Remarks by Cecil D. Andrus
U.S. Forest Service National Silviculture Workshop
Boise, Idaho
June 15, 2009

When you have been around politics and government as long as I have, and in my case it has been a steady preoccupation for close to 50 years, you sometimes think that no problem ever gets fully resolved. If we are lucky, we make a little progress at the edges, but it is rare that we ever say, “Well, we got that problem licked.”

It reminds me of the old story about the inmates at a prison who had all been locked up for many years. They had been in prison for so long that they had heard and told every joke from everyone there a thousand times. So, to streamline the joke telling, they started numbering the jokes.

For example, one of the inmates would say, “I feel like telling old number 12”, and everyone would laugh.

One day, a newer inmate who had only been in for a few years, decided he would try a joke. He said, “How about number seven?” But all the other inmates just stared at him and no one was laughing.

The joke teller said, “What’s wrong? No one is laughing.”

One of the old timers spoke up and said, “You didn’t tell it right…”

I sometimes feel we could just assign a number to forest health, another number to climate change, a different number to multiple uses, and so on. Then I could just recite the numbers and sit down. Policy makers make endless speeches on these kinds of issues, but it seems we make little progress in solving problems.

I am hoping that with a new administration now in place, we will start solving some problems. I do have some optimism.

I am encouraged by the stated determination of the new Obama Administration to sweep aside what I can only call, an anti-science bias existing in the previous administration, and to once again rely on the kind of science and analysis that the forest service produces.

We must use the best science regardless of how it may test the popular will or the politically easy position if we are to ever make progress on important policies related to climate change and utilization of biomass, among many others.

So, part of my message today is to encourage you to do all you can to recapture a central role for science, in your case silviculture, in the making of public policy.

You are the experts. The rest of us depend on you to give us the data and facts about trade-offs, and to provide options in order to make sound, smart public policy.

Unfortunately, for too many years the voices of the experts were drowned out by political operators who think every problem is a partisan problem that can be solved by making the loudest argument. I truly hope the new administration values science. It is only common sense to do so.

When I left the Idaho Governor’s office in 1995, we established the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University.

We have convened a number of conferences over the last 10 years that deal with western natural resource issues. In 2004, we did a conference to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Forest Service. We talked about the management challenges the Forest Service has always faced and we reflected on the job going forward.

As I was thinking about this gathering, I went back and looked at the reports presented, and was struck by one section in particular. It was a remark about climate change, and I quote:

"Prominent climatologist, Dr. Tim Brown of the Desert Research Institute, noted that there is scientific consensus that we are in the midst of climate change. For the west in the 21st Century, this means a warmer winter, less snow pack but more precipitation, and warmer summers. Drought will continue, comparable to the period of the 1930’s or 1950’s.”

In Dr. Brown’s understated summary he said, “This will be the challenge for management.”
I think that is about right, and that makes your work in the forest service all the more important.

In Harv Forsgren's letter inviting me to offer some remarks today, he asked me to address how the Forest Service and each of you can meet the challenge of managing the national forests for energy, economic development and environmental quality "in a changing climate."

That will be a tall order, and as Dr. Brown suggested at that 2004 Andrus conference, a challenge for management of the Forest Service.

I don’t need to tell you that all three of these purposes; energy, economic development and environmental quality are very important. They can also be contradictory and competing.

Some groups will push for one outcome at the expense of the other two. Finding the right balance is the real challenge since I doubt whether you can maximize all three objectives at the same time.

The facts are that the American public and politicians want to give everything all the time. We do not like making tradeoffs and we do not like having to choose. For years the Forest Service has been caught in this struggle.

We continue to debate what exactly the purposes of the national forests are, and how we approach an agreement around that question.

One Idahoan would tell you the national forests exist to produce wood fiber. Another would tell you they exist to provide hunting and fishing opportunities. Another would tell you the forests help drive the economy of the state, particularly rural communities.

This Idahoan would tell you that there is a measure of truth in each of those answers.

So what you do, and what policy makers must do, is find the delicate balance that creates an equilibrium and gives the
American public the opportunity to have it all; an increase of energy from biomass, a stronger economy and the hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation we so enjoy in Idaho and the west.

Let me make a couple of comments about the debate over climate change and what I hope you and Forest Service leadership will do to help the policy makers sort through the debate.

I suspect we have some consensus around this issue. We can all agree that the climate is changing.

If some of this change is the result of a "natural cycle", then the predictable human reaction will be to focus on how we can keep forests the way they are because we value them the way they are, even if that means going up against "Mother Nature.”

On the other hand, if it becomes more certain that human activity is at the center of climate change, it may become easier to manage forests to, in effect, "keep them the way we want them.”

The real point is that climate change is likely to make it more difficult for you to manage for the three purposes: energy, economic development and the environment.

If climate change really has become your new overarching management issue, then I believe the Forest Service must be extremely transparent about how managing for climate change will affect the three big objectives.

A couple of thoughts on the biomass to energy issue.

According to the Department of Energy, biomass is now providing about three percent of all energy consumed in the United States and nearly 50 percent of all the energy from renewable sources. Biomass supplies more BTUs than hydroelectric energy.

I am also told that in Idaho, wood bioenergy accounts for about four and half to five percent of all the energy consumed.

Electric generation from biomass (excluding municipal solid waste) represents about 11 percent of all generation from renewable sources in the United States.

Biomass supplies almost six times the energy of geothermal, solar and wind energy sources combined. Worldwide, biomass meets about 14 percent of the world´s energy needs.

However, no one seems to have a good handle on how much potential exists in the west or the rest of the nation.

It is not clear to me, and maybe you can figure it out at this conference, how once we discover the potential, we will maximize the opportunity to generate more energy while still managing the national forests for wood products and recreation.

We also need to think about the infrastructure needed to get the potential energy delivered. However, we should not rush to construct a lot of infrastructure until we know what is available in the National Forests, and better understand what is involved in its utilization.

Forest Service silviculturists play a critical role in providing the best information available so that realistic plans can be pursued on forest biomass uses for energy generation.

There seem to be two primary challenges. One is cost, and transportation is the largest component of cost. The second challenge is supply. Biofuel facilities must have a consistent supply of materials for the life of a project and this could mean 20 to 25 years. The steady supply issue presents a real challenge for you and the national forests.

The data about the amount of material available should drive decisions for how large an energy facility should be built, not the other way around.

On this point, the developers of these big biomass plans need to hear from the technical experts about how much biomass is realistically available and how much it costs to get it out of the woods. I encourage you to continue to play the role of honest, science-based reality checkers and resist the pressure to come up with research that justifies a political position.

Although I think we need to improve biomass utilization, I do not think we will be able to move as quickly as we might like. We must first sort out the priorities, and we have barely begun that effort.

For example, we may need to reconsider a whole range of issues related to management of the national forests. We know that a lack of harvest can have serious adverse consequences.

I previewed research that will soon be public that says tree mortality in Idaho forests is at the highest level since we started keeping records nearly 60 years ago, due to overcrowding and drought.

Mortality in the forests is now caused from the removal of more timber on an annual basis than harvest, and the accumulation of dead wood has now reached an all-time high. The overwhelming majority of dead wood in national forests contributes to the fuel that feeds big fires that in turn, have major cost and environmental impacts.

Here is one other challenge for those of you in the Forest Service: It is important that you be as clear as possible about the state of science on carbon sequestration, specifically growing trees to hold carbon.

We have been having this conversation for 15 or more years, yet the state of the science, at least in terms of public understanding, has not advanced much.

I would like to see more attention on what various sequestration strategies really mean to a more effective policy aimed at controlling carbon.

We have limped along in the United States for 25 years without a coherent national energy strategy. We continue to import too much energy, and despite what the Governor of Alaska says, we cannot drill our way to energy independence.

We need to attack the issue in a comprehensive way and make some tough decisions.

Until recently, we have not been aggressive enough about fuel efficiency standards and have not placed nearly enough attention on the improvement of mass transit.

We cannot summon the political will to deal with nuclear waste so that technology remains largely on the shelf.

I believe everyone agrees that we must aggressively pursue alternatives, but to do so will not be fast or easy.

Nevertheless, we must get on with it.

The best policy, whether it is related to biomass, climate change or carbon, will come when we utilize the science, and honest information about the direction we should move.

I am optimistic for the new leadership, and the new commitment to solving some of these old and perplexing problems.

I hope if Harv is to invite me back in a couple of years, I have the opportunity to thank you all for moving the ball on these issues.

Good luck. We are depending on you.