do have some more questions for
you.
We were talking about abandoned land mines before. And we
are incredibly excited in Pennsylvania that both your budget
and the American Jobs Plan propose significant increases in
funding for AML projects. And we want to get to work right
away.
So the first question I have in this round is, what support
will you give to the States to ensure that they have the
administrative resources to get this money allocated quickly
and efficiently?
Secretary Haaland. Well, of course we are always happy to
work with the States. And we will just do whatever it takes,
Congressman. I will be honest with you, if you--and we would
love to meet with you more on this issue--if you have ideas, if
there is something that is important to you, we would like to
hear about it.
Mr. Cartwright. Secretary Haaland, this is Matt Cartwright
here, and I know how to take ``yes'' for an answer.
Next question is: How will your Department balance the
allocation of these funds and resources between certified and
uncertified States and Tribes? And how will you balance
environmental remediation and economic development?
Secretary Haaland. Congressman, if it is okay, I would love
to take this question and answer it in detail for the record.
We would be happy to do that. And if that is all right with
you, that is what we will do.
Mr. Cartwright. Perfect.
I want to bounce over to national parks. We touched on that
earlier.
Over the past year, citizens in my district and those in
surrounding communities have flocked to the Delaware Water Gap,
very much along the lines that Mr. Simpson was just talking
about. People want to get out, they want to see the country.
And they have gone to the Delaware Water Gap more than ever,
more than usual, with nearly a million more visitors in 2020
than in 2019, largely due to COVID restrictions for other
activities.
So, as you know, for over a decade, there has been
consistently a roughly $12 billion repair backlog at our
national parks. Now, much of this backlog is tied to aging
infrastructure, as many of the buildings, roads, and bridges
were built in the 1930s and the 1950s and the 1960s, and
obviously they now need repair and renovation.
The Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area alone faces
$63 million in deferred maintenance costs. The implementation
of the Great American Outdoors Act, which Mr. Simpson was
talking about, will help provide funding to start addressing
many of these maintenance and repair concerns. But the Delaware
Water Gap, the past month, has already shown some improvement,
with the new Watergate Wetlands Restoration Project and a
bridge and culvert repair project on U.S. Route 209.
Question is: How is the Department beginning to put the
Great American Outdoors Act into action to address this
backlog? And how are they leveraging other agencies and other
funding streams to aid in overcoming what is really a
mountainous backlog?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you. That is a definitely good way
to describe it, a mountainous backlog.
And, I mean, yes, we are working hard to have a list of
priorities for this issue. And it sounds like the Delaware
Water Gap is definitely a priority for you.
We know that the Great American Outdoors Act covers a
really large portion of backlog, but, of course, we still need
strong regular maintenance budgets to make sure that we can
take care of it all. And, actually, if we were able to prevent
some things, that helps it from turning into a backlog issue.
So we are working on this. You know, there are tools we are
using to gauge the projects and whether they should fall into a
list of priorities. And I'm certainly willing and happy to
speak with you further on the priorities that you have.
We know that these backlog issues are important, especially
in light of the fact that more people are visiting our open
spaces.
Mr. Cartwright. Terrific. Thank you, Secretary.
Last question: What preventive measures is the National
Park Service taking to prevent a growing backlog developing in
the future and, you know, nip it in the bud and get to the root
causes of the backlog?
Secretary Haaland. Of course. And this hearing today is
actually one of the best tools that we have to nip some of
those things in the bud. That is making sure that we have a
very strong budget to address the issues ongoing.
Mr. Cartwright. Well, I thank you, Secretary Haaland.
And I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Cartwright.
I don't see Mr. Amodei, so I will yield to Ms. Kaptur,
Chair Kaptur, for 5 minutes for her questions.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I just wanted to go back again, and I will follow up with a
letter urging the Secretary to think about the CCC and which
instrumentalities will be used to link to our urban
communities.
I think there is an opportunity to do phenomenal work with
the urban park systems, our metro park systems, even engaging
some of our National Guard transport companies--because they
have trucks and they can haul dirt and they can haul stone,
they can do a lot of things--establishing relationships across
government to make the CCC work in urban areas, particularly
those that are noted for having high incidences of poverty.
And, in those neighborhoods, I can guarantee you the tree
cover is quite limited. And we have to pay attention,
partnering with many of our urban healthcare systems. They are
very, very worried about pulmonary issues. And I think whether
you are talking Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Toledo, we have
quite a few communities in the Great Lakes that could use that
kind of cross-government partnership.
I know President Obama tried that during his career, and in
some cases it worked, in some cases it didn't. But I think with
the Department of the Interior we have a real opportunity.
And I wanted to thank Congresswoman Joyce, someone I have
such great respect for, the work that we do together on the
Great Lakes. We should have named them the Great Seas, because
if you emptied out Lake Superior, it would cover both North and
South America 1 foot high. Most of our membership does not
understand how vast the Great Lakes really are and many of the
enormous challenges we face there right now.
So I would just say to the Secretary, I will reiterate my
plea for greater cooperation between the National Park Service
and the Fish and Wildlife Service and working with us across
the Great Lakes to have an interpretation that is worthy of
their history. That does not exist within the Park Service now,
nor within, obviously, the Fish and Wildlife Service. They are
a little bit of a different--but, in our region, it is what we
have. So we have to use what we have.
I think I represent the second-smallest national park, at
Perry's Victory Memorial. And so we don't have a huge park
system that attends to Lake Erie, but we do have the Cuyahoga
Valley National Recreational Area, which is our anchor.
So I just wanted to point out that, sort of, the Great
Lakes got shortchanged in the past by the Department of the
Interior, and we can do so much better. And I know with
Congressman Joyce in position as the ranking member, working
together, we can figure this out.
Finally, I wanted to just mention the World War II
Memorial. I worked for 16 years from the original introduction
to its construction. And we are now minting coins. We have a
coin bill to raise additional money, working with the Friends
of the World War II Memorial.
But the part of the memorial that remains incomplete, we
want it to explain the ``why'' of the war. And I was very
afraid to turn the memorial from the American Battle Monuments
Commission over to the Department of the Interior, because I
didn't see the Department of the Interior as having, kind of,
historical underpinning that was necessary.
If one looks at the memorial at Normandy in France that was
built by our country, we can bring some of those collections
back, virtually and even onsite. And, again, this is a long
conversation, but I really think the--it is the second most
popular memorial in the country. And so we could do a lot to
teach the younger generation that doesn't even know that World
War II occurred, and what the transatlantic alliance is, and
the sacrifices that were made for us to be able to have a free
Nation ourselves, despite all of our challenges.
But I think the World War II Memorial site could do a
little bit better job on historical interpretation of why we
fought that war and the sacrifices attendant to it. Because
people do leave the site, and if they don't really understand
what it was about--they like the beauty of it, but they don't
understand the history. And for future generations, I think it
is really an imperative that we do that.
I hope I haven't run over my time, Madam Chair. I don't see
the clock on my screen here.
So I don't know if the Secretary, you want to comment on
any of those points, but I look forward to, again, sending a
letter and kind of going through some of this so it is
completely clear.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, Congresswoman. And we will
welcome your letter and any future conversations.
I just want you to know that we are working on a report
right now to the President on the Civilian Climate Corps
regarding that issue and the program that we want to start. And
we are looking at leveraging many existing programs. And I know
there are a lot of organizations that will want to help out
with this.
And, also, you might know that President Biden has made
environmental justice a hallmark of his administration. That
means that we want to include underrepresented communities,
poor communities, neighborhoods that haven't had opportunities
to get out and be a part of something like the Civilian Climate
Corps. So we are going to do everything we can to engage those
communities every step of the way.
And so thank you so much for caring about all of these
issues, for your thoughtfulness. And we really do look forward
to continuing our conversations with you.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
Thank you very much.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Chair Kaptur.
I feel confident, between your involvement in the committee
and Ranking Member Joyce, we will be reminded of the importance
of the Great Lakes. And I do think it is very important that
you continue to do that for us, because those of us who
represent ocean coastal districts often forget about the vast
presence of the Great Lakes and the significant role that they
play. So thank you for that.
Thank you so much, Secretary Haaland and Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary Taylor. It has really been a pleasure to
have you before our committee today. We appreciate your
testimony, your answers to our questions. We look forward to
partnering with you with the full budget and the many
challenges that we have before us, but we know we are going to
work with a great team at Interior.
And, assuming there are no additional questions, the
hearing is now adjourned. Thank you.
[Answers to submitted questions follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Wednesday, April 21, 2021.
FISCAL YEAR 2022 BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WITNESSES
MICHAEL REGAN, ADMINISTRATOR, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
DAVID BLOOM, DEPUTY CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY
Ms. Pingree. Good morning. This hearing will now come to
order.
As the hearing is fully virtual, we must address a few
housekeeping matters.
For today's meeting, the chair or staff designated by the
chair may mute participants' microphones when they are not
under recognition for the purposes of eliminating inadvertent
background noise.
Members are responsible for muting and unmuting themselves.
If you notice you have not unmuted yourself, I will ask you if
you would like the staff to unmute you. If you indicate
approval by nodding, staff will unmute your microphone.
I remind all members and witnesses that the 5-minute clock
still applies. If there is a technology issue, we will move to
the next member until the issue is resolved and you will retain
the balance of your time.
You will notice a clock on your screen that will show how
much time is remaining. At 1 minute remaining, the clock will
turn to yellow. At 30 seconds remaining, I will gently tap the
gavel to remind members that their time is almost expired. When
your time is expired, the clock will turn red and I will begin
to recognize the other member.
In terms of speaking order, we will follow the order set
forth in House rules, beginning with the chair and ranking
member, then members present at the time of the hearing is
called to order will be recognized in order of seniority, and
finally members not present at the time of the hearing is
called to order.
Finally, House rules require me to remind you that we have
set up an email address to which members can send anything they
wish to submit in writing at any of our hearings or markups.
That email address has been provided in advance to your staff.
Okay. That is the end of the housekeeping rules. So now I
will begin the hearing.
Today, the Interior-Environment Subcommittee will examine
the President's fiscal year 2022 budget request for the
Environmental Protection Agency. Joining us this morning is
Administrator Regan. With him is Deputy Chief Financial Officer
David Bloom. I believe this is Administrator Regan's first
appearance before the House of Representatives since being
confirmed in March.
Welcome and congratulations, Mr. Administrator, and welcome
back, Mr. Bloom.
Earlier this month, the President outlined some of his
priorities for the EPA. In fiscal year 2022, the President is
requesting $11.2 billion for the EPA, a $2 billion increase
over the enacted level.
Some of the highlights that we expect to see when we
receive the Agency's detailed budget request later this spring
include increasing core operating programs by $110 million to
rebuild the Agency's capacity to carry out its mission to
protect public health and the environment; tackling the climate
crisis head on with the urgency that this existential threat
requires; placing values like equity and equal access to
justice for all at the heart of the Agency's policy agenda; and
recognizing that advancing economic prosperity and
environmental protection are not contradictory objectives but,
in fact, are two sides of the same coin.
From my perspective, compared to what we have seen these
past several years, this is a breath of fresh air. After 4
painful years, we will once again have senior leaders at the
Environmental Protection Agency who see environmental
protection as part of the Agency's job. We will have new
leaders who view scientific data as a tool to guide
decisionmaking, not as an obstacle to be overcome in pursuit of
an ideological agenda, and will use the authority of the
Federal Government to serve the public interest, rather than as
a means to funnel benefits to political allies or to intimidate
critics and opponents.
I would like to commend the Administrator for the actions
he has already taken in restoring scientific integrity to the
Agency's processes, his commitments to act transparently and
fairly with all stakeholders, and his efforts to reset the
Agency's relationship with this subcommittee.
The budget request, combined with the investments proposed
in the American Jobs Plan, position us well to address the
numerous environmental and public health challenges we
currently face. They are a welcome indication of the work this
administration is planning on getting done. I look forward to
working closely with the Administrator and President Biden in
achieving our shared vision for a safer, more prosperous, and
more just Nation.
I would now like to yield to the ranking member of the
subcommittee, Mr. Joyce, for any opening remarks he would like
to make.
Mr. Joyce, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Joyce. Good morning, and thank you for yielding, Chair
Pingree. I appreciate you holding this important hearing on the
administration's fiscal year 2022 budget request for the
Environmental Protection Agency.
I would also like to take a moment to welcome our
witnesses, EPA Administrator Michael Regan and Deputy Chief
Financial Officer David Bloom.
Thank you both for joining us this morning. I hope our next
meeting together can be in person.
Administrator Regan, welcome to your first hearing before
the Interior Subcommittee, and congratulations on your historic
confirmation to serve as the 16th Administrator of the EPA. No
doubt you have a tough job ahead, but given your deep
understanding of EPA's programs and extensive experience in
North Carolina, I expect you are up for the challenge and will
serve the Agency well.
My colleagues and I look forward to working with you over
the coming months to move forward a budget that provides EPA
with the necessary resources to continue fulfilling its mission
to protect human health and the environment. Our collaborative
work starts today as we begin to discuss the Agency's initial
funding priorities and goals for the year ahead.
In a recent speech you noted that, ``every one of us has a
stake in the health of our environment, the strength of our
economy, the well-being of our communities, and the legacy we
leave to the next generation.'' Administrator, I couldn't agree
more.
That is why I take this committee's role seriously. As
appropriators, it is critical that we work together to examine
the programs under our jurisdiction to ensure taxpayer dollars
are spent most effectively to benefit our environment and the
American people. I am proud of the key investments we have made
on a bipartisan basis to help improve our air, clean our water,
revitalize our land, and support a strong economy.
Unfortunately, though, based on the scale of the increases
included in the administration's initial fiscal year 2022
request, I have some concerns about the debt we may leave to
the next generation. The fiscal year 2022 request proposes over
$1.5 trillion in discretionary spending, in addition to the
$1.9 trillion COVID relief package and the $2.3 trillion
infrastructure proposal.
For EPA, the request asks for an additional $2 billion, a
21.3 percent increase above the fiscal year 2021 bipartisan
agreement.
Spending at this rate is unsustainable and unaffordable. As
we continue to restore our way of life and reignite our economy
following the pandemic, the Federal Government must be cautious
to live within its means so that we don't saddle future
generations with unnecessary economic burdens.
Administrator Regan, I was pleased to see that the request
prioritizes funding to improve our Nation's aging water
infrastructure and to counter current and potential sources of
water contamination. And the budget request invests in the
Superfund and Brownfields programs to accelerate the cleanup of
our Nation's lands to protect public health and return sites to
beneficial use.
I look forward to working with the Chair to move a bill
within reasonable spending limits that supports these programs,
along with other EPA programs that communities, States, and
Tribes rely on to mitigate environmental threats, bolster their
recycling programs, protect their citizens, and meet Federal
mandates.
Given the programmatic details of the request are still
limited, I am sure we will spend a good bit of today discussing
the Agency's policy initiatives, regulatory agenda, and
staffing plans.
I was supportive of the prior administration's commonsense
reforms and efficiencies developed to reduce regulatory
burdens, promote American businesses, and support an all-of-
the-above energy strategy.
I hope, on the heels of the pandemic, this administration
thinks twice about undermining these efforts, which helped
protect American jobs, reduce energy costs, and spur economic
growth.
Finally, it comes as no surprise, but I am interested in
discussing the administration's plans for the Great Lakes. The
lakes are one of the country's greatest natural resources and
economic powerhouses, and that is why I have made it a top
priority in Congress to fight for their continued restoration
and protection.
The Great Lakes provides more than 1.5 million jobs,
supplies 90 percent of the Nation's fresh surface water,
supports over 3,500 species of plants and animals, and
generates over $60 billion in wages annually.
I am very proud of the bipartisan work we have done on this
subcommittee, especially under the leadership of the former
chair, Ms. McCollum, to provide sustained, robust funding for
the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
The GLRI is critical to bringing together all the Great
Lakes stakeholders to mitigate the impacts that human activity
has had on the lakes and to address threats like invasive
species, harmful algal blooms, and shoreline erosion.
Administrator Regan, I am hopeful that the fiscal year 2022
request continues our investments in the GLRI and that we can
find ways to work together to protect the Great Lakes for
current and future generations.
When your schedule allows, I invite you to come and visit
Lake Erie. It would be a great opportunity to show you the
difference EPA-led GLRI restoration projects have had on the
lakes' long-term health and vitality.
Thank you again for joining us this morning, Administrator.
My colleagues and I look forward to working together and
engaging with you further once we receive the administration's
comprehensive fiscal year 2022 budget proposal.
With that, I look forward to our discussion.
And I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Joyce.
You had us all in suspense, leaving the Great Lakes till
the very end of your opening remarks. But always glad to have
them in there.
So, Mr. Regan, thank you so much for being before us. We
would love to hear your opening statement.
Mr. Regan. Well, thank you, Chairwoman Pingree and Ranking
Member Joyce and members of the subcommittee. I am grateful for
the opportunity to be able to appear today to discuss EPA's
discretionary funding request for fiscal year 2022. I am also
delighted to begin this partnership and collaborative effort.
For half a century, EPA has helped provide the American
people with clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and
safe, healthy land.
EPA's dedicated public servants at our headquarters in
Washington, D.C., and throughout our ten regions, including
seven staff members who have been with the Agency since its
inception, work every day to improve the lives of people across
our great Nation and have risen to meet the challenges
presented to us as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier this month, President Biden sent to Congress a
discretionary funding request for the EPA at $11.2 billion. We
believe this request will help ensure EPA can continue to meet
its essential mandate, set the stone for our Nation's economic
recovery, and provide the resources necessary to confront our
environmental challenges, especially in our most overburdened
communities.
The President has seized this moment to reimagine a new
American economy that leads the world in advancing clean
energy, modernizes our infrastructure while enabling it to
withstand impacts from climate change, and rights the historic
wrongs of past environmental injustices that have held back
generations of Black, Latino, Indigenous, and low-income
communities.
This funding request reflects the understanding that a
healthy environment and a healthy economy are not mutually
exclusive. They actually go hand in hand. These investments
will provide tremendous opportunity to leverage American
innovation, put people back to work, and protect our
communities, families, and children from environmental hazards
and harm.
In short, this request recognizes the profound urgency and
the existential threat of the climate crisis and provides EPA
with the resources essential to fulfilling our mission to
protect public health and protect the environment.
Ensuring access to clean and safe water for all Americans
impacts our Nation's climate resilience and is integral to
advancing environmental justice. At EPA, we have seen that
investing in water infrastructure is a win-win for public
health and economic development. EPA's Water Infrastructure and
Finance Innovation Act loan has helped finance $19.4 billion in
water infrastructure, creating 47,000 jobs nationwide.
The 2022 funding request of $3.6 billion for EPA rebuilds
our water infrastructure and is an increase of more than $600
million over the fiscal year 2021 enacted level. This includes
targeted increases to the State Revolving Loan Fund to assist
States, Tribes, and territories with infrastructure projects
that help provide safe drinking water and clean water in
communities across the country.
Water infrastructure investments, however, represent only
one side of ensuring clean and safe water. The Agency will
invest resources and expand efforts to address PFAS, pervasive
and persistent chemicals found in our drinking water.
As part of the President's commitment to tackling PFAS, the
funding request provides approximately $7 million to accelerate
toxicity studies and funds research to inform the regulatory
development designating PFAS as a hazardous substance, while
setting enforceable limits for PFAS under the Safe Water
Drinking Act.
Under the President's leadership we are also heeding our
calls of the youth who courageously urge world leaders to fight
the climate crisis with the innovation, fortitude, and resolve
that it demands.
This budget invests in programs that will help reduce
greenhouse gases, including an additional $100 million for air
quality grants to States and Tribes to tackle emission levels
at the local and regional scale.
An additional $30 million will help improve the knowledge
of the impacts of climate change on human health and the
environment through our research and development programs.
Much like climate change, environmental justice underpins
all of our work. The pandemic ignited a perfect storm for
communities of color and low-income communities who already
bear the highest burden of pollutions, suffer the highest rates
of mortality from heart and lung disease, and now COVID-19,
too.
In the 40 years since the Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation and Liability Act, CERCLA, was signed
into law, we have made significant progress, but much work
needs to be done.
Under my leadership, EPA will do everything in its power to
hold bad actors accountable for environmental degradation and
return land to safe and productive use for communities.
Our budget provides $882 million for the Superfund remedial
program, nearly $300 million more than our current budget, to
clean up America's most contaminated land and reduce toxic
substances and greenhouse gases from existing abandoned
infrastructure.
These funding requests lay down a marker that EPA is ready
to meet these challenges.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I look
forward to our continued partnership and welcome any questions
you might have.
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Ms. Pingree. Thank you so much, Administrator Regan. It is
great to have you here, and it is great to hear you outline
some of the important goals that the EPA will be taking on.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes to begin the
questioning.
You started out or you did some talking about climate
change, but I would like to follow up on that a little bit. I
am very enthusiastic that the President has about $14 billion
above the fiscal year 2021 level across the Federal Government
in his budget to support climate change investments, and of
this about $1.8 billion is going to the EPA.
You have talked a little bit about some of the work that
you are doing. Could you go further on that to talk about how
you see the EPA's role in tackling the climate crisis, and
perhaps a little bit about how you see coordinating with
Federal, State, and local agencies so that we can move forward
together and as quickly as possible.
Mr. Regan. Well, thank you for that question, Chairwoman.
The $1.8 billion represents both climate change and
environmental justice. There are resources in there to enhance
our air quality grants for our States and our Tribes to help
them with the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions under the
Clean Air Act, but also the reduction of traditional pollutants
as well that threaten our health and well-being.
There are also resources there that will enhance the
Agency's knowledge and ability to quantify and address climate
change pollutants on both health and in the environment. And so
this will double our ability to look at research and
development on the topic of climate change.
There are also resources in there, though, for
environmental justice and accelerating environmental and
economic justice in communities that have been hit the hardest,
our communities that have been disproportionately impacted by
climate change, as well as our Tribal partners as well. So
there is a combination there in that $1.8 billion that focuses
on climate change, air quality impacts, and environmental
justice.
Ms. Pingree. That is great. Well, we certainly look forward
to working with you on that.
You also brought up the important topic of PFAS
contamination, which is such a critical issue, and we continue
to discover more and more about the impacts of PFAS
contamination in food and water and other areas as well.
So as you mentioned, there is money, a significant amount
of money, to address research; also to support regulatory
standards for drinking water. And that has been an important
issue for this committee. We have invested a little over $100
million at EPA towards those efforts.
Can you talk a little bit more--I know you mentioned it--
but about how you intend to use these resources, but also
specifically what you have planned for drinking water
infrastructure?
Mr. Regan. Absolutely.
The PFAS pollution is something that I have personal
experience with. In North Carolina this was an issue that we
fought for 2 or 3 years, looking at the impact that PFAS had in
North Carolina for over 30 years based on the source that we
tracked it back to. It was such a pervasive issue in terms of
health and human impact, but the economic impact that was
caused by the uncertainty in drinking water was tremendous in
the State as well.
We want to use these resources, these precious resources,
to do more scientific evaluation and quantification of PFAS so
that we can move forward with the right regulations for our
drinking water. We also want to use these resources to help
assist States in the cleanup.
You know, when there is uncertainty in drinking water,
communities go on bottled water for months, if not years. There
are things that we need to do to help expedite the cleanup and
remediation.
That is what these resources are dedicated to, research and
development to set drinking water standards, but also health
and safety and well-being for our States and our communities.
And by the way, the $75 million, it is just a drop in the
bucket. The State of Minnesota estimates that it could cost
$250 million to $1.2 billion to clean up in its area. North
Carolina has some similar numbers as well.
So this is just a tip of the iceberg and we hope to do
more.
Ms. Pingree. Yeah, and I certainly concur. I think every
State is already starting to understand the cleanup issues that
they have, but also the drinking water standards.
I don't want to put you on the spot. Luckily there are only
a few seconds left. But how long do you think it is going to
take us to get to a Federal drinking water standard?
It is such a challenge for States now trying to deal with
this on the individual basis. It seems important that
eventually we arrive at that. How long do you think that will
take?
Mr. Regan. It is a top priority for this administration. We
are building on some of the work that the previous
administration did, quite frankly, did not move fast enough.
So we will have staff circle with you on the specific
timeline. But we are moving in an expedited fashion, because
the States need some certainty and, quite frankly, our military
and companies need some certainty as well.
Ms. Pingree. Great. Well, I have used up more than my time.
But thank you so much for your answers.
And happy to yield to Mr. Joyce for 5 minutes for his
questions.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Chair Pingree. I will not leave you
in suspense with my questions.
Administrator Regan, when I travel around my district in
northeast Ohio, or all throughout Ohio and the Great Lakes, I
consistently hear concerns about the increasing water levels in
Lake Erie and their contribution to the ongoing erosion damage
to shoreline communities.
To provide relief to our coastal communities, over the last
year I have worked with various Federal agencies to try to
address this problem. In doing so, I have discovered that it is
going to take coordination and collaboration at the local,
State, and Federal level to identify long-term solutions that
will help us protect our critical infrastructure, prevent
further loss of land and restore coastal habitat due to
erosion.
Given EPA will play a key role in these efforts, in fiscal
year 2021, I was proud Congress included language encouraging
EPA to make GLRI funding available to expand breakwaters and
advance local shoreline mitigation measures.
Can you discuss EPA's plans in fiscal year 2021 to make
GLRI funding available to protect Great Lakes shorelines that
are threatened by rising lake levels and how this funding will
help coastal communities?
Mr. Regan. Well, thank you for that question, Congressman.
Absolutely, we will continue funding to protect the Great
Lakes.
You know, the Great Lakes are a national treasure. I think
that 20 percent of the world's surface freshwater resides
there. We really need to protect the ecological integrity, as
well as the economic stimuli that the Great Lakes provides to
so many communities. So we have prioritized that. We are
aligned there.
It is my belief that climate change impacts and other
impacts are altering the topography, geography, and et cetera,
and we are seeing the shorelines expand. We believe that there
are a number of natural remedies to accentuate some of the
manmade remedies to prevent some of the erosion.
Staff is focused on that. We look forward to partnering
with you and your team, and I look forward to accepting the
invitation that you extended earlier to take a closer look.
You know, when I was Secretary of the Department of
Environmental Quality in North Carolina, I visited 90 out of my
100 counties. I don't believe we can make these decisions
sitting behind a desk. We need to get out and visit and see
things firsthand, and I look forward to accepting your
invitation.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you.
I ask myself what we could do manually, by man, to do this.
And my understanding from the Army Corps of Engineers is the
safety valve is the Niagara Falls. So it is not like we have
got a hell of a lot of room to reduce the water levels.
Now, they fluctuated down on their own this year, thank
God. But they chewed up a lot of land in the process.
Does the fiscal year 2022 request provide GLRI funding for
the Agency to continue this work? Beyond GLRI, are there other
EPA programs, like Clean Water SRF, that may help constituents
like mine address these coastal erosion issues?
Mr. Regan. Yes, we want to continue the work and build on
the work. There are other revenue streams at the Agency that we
hope, in concert, we can collaborate with, like SRFs and
others, to continue the great work that we have been doing in
the Great Lakes.
I think that it would be a travesty to take our foot off
the gas right now. So, we need to continue to lean in. The Army
Corps has been a great partner to EPA on this effort.
And, again, I think that we see that there are some natural
remedies there that we found through research and data that are
longer lasting than some of the manmade remedies and are more
cost effective.
So we believe we want to continue to work on the resiliency
aspect of that, as well as the economic aspect of that.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you.
Last Congress, I toured the Lake Guardian, EPA's largest
research vessel, tasked with monitoring trends in the Great
Lakes ecosystem. I saw firsthand how critical it is to prevent
waste, particularly plastics, from getting into our waterways,
given some areas of the Great Lakes are already experiencing
high densities of microplastics.
That is why I have been supportive of EPA's Trash-Free
Waters program which provides resources to help communities
keep trash out of U.S. waterways and prevent microplastics from
entering our food supply and drinking water sources.
The program is especially important now, given we have seen
an uptick in pollution from disposable face masks and gloves
due to the pandemic.
Administrator Regan, does the Agency plan to continue the
Trash-Free Waters program in fiscal year 2022?
Mr. Regan. Yes, we do.
And The Lake Guardian is EPA's science at its best, on the
ground, looking at what is happening with the Great Lakes in
real time. We are seeing the same thing that you are seeing and
we want to continue to invest there.
You and I have talked about the CERCLA economy and the role
that plastics play there. And I will tell you, whether it be
the younger generation who have been pressing me on more action
on plastics or whether it be States like yours and mine who see
the impacts of marine debris, we want to spend a lot more time
there and a lot more effort on those issues.
Mr. Joyce. I know I am out of time, but Chair Pingree has
already held a hearing on plastics in the oceans, and I have
got to admit I was very surprised to find from the young
scientists that it was actually getting into the food chain
already in the Great Lakes. It is being absorbed into the meat
of the fish.
And with my being completely out of time, I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Such an important topic. I am glad you took up
all the time you needed.
Happy to yield to Representative Kilmer for 5 minutes for
his questions.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you, Mr. Administrator, for being with us today,
and congratulations on your confirmation.
I recognize all of the critical work that your Agency
accomplishes for our country. But as folks on this committee
know perhaps all too well, my first and highest priority on
this subcommittee remains the critical role that the EPA plays
in protecting and restoring Puget Sound.
Puget Sound is our region's most iconic body of water, a
place on which generations of Washingtonians and Native
Americans have built their lives and made their livelihoods.
The sound supports more than 150,000 jobs in fishing and
shellfish harvesting and maritime industry.
There are 19 federally recognized Tribes that have made
Puget Sound their home since time immemorial, including 17 with
Tribal treaty rights to harvest fish and shellfish. And the
Federal Government has a trust responsibility to support Puget
Sound recovery and uphold those treaty rights.
I believe that now more than ever there is real opportunity
for Congress and the Federal Government to adopt policies that
will protect our planet for future generations. And as our
Nation continues to adjust to our new normal, it is clear that
major Federal investments will be needed to restart our economy
and get folks back to work.
And I see Puget Sound restoration, from addressing
persistent flooding and stormwater runoff to improving
nearshore habitat and removing culverts that affect water
quality and fish passage, as being a key component of that
effort. These projects can get folks back to work and promote
much-needed economic activity while also accomplishing long-
term goals to recover the sound. That is a win-win.
So I am hopeful that we will see some progress on this
front as part of the economic recovery effort.
I would also like to extend a standing invitation to you to
come out and visit my neck of the woods so that you can see
firsthand all of the outstanding needs, as well as the
opportunities that our region has.
If future generations are going to have these
opportunities, we have got to step up our efforts to protect
and restore the sound, and we need a strong Federal partner in
those efforts.
So can you speak to some of the opportunities you see to
strengthen EPA's partnership role in Puget Sound recovery?
Mr. Regan. Well, thank you for that question.
And absolutely, for the reasons that you outlined, I think
that EPA has a strong history in working on the Puget Sound.
That is work that we will continue to do for the reasons you
laid out.
First and foremost, we believe that the work that we are
doing there will enhance water quality, which is a critical
part of our mission.
The economic vitality of the sound is important to you,
important to us, to demonstrate that environmental protection
and economic prosperity are not mutually exclusive. They go
hand in hand.
And in this case, there is a direct connection to the work
that we want to do in terms of our investments in water
infrastructure, especially in the area you identified. If we
are going to improve in the area of stormwater and flooding, we
have got to take a look at what we are doing on the side of
working with Puget Sound and looking at some of the natural
remedies that we can begin to invest in.
So we look forward to continuing to partner there.
Mr. Kilmer. I appreciate that.
And I recognize that if we are going to effectively recover
the sound, we need a coordinated approach that includes more
Federal resources and more authorities to complement the
efforts of our State and of our Tribes.
I am proud to lead a bill here in Congress called the PUGET
SOS Act to ensure that the Federal Government steps up to be a
better partner that State and Tribal and local entities need to
save our sound and to assist some of those regional efforts to
restore salmon and orca populations, to ensure that future
generations can dig for clams, and to uphold Tribal treaty
rights.
That bill passed the House with strong bipartisan support
last Congress. So I hope that we can count on your partnership
and your support for getting it across the finish line this
Congress.
Also, I want to just add, I know my State is petitioning
the Biden administration to ensure that funding from the
American Rescue Plan can be used to fix culverts. And again
would certainly invite you to weigh in favorably there, because
that can help the sound and it can grow a bunch of jobs.
So I guess I would love to just tee up those issues for
you. And on top of that, if there are other EPA funding streams
that could help there, we would certainly welcome that help
with an eye towards saving the sound and saving some of the
species that depend on it.
Mr. Regan. Absolutely. I will assure you and commit to you
that we look forward to the partnership.
As a former State secretary, I know that State and locals
know their communities much better than the Federal Government
ever could. We have to have an effective partnership.
And I look forward to thinking through how we can leverage
State, Federal, and local resources so that we are using the
resources and the investments in the most impactful way to
preserve the environment but grow the economy and create
economic stimuli at the local level.
Mr. Kilmer. Thanks very much.
I see I am out of time.
We would welcome you up in our neck of the woods.
And with that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much.
I am pleased to recognize Mr. Simpson for 5 minutes for his
questions.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chair Pingree. I appreciate the
opportunity.
And welcome, Administrator Regan. You come highly
recommended, and I look forward to working with you.
I have had a great relationship with the EPA over the
years, and we have actually worked with local communities to
find solutions to solve some of the problems.
If you look at the city of Boise, they had to reduce their
phosphorus levels going into the Boise River and they came up
with a plan that was different than what the EPA had originally
recommended and much cheaper, and the EPA looked at it and
said, you know, this might work.
So the EPA got behind it, and they created what was called
a Dixie Drain, which is doing a great job in cleaning up the
river.
So working with the EPA and local communities, I think we
can find solutions to some of these problems.
But let me just say, as long as everybody else is inviting
you, I would invite you to visit the Great Lakes of Idaho. We
have some Great Lakes there, too. So I would invite you to do
that.
And I am certainly happy to hear that Congressman Kilmer is
interested in saving orca and salmon, because there are some
proposals to do just that.
But let me ask you, I have often heard from mayors and city
officials who come to me in need of help because their cities
are out of compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act or the
Clean Water Act or both due to the age of the water utility
infrastructure.
And the cost of replacement and repairs is crippling to
these small municipality communities, not only in Idaho but in
North Carolina and other places. I am sure you are well aware
of that. Even with the STAG grants and stuff, they have a
really difficult time trying to do their match to repair their
water infrastructure.
What can the administration do to assist these small
communities in their pursuit of compliance with the Safe
Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act?
Mr. Regan. You have hit the nail on the head. So many of
our local communities are struggling in this area, because we
have not invested in our water infrastructure in such a long
time.
Part of the strategy for the increase in our 2022 budget
and in looking at the President's American Jobs Plan addresses
exactly this. We need to have some investments in these
communities directly, financially, in terms of low-interest
loans, but also there are a lot of communities that cannot
afford the loan route and that we need some grant economic
stimuli as well.
But it is more than financial, as you know. What we do at
EPA and what we did in the State of North Carolina, along with
the financial help, there are also educational tools that many
of these managers need in terms of how to train the workforce
and recruit the appropriate workforce to manage these new
systems. They are facing threats from cybersecurity just as
much as they are from climate change.
And so we need to build a healthy water infrastructure for
economic development reasons, as well as safe drinking water,
and that is what we want to do with these resources.
Mr. Simpson. Well, I appreciate that. I look forward to
working with you.
And, of course, the Rural Water Program is very important
across this country, because they help these small communities
develop the personnel to work in these facilities and water
treatment facilities and wastewater treatment facilities and
stuff. So the Rural Water Program is vitally important, I am
sure, all across the country, not just in Idaho. But I look
forward to working with you on this.
One other question I have is, during the Obama
administration we always heard consistent concerns from farmers
and ranchers and businesses and governors and many others about
the extremely broad definition of Waters of the United States
under the Clean Water Act.
I was pleased when the EPA and the Corps took note of these
concerns and rewrote the rule in a way that maintains critical
protections under the Clean Water Act.
The future of this rule is now uncertain. I am hoping you
can shed some light on what the administration plans regarding
the Navigable Waters Rule and how you plan on hearing the
concerns of Idaho farmers and ranchers as you make these
decisions.
Mr. Regan. Absolutely. I spent a lot of time on this topic
in North Carolina as the DEQ secretary, and I have met with a
lot of the ag industry CEOs on this topic since I have been EPA
Administrator. We all believe that the courts weighed in on the
Obama rule and that the courts have weighed in on Trump's
Navigable Waters Rule. We have learned from both instances.
What I am pledging to do is begin a stakeholder engagement
process involving our ag-community, Farm Bureau, our ag CEOs,
our environmental community, to look at the lessons learned and
how we can move forward.
I am interested in moving forward, not in a ping-pong way,
but a way that we can provide some certainty to the ag industry
where we don't overburden the small farmer, but we also balance
the protection of our wetlands and our sounds and estuaries.
And so I believe we can do it. I just think we need to have
more touch points and conversations. Secretary Vilsack and I
are attached at the hip in terms of a strategy to get this
done.
Mr. Simpson. Well, thank you. I look forward to working
with you on this and many other issues that come before the
EPA. And, as I said, you come highly recommended and I look
forward to working with you. Thank you.
Mr. Regan. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Simpson.
I am pleased to recognize Mr. Harder for 5 minutes.
Mr. Harder. Wonderful.
Well, thank you so much, Administrator Regan.
Congratulations on your appointment. Very much excited to work
with you.
I wanted to talk about air quality. My region, the Central
Valley of California, has the highest rates of childhood asthma
in the entire country. I had childhood asthma as a kid and my
brother did. It is incredibly common in our neck of the woods.
We live in a valley where much of the air pollution that exists
all over California sort of settles in our neck of the woods
and even some from overseas.
I know the administration is proposing a new project, $100
million for improvements in air quality, and I would love to
hear a little bit from you how you view that as working out in
practice and, more generally, how you see the EPA's rules in
not just setting high standards for air quality, which I agree
we need to be doing, but even more, helping local communities
like ours come into compliance with those standards and
actually remediate in communities like ours which have
challenges with air quality stemming decades in the past.
Mr. Regan. Well, thank you for that question. And,
regrettably, I grew up using an inhaler as well. So I know all
too well what that feels like and the implications of that.
What the administration wants to do is program resources to
focus on air quality monitoring, but do it in a way where we
are not rebuilding the Federal air quality monitoring system
solely, that we are leveraging resources and passing through
grants and investments to State and Tribal entities so that we
can provide some flexibility in terms of what we are seeing on
the ground and how States and Tribes can help on the compliance
end.
A lot of times we spend a lot of resources on enforcement.
And the reality is, that enforcement mechanism is only as good
as the rule. Many of our rules may or may not be as transparent
as possible and/or may be harder from an administrative burden
standpoint. So we are not achieving the environmental goals we
are looking for.
The resources in the fiscal year 2022 budget, as well as
the American Jobs Plan, focus on where those air quality needs
are the most.
And by the way, I have to say, climate change is an
important issue. But in tackling climate change, in leveraging
technology, and looking at the monitoring we are talking about,
you get the air quality benefits. The public health component
of this is so important and I think is lost in the discussion.
So the short answer to your question is these resources are
dedicated to more air quality monitoring, technical assistance
to comply with our regulations, and the ability for EPA to rely
more on our local partners to help us with the environmental
goals we are looking for.
Mr. Harder. Thank you for that. I would love to dig in
further as you continue to develop the budget proposal and
figure out exactly where those dollars end up going. Especially
in a big State like California, having those dollars go to
California is great, given there are 53 congressional
districts. We want to make sure that it is going to the
communities that are hit hardest by the challenges in air
quality today, and we look forward to working with you.
I would also just mention a quick plug for a bill that we
have developed called the FARM Act which is all around the
intersection of air quality and agriculture, how do we actually
help farmers and give them tools to alleviate some of the
challenges that we are seeing in communities like mine.
I believe it is one of the only bills, if not the only bill
in Congress endorsed by both the Farm Bureau and the League of
Conservation Voters. And it actually, I think, is somewhat
similar to some of the efforts that you are talking about when
you are talking about environmental justice and some of the
efforts that you are trying to do to clean up pollution.
Can you talk a little bit about the Diesel Emissions
Reduction Act grant program and how you think some of the money
going into that will help communities and address especially
some of the marginalized communities that we are seeing?
Mr. Regan. Absolutely. We are spending a lot of time
looking at where technology is going and where the markets are
going in terms of electric vehicles. But there is a stark
reality here that we are making progress on technological
advancements using biofuels and better technologies around
diesel emission reduction strategies as well.
In order to reach our goals, it is an all-hands-on-deck
approach. There are electric vehicles, there is advanced diesel
technology, and there are biofuels in the mix.
I am spending time not only with the agriculture community,
but also with the auto makers, to think about how we make this
shift in a way that benefits the environment but the jobs
follow the transition as well.
It is a very important conversation, and look forward to
having many more with you on that very topic.
I am sorry. You are muted.
Mr. Harder. With that, I yield back.
Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Now I am muted.
Thank you for your questions.
I am pleased to recognize Mr. Stewart for 5 minutes for his
questions.
Mr. Stewart. Okay. Thank you. My phone just fell over. So
if I am sideways, hopefully my phone resets.
Administrator, welcome. We look forward to working with
you.
You know, one of the fun things to do is to review people's
biographies when they come before us. And there are a couple of
things in yours that I would like to mention.
One is Goldsboro. It is one of the most beautiful towns in
the country. My first assignment in the Air Force was at
Langley Air Force Base, and we spent a lot of time in Tarboro,
and Goldsboro was one of the places, communities we visited.
We have a background as well similar. Your father was a
colonel. My father was as well, although they fought in
different wars. My dad was World War II and your father was
Vietnam. But both from military families, and I think that
gives us something in common as well.
You love hunting and fishing, as do I. That is one of the
reasons that many of us live in the West, is because we love
the outdoors. I love to ski and rock climb and to enjoy the
things that both of us are trying to protect.
And so we look forward to working with you as we do try to
find bipartisan and effective ways that we can protect the
environment and things that we love.
I would like to ask you something, and it goes back to the
previous administration, but it is a policy that I know you are
familiar with, and that is the Obama's administration Waters of
the U.S., which became a very troubling and actually very
controversial issue, particularly in the West.
Salt Lake City, which represents a core part of the city,
we get maybe 12 or 14 inches of rain a year. I mean, in North
Carolina that is a month's worth of rainfall for you, maybe a
couple of bad storms even. And to us, as you know, water rights
in the West, I mean, they are as precious as gold, and we
preserve every drop of water that we can. And we share that
goal. Both of us share that interest.
But the Waters of the U.S. claims Federal jurisdiction, as
I know that you know, over virtually every pool of water there
was. I mean, there was actually an argument that you could have
a pool of standing water in your backyard and that because it
would have some kind of being a nexus for a waterway, a
navigable waterway, that the Federal Government could claim
jurisdiction over that. And we saw them do that under the
previous administration.
So I am asking you please, please, for those of us who
share this concern, tell us that you are not going to go back
and reenforce or try to resurrect the Waters of the U.S. policy
and that we can find another way to accomplish the same goal,
and that is protect our waterways, protect the precious water,
but not have to have such an extreme Federal overreach.
I would appreciate your views on this.
Mr. Regan. Well, thank you for the question, and thank you
for the commonalities in the introduction. I think you hit the
nail on the head, which is there is more that unites us than
divides us, and there is always a way we can find move forward.
Listen, we are committed to moving forward, learning from
the lessons of the past. We don't have any intention of going
back to the original Obama Waters of the U.S. verbatim, and we
don't necessarily agree with everything that was in the Trump
administration's version as well. We have learned lessons from
both. We have seen complexities in both. We have determined
that both rules did not necessarily listen to the will of the
people.
I think, as I have traveled the State and as I have talked
to people all across the country, our agriculture community is
not monolithic. We don't look the same all around this country.
So we have got to think about what the appropriate way to move
forward is.
I have pledged to the environmental community, the ag
community, and the like that we will chart a path forward on
Waters of the U.S. that will be inclusive and forward-looking.
Mr. Stewart. Administrator Regan, you have made my day to
hear you say that. So thank you.
And I think you are taking a fair approach in the sense
that we can learn from the previous administration, and we can
learn from President Obama's administration as well, and that
there are probably lessons there that we can move forward with
together. And, again, thank you for that.
In the just a few seconds, I won't ask you a question. I
will just maybe highlight something for you.
The White Mesa Mill in Utah is the only uranium mill in the
United States; important to know. It is one of the most
challenged economic counties in the entire country. Half of the
employees at this mill are Native Americans, a population that
desperately needs our help in economic opportunities.
This critical earths is incredibly important from a
national security and an intelligence perspective. Sitting on
the Intelligence Committee, as well as Appropriations, I
understand and work on that intensely.
And we look forward to working with the EPA as well trying
to protect the U.S. ability to have access to these rare
earths, knowing that they are important economically and from a
national security perspective, but we can do so in an
environmentally friendly manner. And we look forward to working
with you on that as well.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Regan. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Stewart.
I am pleased to recognize Mrs. Lee for her 5 minutes of
questions.
Mrs. Lee. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would also like to
thank the ranking member and welcome the Administrator here.
It is a pleasure to meet you virtually, and as my first job
out of grad school was working as a contractor for the
Department of Justice and the EPA. So it is good to see you.
And this is obviously an area of concern for me, which is why I
am happy I am on this committee.
You know, I was encouraged to see that the administration
is committed to modernizing our drinking water, wastewater,
stormwater systems, as well as tackling new contaminants.
I come from Nevada, a rather arid, dry State, and we are
facing obviously severe challenges with water resources, as we
are across the arid Southwest.
So we are grateful for the Agency's support in protecting
Nevada's critical and scarce water resources by providing
funding for projects that will help us to manage nonpoint
source pollution in our watershed and partnering with local
entities like we have with the Las Vegas Wash.
Mr. Regan, as you mention in your testimony, water
infrastructure projects are a major creator of jobs. Can you
speak to the connection between the EPA's water infrastructure
investment plan and what you foresee with the creation of new
jobs?
Mr. Regan. Absolutely. I would like to say that, luckily,
we have a proven track record here, where with our water
infrastructure grants and loan programs and our State revolving
loan funds we have pushed billions of dollars out and created
hundreds of thousands of jobs or helped stimulate hundreds of
thousands of jobs over our track record here.
What the President is wanting to do in this 2022 budget and
with the American Jobs Plan is to help expedite repairing our
crumbling infrastructure.
But it will put a lot of people to work. Electricians, pipe
fitters, contractors, engineers. There are so many jobs
associated with this need. And by the way, economic development
relies on certainty in their drinking water.
We really see a strong combination of managing our drinking
water and creating jobs. But more importantly, with our
wastewater systems, we are seeing lots of pollution in our
natural streams and rivers, especially during times of storms.
So this is a win-win-win here. We can protect the
environment, we can improve public health with clean drinking
water, and we can put a lot of people to work with the
investments in our water infrastructure.
Mrs. Lee. Well, we are, as a State that has been decimated
by this pandemic, we are looking forward to hopefully seeing
some of those jobs in Nevada.
I want to just turn now to the administration's plans for
tackling the climate crisis with respect to national carbon
standards for cars.
As I am sure you are aware, that emissions from--are the
single largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. But I
do want to say, in my home State of in Nevada in June of 2020,
the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection announced a
rulemaking process to evaluate the adoption of low-emission and
zero-emission standards for light-duty vehicles.
In your testimony you highlight several ways in which the
EPA is reprioritizing addressing climate change with the
urgency the crisis demands. Nevada is now one of 17 States and
the District of Columbia that has clean car standards pending
or adopted.
Can you speak to how the EPA incorporates lessons learned
from carbon standard implementation at the State level to
inform your similar efforts at the Federal level?
Mr. Regan. Absolutely. We respect the statutory authority
that we have and that States have. States like California have
historically the right to lead the way. The Federal Government
can indeed learn from States, and that is what we plan to
continue to do.
We are putting out a notice of proposed rulemaking on
tailpipe emissions for cars and light-duty trucks, and that
will come mid-July. It will be informed by the great work that
the States have been doing, but it will also be informed by the
conversations we have had with the auto industry and where we
are headed with technological advancements. I mean [audio
malfunction].
Mrs. Lee. A little connectivity issue here.
Ms. Pingree. Hopefully we will have the Administrator right
back again.
Mr. Joyce. It is too bad Derek cut off, because before this
we were just on the Modernization Committee hearing and the one
common complaint from nearly everyone is internet connectivity
issues. Having this happen--oh, there he is.
Mr. Kilmer. The Modernization Committee is going to be hard
at work on fixing the WiFi, you guys.
Ms. Pingree. I think it is probably just because too many
people in the building use the WiFi, which is what you are
supposed to do, but we have such limited capacity.
Mr. Joyce. I found at the start of the pandemic when the
girls came home and they are spread out through the house, not
only are they on their iPad for work, but then they are on
their phone, and I am down in the basement cutting out like
this. So finally I went up, I said, you can have one, the iPad
or the phone, but get off the house WiFi on the other one.
Ms. Pingree. Hazards of being a Member of Congress.
Mr. Joyce. Well, Betty can fill in for him while he is off.
Ms. Pingree. Representative McCollum, we are happy to have
you here, but we are waiting. The Administrator has a WiFi
issue going on right now.
Ms. McCollum. Oh, no.
Ms. Pingree. I am being informed that he should be back in
a couple of minutes, I think.
Ms. McCollum. Well, I want to thank my fellow committee
members for understanding. With all the committee hearings
going on and people being on them, we have all been in this
boat. So I have got defense hearings going on and Democratic
and Republican members in other committees. So we are shuffling
the chairs.
Ms. Pingree. Okay. I am going to recess the committee for 5
minutes just to give him a little time to catch up. So we will
look forward to seeing you all back here in 5 minutes.
[Recess.]
Ms. Pingree. The subcommittee will come to order once
again. And we are happy to recognize Chair McCollum for 5
minutes for her questions.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much, Chair Pingree.
And to my fellow committee members, I look forward to when
we can all be together again in person.
Administrator Regan, thank you for joining us here today to
present a bold budget for the Environmental Protection Agency.
It is a welcome change from the previous administration who
repeatedly proposed more than a quarter of the EPA's budget to
be cut and eliminating environmental justice programs.
I am proud that we won that fight, and, in fact, we
increased the EPA's funding during my 2 years as chair when Ms.
Pingree was the vice chair. So I am just thrilled that Chair
Pingree will be working with you to get a hefty increase after
looking at the President's budget.
Administrator Regan, I was especially pleased to see that
President Biden is proposing $936 million for a new
Accelerating Environmental and Economic Justice Initiative. The
communities that have been marginalized have borne the burden
of pollution and climate change, and they need the support. So
thank you.
I have already seen the commitment happening in my home
State in Minnesota where the EPA Region 5 is requiring our
Clean Water Act impaired waters list to include Wild Rice Lakes
and Rivers that are impaired by higher levels of sulfate and,
dangerously, have even more sulfate.
So I hope that we can count on you, especially in working
with Tribal consultation, honoring their trust and treaty
obligation, because that is essential for the EPA's
implementation of the Biden administration's environmental
justice initiative.
So I am just assuming that is a big yes, and I want to
thank you for that.
Mr. Regan. It is a big yes.
Ms. McCollum. Another issue I wanted to put on your radar
screen is an effort to have the EPA take a lead on the
Mississippi River Restoration and Resiliency Strategy. I
included language last year in the subcommittee providing $2
million to the EPA to put the agency in the driver's seat in
this initiative in coordination with five other Federal
agencies.
My staff has discussed the importance of developing this
strategy with the White House and CEQ. And I will soon be
introducing the corresponding legislation to create a
geographic program for the Mississippi River, our national
river, which is known internationally all around the world.
This initiative will create the same sort of coordination
and bipartisan investment that the Mississippi River Corridor,
that we have seen in the Great Lakes and other regional
initiatives.
So I would like to be working with your staff as soon as
possible to be able to brief my office on the Agency's work in
response to the report language on the Mississippi River
Restoration and Resiliency Strategy that was in the House
language last year. So we look forward to working with your
staff.
The big question I have is to ask you for a little bit of
an update on the Agency's work on PFOS. As chair of this
subcommittee, I was proud to provide the EPA with the increased
funds for the scientific and regulatory work to establish
drinking and clean water standards for PFOS.
That work continues to be incredibly important to me as the
chair of the Defense Subcommittee, because I want to ensure
that the DOD is cleaning up its PFOS contamination to levels
that fully protect the health of our servicemembers, their
families, and surrounding communities.
Can you give me an update on the EPA's work on PFOS and how
it will guide cleanup actions at the DOD, as well as State,
local, and private industry responsibilities? We want one great
standard, and I don't want the DOD to have a weakened standard.
Mr. Regan. Well, thank you for that question. Coming from
North Carolina, one of the most military-friendly States in the
country, I recognized from the beginning that EPA needed to
have a positive relationship with DOD.
Secretary Austin and I have already committed to meet on
this topic. We have had some conversations, some general
conversations, but we are getting together soon to discuss how
EPA and DOD can work together to tackle the PFOS issue.
We are forging ahead, leveraging the expertise that we have
at the Agency to look at setting a drinking water standard. The
importance of this fiscal year 2022 budget and the increases
that we are seeing there is to give us the resources to
continue the scientific work that we need to conduct, as well
as the resources to help spearhead remediation and cleanup as
well.
And so remediation, cleanup, scientific integrity to help
inform the drinking water standard, and partnerships and
proactive conversations with the Secretary of Defense is where
we are headed.
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you for that. I think that you
are going to see a lot of activity starting to percolate up
again on PFOS, and it tends to be very--almost nonpartisan with
some Members. And I know Ms. Pingree and I have talked about
this. We have sent a letter to the Biden administration, along
with the Oversight chair of Energy and Commerce, Ms. DeGette,
and the three of us are going to work together on this. So we
look forward to working with you. And in my case, I look
forward to working with Secretary Austin.
So, Madam Chair, thank you for the indulgence. And I will
let you get back to your great work, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you so much for your questions.
And thank you, Administrator Regan. And if you are willing
to stick around, I think there are a few members who would like
to ask a second question. So I will recognize myself for the
first 5 minutes.
I want to go back to the topic of environmental justice. It
is something that Chair McCollum just talked about a little
bit. It has come up in the conversation. And it is certainly a
great concern.
And so we are very pleased to see the Biden administration
and your Agency put a focus on this. This has been a priority
for the subcommittee. We made advancing environmental justice a
priority, increasing the funding for the EPA's Office of
Environmental Justice by 75 percent over 2 years, and also
boosting funding for programs like Brownfields remediation and
DERA.
It is certainly a discriminatory practice. We find these
industrial corridors and landfills being located in low-income
communities and communities of color. And particularly with
this administration's focus on the environment and on climate
change, we have to have a new lens.
So I would love to hear your perspective on how we best
tackle this. And I want to talk a little bit in more detail
about the 936 million for the EPA's new Accelerating
Environmental and Economic Justice Initiative.
Can you just talk about it in a little greater detail? I
think it is an important thing for us all to understand better
and to know how important it is to tackle it.
Mr. Regan. Absolutely. This is a central piece of our work,
environmental justice and equity. The big part of it is we have
so many communities all across the country that have been
disproportionately impacted and left behind, disproportionately
impacted from a health impact standpoint just as much as an
economic standpoint.
The resources that we plan to use will focus on grant
opportunities, education, outreach, and ways that we can think
about helping these communities as we bolster the protection
for water quality and air quality.
But also many of the very industries that are
disproportionately impacting these communities are the lifeline
economically for these communities.
So we are wanting to work together, hand in hand, to be
sure that the polluters don't get away, but also that we think
about how these industries coexist better with these
communities. So there is an environmental transition that we
are looking at, but we are also looking at an economic
transition.
I believe that these go hand in hand. I believe that we
need to spend time in our States with these communities, with
these industries, and we can prove that environmental
protection and economic prosperity are not mutually exclusive
but go hand in hand and everyone can be treated fairly.
Ms. Pingree. That is great. And I think that is such an
important perspective. So thank you for that.
One other aspect about this. One of the defining
characteristics of economic justice communities is they often
bear a disproportionate pollution burden compared to other
communities.
It seems to me that we have limited mechanisms within our
environmental laws to factor in the cumulative health effects
of multi-pollutant exposures in a community, and I think that
is an important thing to change.
Could you outline some of the ways that the Agency would be
addressing cumulative impacts in its work? And how can we
partner with you to give you the tools to make sure we are able
to do that?
Mr. Regan. That is an excellent question. I have instructed
every office at EPA to take a look at how environmental justice
inequity fits within their program, not just from a rhetoric
standpoint, but in terms of the very DNA of the work that EPA
does here.
I think we do have tools that we can better leverage to
look at the multiple impacts that multiple industries may have
each and every time the Federal Government or a State makes a
decision in terms of permitting these entities.
But we need to do more. We need to do more in terms of
enforcement on our side. We need to do more in terms of
technical assistance that we provide to local economic
developers so that they can take these cumulative impacts into
consideration when they recruit industries. We need to do more
partnering with our legislative bodies to think through, if we
don't have all of the statutory authority we need to address
cumulative impact in a most expedient way, we are working with
you to develop the laws that will govern that.
Ms. Pingree. Great. Well, I really do appreciate that,
because I think that all too often we look at a single impact
of a toxic chemical, or of bad air, bad water, but don't
understand that in certain communities people are being
bombarded by multiple levels of toxicity. And we often have
such a rigid standard or a limited ability to understand that.
So I am thrilled that it is an important issue to you, and
I really look forward to the committee and this Congress giving
you the tools that you need to deal with that.
So I will yield back. And happy to recognize Mr. Joyce if
he has a second round of questions.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Administrator, given that education is a proven tool to
increasing recycling participation, strengthening recycling
streams and reducing pollution, as co-chair of the House
Recycling Caucus, I have been proud to also co-lead H.R. 5906,
the RECYCLE Act, to help protect our invaluable natural
resources.
The RECYCLE Act would create a new EPA grant program to
help States, Tribes, local governments, nonprofits, and public-
private partnerships educate households and consumers about
their residential and community recycling programs.
In fiscal year 2021, Congress provided up to $1.5 million
to support these efforts at the Agency. Can you describe how
the Agency plans to use this funding in fiscal year 2021? How
will these efforts also benefit the environment and the
economy?
Mr. Regan. Yes, thank you for that question. It is such an
important question. We are spending a lot of those resources
focused on education, outreach, and partnering with our States
and Tribes and local communities to educate them, not only on
the environmental disbenefits of plastics, but the economic
opportunities, the circular economy aspects of this.
I just sat down with a group of young people 2 weeks ago,
and second to climate change, plastics in the circular economy
were top of their list. I spent time with my Japanese
counterparts on an international call and this was top priority
for Japan as well. There are so many advantages here.
What EPA wants to do is do a better job partnering with our
State and local and international partners to reduce the impact
that we see plastics having on our marine life, on our food
sources, but thinking about how in a circular economy fashion
we can begin to tackle this as well.
Mr. Joyce. Can you explain what recycling challenges these
entities currently face? Could additional funding broaden
community outreach, awareness, and education on recycling to
increase recycling participation?
Mr. Regan. We are taking a very close look at that. I can
tell from you my experience in North Carolina, a lot of it is
access in our rural communities in terms of where to drop off
the recycling materials, how you aggregate those recycling
materials so that it makes sense from a cost-effective
standpoint for local municipalities to invest in these
programs.
We really have to take a look at how we empower our local
communities to see the leverage points and the economic
opportunities for pulling plastics out of circulation.
I believe that education and outreach is a significant way
we can provide technical assistance and resources to our State
and local partners to tackle this challenge.
Mr. Joyce. Well, thank you. Despite increased GLRI funding,
significant work to reduce nonpoint source pollution and
efforts to mitigate impacts that human activities have had on
the Great Lakes, we continue to hear reports about the growing
threat of harmful algal blooms in the Great Lakes, as well as
down in the Everglades and other areas throughout the country.
How could adjusting the allocation of GLRI funds to the
various focus areas, like nutrients and habitat, potentially
help accelerate harmful algal bloom reduction efforts?
Mr. Regan. It is a very critical question. One of the
things that we want to do a better job at EPA is not operating
in silos, but having all of our programs leverage their
expertise and resources to tackle this.
I think as we think through how we engage our agricultural
partners and look at the efficiencies in terms of ag
management, pesticide application, fertilizers, and the like,
that is one example of where the ag community sees more
efficient management of farming as an opportunity for us to
quantify a significant water quality impact that we are looking
at as well.
I think we have to look across our program, leverage our
resources, and really focus on nutrient management in a way
that that balances our overall goal.
Mr. Joyce. I have a little bit of time left, but I don't
want to have you sit around for another round. So let me just
finish quickly.
Could additional restoration progress be made by investing
in innovative projects, like natural infrastructure project
designs, like wetlands, technologies or approaches that yield
nutrient and harmful algal bloom reduction benefits at
landscape scales?
Mr. Regan. Absolutely. That is a critical piece of why we
want to take a look at how to have a stakeholder engagement
process that reevaluates Waters of the U.S. in a way that,
again, doesn't overly burden the small farmer, but looks at the
important role wetlands play in filtering pollutants.
There is such a strong connection there. These natural
approaches to protecting water quality are critical because
they are more resilient to storms and they are more cost-
effective than some of the manmade solutions like terminal
growings and others.
Mr. Joyce. I certainly believe that wetlands are nature's
kidneys, and we need to continue work on them as best we can.
I realize I am well out of time. Thank you very much for
allowing me these questions today, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Absolutely. Thank you for your questions. And
that important metaphor about nature's kidneys, that is a good
way to describe it.
So, Chair Kaptur, we are very pleased to see you and happy
to yield to you for 5 minutes for your questions.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Madam Chair, very much.
And I want to add my word of congratulations to the new
Administrator of EPA. We look forward to working with you.
And the district that I represent is out in a mud puddle,
out in the middle part of the country. And this is western
Ohio. This is Michigan up here. Indiana over here. And here is
Lake Erie. Congressman Joyce, my dear friend, lives somewhere
over here.
But I wanted to show you this because Congressman Joyce,
Ranking Member Joyce, indicated the problem with the nutrient
runoff into Lake Erie.
And our problem is also political in that one of the
poorest cities in the country, Toledo, which sits about here,
and their wastewater treatment plant, the bill for cleaning up
water and sewage in the region is placed on Toledo. And Toledo
has to draw its clear water from Lake Erie, but the pollution
comes from a region much bigger than Toledo.
And my first question really goes to a Clean Watersheds
Needs Survey that was done that talks about wastewater
infrastructure across our country and what the backlog has
grown to, creeping toward a half a trillion dollars.
In Ohio, they say we need about 14 billion in wastewater
infrastructure. The largest county in my district, which is
Cuyahoga County, Cleveland, has a $2.9 billion unmet
construction need.
As we look forward toward a Build Back Better agenda, how
can our country confront a reckoning with race and poverty
without addressing the unfairness of the massive financial
obligations placed on communities like Cleveland, like Toledo,
like Detroit, where they had to shut off the fresh water to
people, and more people caught COVID-19 because of that?
It is really--EPA is great. And I am a city [audio
malfunction] Money that we need to do this. So we either have
to innovate our way out of this or you have to get more power
somehow. But you put obligations on communities, and then what
happens is people can't afford their water bills and their
utility bills.
So what they have done in the city of Toledo, because
people can't pay the bills, rather than sending the bills
quarterly, they are now sending them every month. So people are
getting a utility bill every month because it is a smaller
bite, but over a year, it is a bigger total.
This is really a system doomed to fail--and it is failing.
And I hope that EPA will be a really big voice in the Build
Back Better, and that we will figure out a way to lift some of
this burden off of communities, billions of dollars in unpaid
bills due for infrastructure improvements. They simply don't
have the money. They have lost out millions of jobs in our
region. So how are communities supposed to do this?
So I think we need your vision to place responsibility
where it belongs. And how do you do that when there is no
political boundary for the watershed that is causing the
problem? And then how do you help the poor cities that are
being asked to clean everything up, and their taxpayers and
ratepayers are being sent these bills to a point where we are
shutting off thousands of people's because they can't afford
the bills? This is not a workable solution.
Do you have any thoughts about how you are being included
in the Build Back Better discussions at the White House? I
think the Federal Government should lift this bond of
indebtedness off these communities.
Mr. Regan. Well, thank you for that question. I did not see
the visual, but I have it in my head, imagining it.
Listen, we are front and center in the American Jobs Plan.
We are front and center in the 2022 budget that we are
requesting. The President's wisdom has shown that the $111
billion that we are asking for to help improve the country's
water system, wastewater, stormwater, replacement of lead
pipes, is an aggressive and an ambitious number.
But the facts are that out of that $111 billion, it is a
small down payment because there are $743 billion worth of
needs in this country.
So we have got to move forward in a very aggressive way to
begin jump-starting the infrastructure repair that needs to
occur for not only water quality needs, as you have laid out,
and environmental justice needs, but to put jobs in those same
communities as well.
So we want to use the $111 billion from the American Jobs
Plan, we want to use the increases from the 2022 budget, but we
also want to use the environmental justice and equity dollars
that are in both of these requests to marry this so that those
who are most impacted will see the benefits of water quality
and jobs first.
Ms. Kaptur. Well, thank you, Administrator Regan.
I wanted to suggest, if you haven't visited the D.C. water
facility here, I was absolutely fascinated with my visit there
because I have been wondering how can I reduce these bills on
the communities I represent and, frankly, for the whole
country. And I think we need a different business model.
They have a new business model. And their business model is
they are turning the biggest consumer of energy in the city of
Washington, which is the treatment of water and sewage, into an
energy utility. And they are doing it by not just drawing down
power from the grid, but they are producing power.
And they are producing power through a thermal heat
exchange system where they will then replicate kind of what we
have done in the old steam systems that existed across cities,
connect every building adjacent to them, and use the
differential in temperature to actually produce power for the
first time from sewage and water reclamation. And they are on
task to become an energy utility.
I chair an Energy and Water Subcommittee in the Congress.
When I saw that I thought, whoa, how do I get that to
Cleveland, how do I get that to Lorain, how do I get to Toledo,
to Buffalo, to all these place that are struggling under these
gigantic debt loads? And I would encourage your staff to look
at the bonded indebtedness across the Great Lakes and other
regions of the country.
But I think this DC group has really--they are on to
something transformational. And they are turning their
wastewater treatment facility into an energy utility. They are
adding solar, they are adding--they have already got the
geothermal. I am sure they are going to add more.
I think it is revolutionary. It doesn't exist anyplace else
in the United States. I think other cities, Denver and others,
are looking at it.
But I just commend it to your attention because we have got
to break the mold on 20th century thinking, we just can't
achieve the objective, and appropriated dollars aren't enough.
Mr. Regan. Right.
Ms. Kaptur. But I think if we can look at these generators
of power, including these water and sewage treatment plans, I
think we are into a different era.
So I just wanted to share that vision with you. And also to
say in terms of, I am sure, Mr. Joyce has talked many times
about the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, on the committee
that I chair, every year the Bureau of Reclamation for 17
Western States gets a billion dollars off the top of
appropriated dollars to help with the dry up, the drying West,
right?
We are lucky in the GLRI if we get 250 million, sometimes
330 million. I think one time they got 500 million, maybe back
when President Obama was in office.
But we are not on the same playing field. And we got the
water. We got 95 percent of the fresh surface water in the
country. Somebody better be thinking about it for future
generations. So help us get on a level playing field.
And I thank you very much for listening.
I don't have that clock on my--I can't tell if I have gone
over time. So I don't know where it is on the screen, but I
apologize if I have gone over time. And I thank you very much
for listening.
Ms. Pingree. It is fine, Chair Kaptur. You have gone over
time, but it was well worth it. And it is always good to wrap
up with talking about the Great Lakes.
And you have mentioned that facility in D.C. a couple of
times, and I think we are going to just have to have a field
trip to see it because it definitely sounds impressive.
So thank you so much, Administrator Regan and Deputy Bloom,
for appearing before our committee and answering our questions.
We really appreciate that. Look forward to partnering with you.
And if there are no additional questions, this hearing is
now adjourned.
[Answers to submitted questions follow:]
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