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Forest Fire/Wildfire Protection

Description: This report provides historical background on wildfires, and describes concerns about the wildland-urban interface and about forest and rangeland health. It discusses fuel management, fire control, and fire effects and also examines federal, state, and landowner roles and responsibilities in protecting lands and resources from wildfires. The report concludes by discussing current issues for federal wildfire management.
Date: August 14, 2003
Creator: Gorte, Ross W.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department

Wilderness Laws: Permitted and Prohibited Uses

Description: This report discusses the Wilderness Act generally prohibits commercial activities, motorized uses, and infrastructure developments in congressionally designated wilderness areas. However, the Wilderness Act and many subsequent laws designating wilderness areas also contain provisions authorizing activities that do not conform with these general prohibitions. The general prohibitions and the authorized uses are important because controversies persist over permissible and prohibited activities in wilderness areas, and because bills often seek to modify existing areas or activities.
Date: January 7, 2009
Creator: Gorte, Ross W.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department

Forestry in the 2007 Farm Bill

Description: This report briefly describes the Agriculture Committees' jurisdiction over forestry, with examples of legislation addressed by the committees. It discusses forestry issues likely to be debated in the upcoming farm bill and presents information on the forestry provisions in the Administration's proposal for the 2007 farm bill, followed by the forestry provisions in the Farm, Nutrition, and Bioenergy Act of 2007 (H.R. 2419).
Date: August 20, 2007
Creator: Gorte, Ross W.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department

Wildfire Funding

Description: This report briefly describes the three categories of federal programs for wildfire protection. One is to protect the federal lands managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service (FS), and by the U.S. Department of the Interior, whose wildfire programs are coordinated by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). A second category assists state and local governments and communities in protecting nonfederal lands; these programs are used to reduce wildland fuels, to otherwise prepare for fire control, to contain and control wildfires, and to respond after severe wildfires have burned. A third category of federal programs supports fire research, fire facilities, and improvements in forest health. The last section of this report discusses the impact of high and rising wildfire costs.
Date: May 7, 2007
Creator: Gorte, Ross W.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department

Forest Service Accountability in Administering Its Trust Funds

Description: The USDA Forest Service has numerous permanently appropriated trust funds and special funds that provide substantial funding independent of the annual appropriations process. Critics have alleged abuse of the funds and have sought greater congressional oversight, and the General Accounting Office has testified on the agency’s management of some of these accounts. While the Administration has offered few responses to the criticisms of these funds, it has, in its FY2001 budget request, proposed creating two new trust funds and combining several existing funds into a new fund with expanded purposes. This report provides an overview of the permanently appropriated Forest Service accounts and concerns over their use and proposed alternative structures that could provide greater public and congressional oversight and control over permanently appropriated funds.
Date: March 8, 2000
Creator: Gorte, Ross W.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department

Alternative Sources of Wood for Japan

Description: Japan is one of the world's largest wood importers, with two-thirds of its imports as logs (unprocessed timber). Southeast Asia has been the largest log supplier, but supplies (and exports to Japan) have been declining. The United States has become a more important supplier, but concerns about declining domestic timber supplies have led to proposals to prohibit or to tax log exports. Opponents suggest that Japan would simply turn to other sources to replace U.S. logs. One question in this debate is where the alternative sources of logs or wood products might be.
Date: August 25, 1994
Creator: Gorte, Ross W.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department

Wilderness: Overview and Statistics

Description: The U.S. Forest Service established the first protected "wilderness area" under its own discretion in 1924. In 1964, the Wilderness Act established the National Wilderness Preservation System, reserved to Congress the authority to designate wilderness areas, and directed the Secretaries of Agriculture and of the Interior to review certain lands for their wilderness potential. The Act also designated 54 wilderness areas with 9 million acres of Forest Service land. Congress began expanding the Wilderness System in 1968, and today, there are 631 wilderness areas, totalling nearly 104 million acres, in 44 States.
Date: December 2, 1994
Creator: Gorte, Ross W.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department

Below-Cost Timber Sales: An Overview

Description: The Forest Service sells some timber at prices that are less than the agency costs to administer the timber program. This report discusses these "below-cost" timber sales that have been debated by Congress for more than a decade, but no policy to address the issue has been adopted legislatively or administratively.
Date: December 20, 1994
Creator: Gorte, Ross W.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department

Wildfire Protection in the 108th Congress

Description: The 2000 and 2002 fire seasons were, by most standards, among the worst in the past 50 years. Many argue that the threat of severe wildfires has grown in recent years because of unnaturally high fuel loads (e.g., dense undergrowth and dead trees), raising concerns about damage to property and homes in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) — forests near or surrounding homes. Debates about fire control and protection, including funding and fuel treatments (e.g., thinning and prescribed burning), have focused on national forests and other federal lands, but nonfederal lands are also at risk.
Date: July 24, 2003
Creator: Gorte, Ross W
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department

Wildfire Protection in the 108th Congress

Description: The 2000 and 2002 fire seasons were, by most standards, among the worst in the past 50 years. Many argue that the threat of severe wildfires has grown in recent years because of unnaturally high fuel loads (e.g., dense undergrowth and dead trees), raising concerns about damage to property and homes in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) — forests near or surrounding homes. Debates about fire control and protection, including funding and fuel treatments (e.g., thinning and prescribed burning), have focused on national forests and other federal lands, but nonfederal lands are also at risk.
Date: August 5, 2003
Creator: Gorte, Ross W
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department

Wildfire Protection in the 108th Congress

Description: The 2000 and 2002 fire seasons were, by most standards, among the worst in the past 50 years. Many argue that the threat of severe wildfires has grown in recent years because of unnaturally high fuel loads (e.g., dense undergrowth and dead trees), raising concerns about damage to property and homes in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) — forests near or surrounding homes. Debates about fire control and protection, including funding and fuel treatments (e.g., thinning and prescribed burning), have focused on national forests and other federal lands, but nonfederal lands are also at risk.
Date: September 10, 2003
Creator: Gorte, Ross W
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department