FORESTRY THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 1949 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D. C. The CHAIRMAN. The subcommittee will come to order. We will take up H. R. 2001, and the purpose of this executive session is not to make a cumbersome record. We already have one, and I might say for the benefit of those who are here it is not the intention of the committee to publish the record that has already been made, but we will use it for the benefit of the committee. We thought that it would be well to have you people up here to answer some of the questions for us. We might have varied conception of what the bills are about and there is so much interest in them we want the subcommittee to be well informed, to know exactly what are in these bills. I think it would be well to start on the first bill and have you make the statements. I hope that we will not have to make them too long. The committee members will ask any questions they wish and John you may ask any questions you wish. STATEMENT OF RAYMOND D. GARVER, DIRECTOR FOREST SURVEY, UNITED STATES FOREST SERVICE Mr. GARVER. My name is Raymond D. Garver. I am Director of the Forest Survey, United States Forest Service. The Forest Survey is a study to determine forest areas, and the growth, volume, and depletion of timber on all forest land; that is both public and private, in the United States, as a basis for local, National, and international programs and policies. The Forest Survey as it is carried out is made up of four distinct parts: (1) The determination of the area and location of forest land. Mr. GRANGER. Under what authority do you do that? Mr. GARVER. Under the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act of May 22, 1928. Mr. Garver continues to list the distinct parts referred to previously: (2) Determine the volume of timber by species and types on the forest area. (3) Determine the growth of timber in board feet and cubic feet. (4) Determine the drain or depletion of this timber for commodity purposes, and the losses on account of fire, insects, and diseases. The interpretation of these four points is really the fifth step and perhaps the most important among the worth-while results obtained from this project. Now, Mr. Chairman, if you wish I will demonstrate how we determine the information for these four steps. Mr. GRANGER. I wish you would start at the beginning. As I understand it there is no change in the general all-over policies made by this legislation. STATEMENT OF DR. EDWARD C. CRAFTS, CHIEF, DIVISION OF FOREST ECONOMICS, USFS Mr. CRAFTS. That is right. The primary objectives are the same. The proposed bill is identical to existing legislation except as to authorization. The present authorization authorizes $6,500,000 to complete the first survey, with an annual authorization of $750,000. There is also authorized $250,000 annually for resurveys. Mr. WORLEY. Is that money available? Mr. CRAFTS. That is authorized money, but we do not have an appropriation equal to the authorization. The appropriation this year, for the initial survey, is $500,000. The annual authorization is $750,000. Mr. WORLEY. You are asking for $1,000,000 a year? Mr. CRAFTS. Yes, an annual authorization of $1,000,000, and a total authorization of $11,000,000, for completion of the initial survey. Mr. WORLEY. The present authorization is for only $750,000 annually? Mr. CRAFTS. Yes. There are two parts to the survey, the first or initial survey and the resurvey. The annual authorization for the first survey is $750,000, with a total that can be appropriated of $6,500,000. Mr. GRANGER. That is under the present law? Mr. CRAFTS. Yes. This proposal in H. R. 2001 is to raise that to $1,000,000, annual authorization, with a total authorization of $11,000,000. Mr. GRANGER. Over what period of years? Mr. CRAFTS. No specified period. For the resurveys the present annual authorization is $250,000, with no limit on the total. Mr. WORLEY. This proposal is to raise that to $1,500,000 a year for the resurvey? Mr. CRAFTS. Yes. Mr. WORLEY. You want $1,000,000 to continue the initial survey? Mr. CRAFTS. Yes, annually. Mr. WORLEY. How much do you want for the resurvey? Mr. CRAFTS. $1,500,000 annually for the resurvey. Mr. WORLEY. You say the annual authorization now for the resurvey is $250,000? Mr. CRAFTS. Yes. H. R. 2001 proposes to raise that to $1,500,000 annually. Mr. WORLEY. It costs more to resurvey than the initial survey? Mr. CRAFTS. No. The total authorization for the resurvey will be needed only after the initial survey has been completed. Mr. WORLEY. My main concern is the cost. Why do you want an increase? Mr. CRAFTS. I think that I can talk easier from these charts we had the other day. [Witness indicates on chart.] Now we have this total of $6,500,000 total authorization for the first survey, with an annual authorization of $750,000. Mr. WORLEY. Was the total amount $6,500,000 appropriated? Mr. CRAFTS. No, this is the authorization; the total appropriation has reached about $4,500,000 since 1930, when the survey started. In a very short time the appropriation will equal this authorization. Mr. WORLEY. How long? Mr. CRAFTS. It depends on the rate of appropriation. At the existing rate we will have exhausted this authorization in 3 or 4 years. Mr. WORLEY. Has the Budget Bureau recommended this bill? Mr. CRAFTS. No, it hasn't. The request from the committee came to the department on the 16th of last month and the hearing was held on the 24th and there was not time for the department to get advice from the Bureau of the Budget regarding the relation of this bill to the legislative program of the President. Mr. CRAFTS. The history of the appropriation has been that during the war the appropriation was very small. Then amended authorizations were passed in 1944 and at the conclusion of the war the full authorization, amounting to $750,000, for the first survey, annually, plus $250,000 annually for the resurvey was appropriated for 1 year. The next year the Bureau of the Budget and Congress cut it down to $500,000, for the initial survey, plus $250,000 for resurveys, where it has stood for several years. Mr. WORLEY. The Budget Bureau seems to exercise powerful influence up here. Mr. GRANGER. I think you ought to get an opinion from them first. Mr. CRAFTS. We have no hesitancy on our part doing it. When this amendment was passed in 1944 the Bureau of the Budget concurred in the amendment and recommended it. Mr. GRANGER. Do you think they will do it now? We are not going to report this bill out until we get a report from the Bureau of the Budget. Mr. WORLEY. I don't know whether we should take their time [referring to representatives of the Forest Service] until we get a report from the Bureau of the Budget. Why are these increases necessary? Mr. CRAFTS. At the time the present authorization was made in 1944 we had left to do 322,000,000 acres out of the total forest area of 624,000,000 acres. That has cost us the last few years 2.87 cents an acre compared to 1.64 cents per acre during the first 15 years of the survey. Mr. WORLEY. Do you have your own surveys made or do you hire the work done? Why does it cost 2.87 cents an acre? How are those cost figures arrived at? Could you break it down? Mr. CRAFTS. Yes. Mr. GRANGER. Who does this work? Mr. CRAFTS. The inventory work is done by us partly through aerial photographs. We largely use aerial photographs from other Government agencies or from commercial firms. We purchase them or make arrangements to borrow them. We do very little actual aerial photography ourselves. If we did that, these costs would be very much higher. Mr. GRANGER. Since you are doing this work in cooperation with State agencies and private officials, are they in position to do the work? Mr. CRAFTS. We may cooperate with appropriate officials of the States and through them or independently conduct these surveys; that is just what we are doing now in 22 States. We have cooperative arrangements in 17 States. We have had State cooperation worth about $350,000 in the last year. It takes the form of loan of personnel, loan of office equipment, loan of trucks; sometimes the transfer of cash outright. We were asked to do the photographic work for them in New York. They transferred $92,000 to us. Quite often the States finance the photographic aspects of the surveys. Mr. GRANGER. You are in complete charge of the work? Mr. CRAFTS. Yes. Mr. WORLEY. Most of that is for administrative purposes rather than actual flying-flying is only one part of the survey; is it not? Mr. CRAFTS. Yes. I was going to go through the techniques. We have an inventory as one phase of the work; then we have to get the drain or depletion and estimate future needs-all for the purpose of getting the supply on one side and the demand on the other, so that we may be in position to balance the supply and demand against each other. The aerial-photography aspect is the beginning of the inventory phase of the work. With the aerial photographs we map out the forest land from the nonforest land. Next, on the forest land we can tell whether it is a commercial forest or noncommercial forest. That narrows our field. Then next we can tell whether it is old-growth timber, young-growth timber, seedlings, or saplings. On the basis of these determinations from the photographs we narrow our field down enough so we can then go out in the field and cruise sample plots to tell what kind and volume of trees are on those areas. From that information we make an estimate of the volume of timber and rate of growth for the entire area. That is the inventory phase of our work. Mr. WORLEY. That gives you a cross section? Mr. CRAFTS. Yes. The work is carried on under direction of regional field stations and is now going on at eight stations. They work closely in cooperation with local people and do the work on the ground. It is not an office job. Mr. WORLEY. The main idea is to determine how fast we are using it so that we can replace it. In one area you will find that the forest reserve is being dissipated, then what do you do? Mr. CRAFTS. We inform the people who are in a position to do something about it. We report to State agencies and private groups. The function of the work under this act is a fact-finding, an analytical function, not a policy function. Mr. WORLEY. Do the States do any of this work? Mr. CRAFTS. They cooperate with us and intensify the work. In California over the past few years they spent $188,000 to get special information on non-Federal land in the State of California. Mr. GRANGER. There is no obligation on the States to make any contribution? Mr. CRAFTS. No. We go into some States where they do not cooperate. We feel the problem of such importance over the entire country that we should not be prevented from going into States because the are not cooperating. In the past year the States contributed about $350,000, and I would say the total amount since 1945 would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $700,000. Mr. LIND. You get a lot of request from some of the States for the information you gather? Mr. CRAFTS. Yes. A lot of the States want us to get additional detailed information for them without their doing any part of the job. They all make extensive use of the information we are able to get. Mr. LIND. They receive information which you have already gathered, too? Mr. CRAFTS. Yes. Mr. GRANGER. What you have said applies to an all-over forest survey, public and private? Mr. CRAFTS. Yes. Mr. WORLEY. Suppose Congress made no additional appropriation, how serious would that be? Mr. CRAFTS. Our situation would be this: that in about 2 or 3 years we would discontinue our first-time survey. We have never covered the entire country. The Rocky Mountain areas have not been covered; parts of California, the Northeast, and Middle Atlantic States, such as Pennsylvania and New York, have not been covered. That work would be stopped. The amount for resurveys is $250,000 now. We would be able to make a very general estimate that would have some degree of reliability for the country as a whole in about 20 years. We would not have reliable information for the individual States. Mr. WORLEY. Wouldn't you think the States themselves would get the information? Mr. CRAFTS. Some States have forestry agencies and if they had the money we would try to get together and cooperate with them, but they would not do the entire job themselves. Mr. WORLEY. All of the States have more money today. I don't know why they wouldn't assume some of these surveys. Mr. CRAFTS. One of the difficulties in that is that there is a Federal responsibility in connection with a national survey. We are trying to get information useful on a national basis, for National Security Resources Board and other departments and Federal agencies of the Government. If the States did the work exclusively there would be no coordination between the States and we would not be getting the comparable information. We would not be able to add it up between States and we would not have any over-all national picture. Mr. WORLEY. You couldn't collect the information from the States? Mr. CRAFTS. They wouldn't get it in the same way. It is very difficult to add up the details, because it is a technical project, unless you have coordination and direction from one central place. Mr. LIND. Wasn't this the same as the census we had taken every 10 years? We are interested in the job from a similar Government standpoint. Mr. CRAFTS. I think that is a very good analogy. Mr. LIND. And we can depend on it. Therefore, it falls back upon the Government to get this information so that it is available to the States, if they want it, and so that the Federal Government has it for planning purposes, knowing what the status of the forest reserve is. Mr. CRAFTS. I think that is true. Mr. GRANGER. How much do you spend on the forest survey? Mr. GRANGER. If you did nothing further on that and if you just left it the way it is now, and did not spend any more money on it, how much value would you receive out of that in another 2 or 3 years? |