S. HRG. 107–816 Senate Hearings Before the Committee on Appropriations Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Fiscal Year 2003 107th CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION H.R. 5093/S. 2708 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NONDEPARTMENTAL WITNESSES Interior Appropriations, 2003 (H.R. 5093/S. 2708) S. HRG. 107–816 DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2003 HEARINGS BEFORE A SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON H.R. 5093/S. 2708 AN ACT MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF THE IN- TERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 2003, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES Department of Agriculture Department of Energy Department of the Interior Nondepartmental Witnesses Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 78–477 PDF WASHINGTON : 2003 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001 COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia, Chairman DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii TED STEVENS, Alaska ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania TOM HARKIN, Iowa PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri HARRY REID, Nevada MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky HERB KOHL, Wisconsin CONRAD BURNS, Montana PATTY MURRAY, Washington RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota LARRY CRAIG, Idaho MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas JACK REED, Rhode Island MIKE DEWINE, Ohio TERRENCE E. SAUVAIN, Staff Director CHARLES KIEFFER, Deputy Staff Director STEVEN J. CORTESE, Minority Staff Director LISA SUTHERLAND, Minority Deputy Staff Director SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia, Chairman PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont CONRAD BURNS, Montana ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina TED STEVENS, Alaska HARRY REID, Nevada THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah PATTY MURRAY, Washington JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado Professional Staff PETER KIEFHABER BROOKE LIVINGSTON GINNY JAMES LEIF FONNESBECK BRUCE EVANS (Minority) RYAN THOMAS (Minority) Administrative Support JENNIFER STORIPAN LARISSA SOMMER (Minority) (II) CONTENTS THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2002 Page Department of Energy: Office of the Secretary ..................................................... 1 THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2002 Department of Agriculture: Forest Service ............................................................ 79 THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2002 Department of Agriculture: Forest Service ............................................................ 113 TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 2002 Department of the Interior: Office of the Secretary ............................................. 133 Nondepartmental witnesses .................................................................................... 247 (III) DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RE- LATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2003 THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2002 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met at 10:09 a.m., in room SD–124, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Robert C. Byrd (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Byrd, Burns, Cochran, and Domenici. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY STATEMENT OF HON. SPENCER ABRAHAM, SECRETARY OF ENERGY OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROBERT C. BYRD Senator BYRD. The committee will come to order. Mr. Secretary, I am very delighted to have you appear before this subcommittee. My first question, getting right to the point, is: How is that third baby in the Abraham family getting along? Secretary ABRAHAM. He is doing well, sir. And you will note that, while his first name is Spencer, his middle name is Robert. Senator BYRD. That is very important. Well, he is already on first base. Secretary ABRAHAM. I think so. Senator BYRD. You said on September 6, 1996, that you and your lovely wife have twin daughters who were 3 years old, Betsy and Judy. How are they getting along? Secretary ABRAHAM. If they did not have their younger brother tormenting them much of the time, I think they would report they are getting along very well. But they have learned that boys are a little different than girls. So we have quite a good family. Senator BYRD. Tell those lovely children that they have been a great help to their father—— Secretary ABRAHAM. I will. Senator BYRD [continuing]. This morning already. On behalf of the Interior and Related Agencies Subcommittee, I welcome you here this morning. We appreciate you coming to for- mally present and discuss the administration’s fiscal year 2003 budget request for the Office of Fossil Energy, the Office of Energy Efficiency, the Energy Information Administration, and the Stra- tegic Petroleum Reserve. (1) 2 Last May, when you first testified before this subcommittee, you had been Energy Secretary for only 3 months. The President’s Na- tional Energy Policy, which was to guide the development of your Department’s agency, had not been finalized or released. Nor had the catastrophic events of September 11 forced us to all reevaluate our national priorities with respect to energy. But it is different this year. You have had adequate time in which to gain control of your department. The National Energy Pol- icy, which you, as Secretary of Energy, have fashioned, has been presented to the Nation and has spurred what I consider to be an important debate. And 6 months after the devastating attacks of September 11, Americans understand just how vulnerable we are and why it is integral to our Nation’s security that we increase our energy independence. And yet, as I look at the Department’s budget request, I am puz- zled and somewhat dismayed. Rather than respond to the chal- lenges we face by increasing our research and development activi- ties as a way of securing our Nation’s energy independence, this administration has instead chosen to retreat. In energy conservation, for example, research and development activities that reduce the energy we use are cut by 8 percent. Under this budget proposal, the fossil energy research and develop- ment account is cut 16 percent from current levels. Coal research outside of the clean coal technology program is cut 9 percent. All research goes down by 37 percent overall, while programs specifi- cally geared toward boosting exploration and production are slashed 49 percent. And the budget simply guts natural gas re- search, cutting those activities by 51 percent. I appreciate the many demands, Mr. Secretary, that are placed upon you and your Department. You must address the safety of our Nation’s nuclear stockpile. You have responsibilities for environ- mental cleanup. And the Energy Department, like all departments, has been called on to support the Office of Homeland Defense. But now is not the time to walk away from the kind of research that will secure our Nation’s energy independence. As President Bush has said, ‘‘For the sake of national security, we must find more oil and gas at home.’’ Mr. Secretary, I will not, before you have had an opportunity to speak, belabor these points. I look forward to the question-and-an- swer period so that these and other issues can be discussed in greater detail. I also look forward to working with you and the sub- committee’s distinguished ranking member, Senator Burns, in making sure that the Energy Department has the resources that it needs to carry out its duties. Your mission is an important one, and it should not be left behind. Now I turn to my counterpart, my distinguished colleague, the ranking member of this subcommittee, Mr. Burns. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CONRAD BURNS Senator BURNS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And what a difference a year makes. Last year at this time, Mr. Secretary, you appeared before the subcommittee in a time of rel- ative peace in the world. At home, however, we were in the midst of an intractable energy crisis that began in California and infected 3 the entire West. Gasoline prices in parts of the country were head- ing towards $2 a gallon. There was great concern that a cold winter ahead could drive heating prices through the roof. A year later, gasoline prices have settled considerably. The en- ergy crisis in the West has seemingly abated. And the winter has nearly passed without showing its wicked teeth. Our troops are at war around the globe; and Senator Byrd is holding my gavel. What a difference a year makes. As you know, Mr. Secretary, the apparent change in our energy fortunes will be fleeting, at best, un- less we take some positive actions now. While additional genera- tion capacity is being constructed in California and throughout the West, and especially my State of Montana, it will likely not be enough if we have even a modest hot spell this summer, and de- mand for electricity goes up, or if we cannot eliminate some trans- mission bottlenecks we are experiencing across the country. While gasoline prices have moderated somewhat, domestic oil production continues to decline and prices remain increasingly sub- ject to the production decisions of others, most of those decisions being made offshore. And while last year people in the West dem- onstrated an ability to reduce their demand for electricity, those demand reductions will be totally overwhelmed if our economy re- bounds, as we all trust that it will. In fact, the imbalance between energy supply and demand lurks as a tremendous threat to a sus- tained economic recovery in this country. Nobody, Mr. Secretary, can afford to be complacent about our en- ergy future.