Projected Salvage Volumes Were Achieved, but More Could Have Been Offered for Sale

For fiscal years 1995 and 1996 and the first quarter of fiscal 1997, the Forest Service offered for sale a total of 4.6 billion board feet of salvage timber, which was 1.2 billion board feet above the programmed levels for this period before the salvage rider. In addition, the total volume offered was about 2 percent more than the projected target of 4.5 billion board feet specified in the Secretary of Agriculture’s June 29, 1995, letter to the Speaker of the House. Department of Agriculture’s Actions Delayed the Sale of Significant Volumes of Salvage Timber

The Secretary of Agriculture’s July 2, 1996, memorandum to the Forest Service provided revised direction for the emergency salvage sale program. Selected Provisions of the Salvage Rider Had Little Effect on Timber Volumes

The salvage rider contained numerous provisions designed to help the Forest Service expedite the preparation and award of salvage sales, thus increasing the volume of salvage timber offered for sale. We examined the Forest Service’s implementation of and the effect of four of these provisions dealing with the elimination of the appeals process, expedited judicial review, preparation of combined environmental documents, and use of retired Forest Service employees and contractors at four national forests located in four different Forest Service regions. Although our analysis indicated that the salvage rider provision exempting salvage sales from appeal had little effect on the number of sales or the volume of salvage timber offered for sale under the emergency salvage program, officials from three of the four national forests we visited told us that the provision should be made a permanent part of the Forest Service’s policies and guidelines because it has the potential to expedite the efforts at the national forests to offer salvage timber for sale after the expiration of the salvage rider. However, the forests continued to prepare separate documents and then combined them with a staple or clip. In addition, Payette National Forest officials said that by keeping the environmental assessments and biological evaluations separate, they could plan and prepare their salvage sales faster. Forest Service officials said that combining the two documents resulted in an excessive amount of detailed information that was not needed for the decision-making activities associated with national forest salvage sales. Nationwide, only a total of 10 former employees were hired. Forest Service Had Adequate Documentation on Salvage Sales to Justify Decisions

At three of the forests we visited, we reviewed 14 salvage sales for which the Forest Service had received complaints from environmental organizations that the salvage sales contained excessive volumes of green timber and therefore did not comply with the definition of salvage sales under the salvage rider. The contract files for all of the 14 salvage sales contained sufficient documentation to support the Forest Services’s conclusion that these sales met the definition of a salvage sale in the salvage rider and the Forest Service’s guidelines. However, because of the more stringent criteria imposed by the Secretary’s memorandum, the Clearwater National Forest delayed offering the four salvage sales until after the salvage rider expired because (1) three of the sales had initially been planned as green timber sales prior to the salvage rider’s implementation and (2) in the fourth sale, the green timber comprised over 25 percent of the offering.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Forest Service's emergency salvage timber program, commonly referred to as the salvage rider, focusing on: (1) the volume of salvage timber offered by the Forest Service under the salvage rider from fiscal year (FY) 1995 through December 1996 compared with the volume that it had planned to offer for the same period prior to passage of the rider; (2) the effect of the Secretary of Agriculture's July 2, 1996, memorandum, which placed more restrictions on salvage sales; (3) whether four specific provisions of the salvage rider helped the Forest Service to offer salvage timber for sale more timely; and (4) whether certain salvage sales that were of concern to environmental organizations met the definition of salvage timber as specified in the salvage rider and Forest Service's guidelines.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) under the emergency salvage program, the Forest Service offered for sale a total of 4.6 billion board feet of salvage timber, which was 1.2 billion board feet more than the Forest Service had planned to offer before the rider; (2) the total volume offered under the rider was about 2 percent more than the target of 4.5 billion board feet specified in the Secretary of Agriculture's letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives; (3) the volume of salvage timber offered for sale under the salvage rider could have been significantly greater; (4) four selected provisions of the rider had little effect on either expediting the preparation and award of salvage sales or increasing the volume of the salvage timber offered for sale for the four forests GAO visited; (5) two of the provisions, eliminating the appeals process and expediting judicial review, were of little help because, traditionally, the Forest Service experiences few appeals or legal challenges when selling salvage timber; (6) the rider required that for each salvage sale, the national forest shall prepare a document that combines an environmental assessment and a biological evaluation; (7) this provision was implemented by simply attaching the documents together; (8) Forest Service officials believed that by continuing to prepare separate documents, they could plan and prepare their salvage sales faster and that combining the two documents resulted in an excessive amount of detailed information that was not needed for decisionmaking activities; (9) at the four forests GAO visited, only one retired employee was rehired and a few contractors were used; (10) nationwide, 10 retired employees were rehired and no statistics are available on how may contractors were used: (11) GAO reviewed 14 salvage sales for which the Forest Service had received complaints from environmental organizations that the sales contained excessive volumes of green timber, live and healthy trees, and thus did not comply with the definition of a salvage sale under the salvage rider; (12) GAO's analysis of the contract files for all of the 14 salvage sales showed that they contained sufficient documentation to support the Forest Service's conclusions that these sales met the salvage rider's definition of a salvage sale and the Forest Service's guidelines for implementing the rider; and (13) however, the Forest Service delayed offering 6 of the 14 timber sales until after the salvage rider had expired because of the more restrictive eligibility criteria for salvage sales set forth in the Secretary of Agriculture's memorandum.