Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Alright. Good afternoon, and welcome to the House Environment Committee. This afternoon, we are welcoming Dana Doran to comment on h 2 76, so state wild lands. Welcome.

[Dana Doran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Well, good afternoon. Again, I'm Dana Duran. I'm executive director of educational nonprofit, the Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast. We were created in 1995 to represent timber harvesting and hauling contractors in the state of Maine. In And 2023, we expanded and we now have 34 members here in the state of Vermont. And we also represent contractors in New York. We have 12 contractor members in New York, New Hampshire, soon to be Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island. We're now a regional educational nonprofit. We advocate on behalf of the logging community. We also do training for our members. We have an insurance program. We have a philanthropic program called Log A Load for Kids that donates money to the UVM Children's Hospital. So that's a little bit of background. I live in the state of Maine and our main primary office is in the state of Maine. So today I'll provide testimony on H-two 76 to the committee and I'll also convey a little bit of information I brought with me from the state of Maine. My testimony was submitted yesterday. It is quite lengthy. I provided quite a bit of references and handouts, so you should have that online, but it's about 90 pages in length. I assure you I'm not going to bore you with 90 pages of testimony today. We also have three board members of our organization from here in Vermont, Jack Bell from Longview Timber Harvesting in Heartland, Sam Lincoln from Lincoln Farm Timber Harvesting in Randolph Center, and Dakota Harvey from D Harvey Timber Harvesting down in Rutland. Logging in the state of Vermont, we're actually going to release a new economic impact study the February where we have Vermont numbers included. So logging will convey this at the February officially, but the numbers tell us that as of 2024 logging and trucking contractors of Vermont were responsible for the creation of 1,200 jobs, 75,000,000 in earnings income and 140,000,000 in direct financial output. So let's get to H-two 76. So the bill before you aims to enhance and encourage the preservation of state owned forest in Vermont. While on face value, this appears to be a noble endeavor. What is described in the legislation appears to us to go far beyond what Act 59 intended to achieve with permanent conservation measures, proposing to designate 21 state parks, state forests, and wildlife management areas, as well as other state lands currently classified as natural areas and highly sensitive management areas as wild lands where passive management would take place. For context, Act 59 created an ecological reserve category among two other permanent conservation categories that all would qualify as permanent conservation. According to Act 59, ecological reserve area means area having permanent protection from conversion and that is managed to maintain a natural state within natural ecological processes and disturbance events are allowed to proceed with minimal interference. With that in mind, there is no definition of ecological reserve area in Vermont's statute with respect to state lands, but there are natural areas and highly sensitive management areas that are managed similarly to ecological preserves because of their special nature. With that in mind, natural areas and highly sensitive management areas are not off limits from general management, vegetation management, fire, or invasive species intervention strategies. What is described in this legislation from our perspective does not appear to be conservation, but more so a preservation measure that will use taxpayer funds to take working state owned forest land out of production and prohibit all future forest management of any kind. Currently, Parks and Recreation and Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in Vermont manage 360,000 acres of land in the state. 77,000 of these acres or 22% are currently managed as natural or highly sensitive management areas with very little interference. According to mister Porter's testimony in front of this committee two weeks ago on this bill, if the legislation were to pass as written, 268,000 of 360,000 acres under management by the state or 75% would be designated as wild lands and would be taken out of all forest management planning. For comparison purposes, the state of Maine manages 660,000 acres of state land between Maine Public Reserve landstate parks and inland fisheries and wildlife, And only 115,000 acres or 17% is allowed to be considered permanently conserved as an ecological reserve. And I've attached to my testimony a recent statutory change in Maine, LD seven thirty six, which went into effect in 2022, which conveys the definition of an ecological reserve in Maine, but also the number of acres that are allowed to be considered ecological reserve. And there's a statutory cap in Maine on ecological reserve lamed. That those numbers that I gave you, that is an actual statutory cap. If this bill moves forward, only will reduce active management of Vermont's public forests, but it will have serious consequences for the forest economy in the state by sending exactly the wrong message. First and foremost, as directed by Act 183 in 2022, the Commissioner of FPR was directed to create the Vermont Forest Future Strategic Roadmap, also in my testimony referred to as the roadmap, to assess the current state of Vermont's forest economy and to identify opportunities to strengthen, modernize, promote, and protect the forest product sector into the future. This ten year strategic plan lays out a roadmap to protect the long term viability of forest based businesses and the many benefits they provide to the state's environment, economy, and quality of life. Pillar one of the roadmap is entitled Forest Management and Land Use. The pillar places a strong focus on supporting management to improve forest health with state forest management at the heart of this pillar. This legislation effectively would have a chilling effect on the efforts of the roadmap and send a message that Vermont does not want to manage, harvest, and utilize its own forest products, but would rather import them from other states or countries or export them if they are harvested to other states for processing. And Vermont's public forests would effectively be put off limits. Additionally, timber harvesting on state lands creates significant jobs for the rural economy in the state, including our membership. Jobs for our members who directly facilitate the management of state forests. Additionally, harvests on state forests are critical for contractors to fill in the gaps and keep things going when market pricing has been reduced as the state does not need to retain as much for stumpage as in the realm the private sector or private small landowners. The state can keep contractors employed regardless of market forces and provide a tremendous example of exemplary force management to the public at large. Lastly, I would like to provide a pointed example of what has been done in nearby Maine as you have heard from members of the public that have pointed to Maine as an example of what is possible. I have been a member of the Maine Climate Council's Natural and Working Lands Workgroup since 2020. I've also been a member of governor Janet Mills forest carbon task force in 2021. We made recommendations in our reports and I have attached both actually three reports, two from working in natural lands as part of the climate council and the forest carbon task force to my testimony today so that you can take a look at it, that would increase investment in forest land conservation. However, you will note that not once in our deliberations or recommendations did we ever support taking forest land out of production or prohibiting timber harvesting. We were very deliberate and thoughtful to ensure forests not only stay forests, but we use them to grow higher quality wood and expand markets simultaneously because we believe that that can be done. As forests get older, they reach a point where it is beneficial to cut the older trees, leaving room for younger forest growth to regenerate in their place. Trees in Vermont will not live for three hundred years, let alone a thousand years. They will die, they will rot on the forest floor, they will produce methane, and they will limit regeneration. For managed forests, it has been proven that regenerative growth will capture more carbon in the long run. Even if a mature tree is harvested, if used in the right application, the carbon is stored permanently in long lasting forest products, even after being harvested. In the most recent Maine Climate Council Natural and Working Lands final report to the Climate Council in 2024, again, I attached it, there is no mention of preservation and using state land to achieve such a goal. This report was unanimously supported by a group that consisted of state officials, environmental conservation organizations, landowners, loggers, mills, and wildlife officials. Recommendation one of the work group's final report states, focus land protection efforts in areas with high biodiversity value, high carbon storage sequestration, cultural and economic importance, and or which offer opportunities to improve public access equitably. Through voluntary focused purchases of land and conservation easements, increase of the area of conserved lands in Maine by at least 1,500,000 acres by December 2030 with the following target in mind: sustain ecosystem services and lands needed for carbon storage and sequestration and natural resource based industries by securing significant and well distributed working forest conservation, including productive lands for storage and sequestration and durable wood product production and new fee and easement conservation within source drinking watersheds to ensure water quality without additional water treatment measures. As you should note in this recommendation, but what is pervasive through all three reports over the last five years, the emphasis is upon conservation and there is not one mention of preservation. All stakeholders recognize that the forest can be conserved but managed and kept in production for the benefit of all. Protecting Vermont's environment is a priority for everyone in this state and it must be done in collaboration with the people who live on and take care of the land every day. Vermont can achieve conservation goals while also maintaining economic resilience. This bill would take decades of careful management and essentially throw it out the window in favor of doing nothing as a management plan. Thank you for your consideration and I'm happy to answer any questions that the committee might have.

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Thanks for your testimony.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: Representative Zachlitz. Yeah. In front, we have Vermont Conservation Design, which is a state program which guides how we look at the use of our state lands across the state. It's a Fish and Wildlife Department document project, and it calls for about 9% of Vermont to be conserved as old forest, which means more or less what we've been talking about what you've been talking about not wanting, which is to have a more hands off approach. We're nowhere near that level right now, but it's it's one of our goals, and it seems like using the state lands to help us achieve that goal would be cost effective. And what we've also heard is that it would have very minimal impacts on the amount of timber that's harvested from state lands statewide. So if if we were to not include these lands in the way that you're suggesting, but we need to find other places to have old forest that would have even less effect on the forest industry. What would be your suggestion for where we go to find those lands to create old forests in in in Vermont?

[Dana Doran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Appreciate appreciate your your question, representative. So pointing back to my testimony on the first part of your question with respect to the Vermont conservation design, you go on their website and you, and I referenced it in my testimony. So if you go on their website, you will see that right now the 360,000 acres of land in the state of Vermont, 77,000 or 22% are already currently managed as natural or highly sensitive management areas, which means that there's little interference. So to your point, there's already, you've actually exceeded that goal. And I ask you to just look at the website, you will see that that is bigger. So that's number one. In terms of the impact upon the timber harvesting and manufacturing sector, I would argue that do you want to promote, regardless if it's state lands, private lands, do you want your forest products to have to come from somewhere else? Everybody in this room, everybody in the state of Vermont uses forest products. They're in your cars, they're in your clothes, they're in the paper that we use, they're in paper products, they're in cartons, they're everywhere. So the question is, does Vermont want to effectively, if you harvest wood, send that wood even farther away to be manufactured and even farther away to be sent back to be utilized by Vermonters by essentially promoting not harvesting on state lands. I guess that would be my respectful response to your question. Because right now, though, what this bill would be promoting is only take it from private lands and then send it as far away as possible. Send it to Canada, send it to Maine, send it to New York, but don't process it in the state of Vermont. This bill won't do that because it doesn't deal with manufacturing, I understand. However, you're effectively pushing, harvesting even further out to just private lands and taking it away from the state.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: Yes, that would be the goal.

[Dana Doran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: And the very forest products that could come from wood that's harvested on state lands and manufactured into a durable forest product would have to come from somewhere else. Correct?

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: A very tiny percentage. One which we heard the numbers on in the low single digits, like 11% of of trees harvest Vermont comes from

[Dana Doran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: And respectfully has an impact upon our members who work on state lands. And if they can't harvest, what happens to them?

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: I would suggest that 1% is a is a very small number. And I would also suggest, I would also say that we've heard many times in this committee that we are nowhere near our 9% goal for Vermont Conservation Design. And I don't wanna argue about we're arguing on this, but I do wanna put out the fact that your testimony has been not corroborated by many others that we've heard from for a long time.

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Representative Austin? Yeah. I've just been wondering, and this shows how little I know about your industry. Do you pay Vermont anything for Augustine wood? Yes. You do? Okay. Yes. Yep. And it just shows that I don't Okay, I was just worried about that. Of the some of the testimonials we've heard is about the carbon storage and also about flooding, how old forests really help manage flooding. I mean, we're spending a billion dollars a year on rebuilding housing, dealing with flooding. You know, can you see the I'm just wondering in terms of do you see the balance that we have to make between the environment and the economy? Because, you know, that's a lot that's a lot of money for us.

[Dana Doran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Sure. To to your point, the floods that occurred in Vermont in 2023 and 'twenty four didn't occur because of timber harvesting. No. No. And to your point about weather carbon storage. So 90%, excuse me, 80% of all the carbon that naturally is occurring in the globe is in the forest floor. It's not in the trees. So you have a very small amount that's in the trees. So where there's I'm sorry, go ahead.

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Sorry, I'm just just wanna clarify. I'm talking about like trees that pull forests, know, trees that have fallen over, they haven't been cut. And as a result of them breaking down and turning into peat or whatever, that's the mitigation against flooding.

[Dana Doran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: So, yeah, two points. So one with respect to carbon storage, I'm so happy to bring it back to this committee as well because we had the Nature Conservancy as part of the forest carbon task force that I was on, and the TNC brought scientific evidence that the greatest carbon storage that occurs in a tree's development is between years ten and eighty. That's when a tree absorbs the most carbon. Once it reaches beyond, yes, it will increase in size, but it's not gonna absorb and build as much carbon storage after it reaches age 80. So even in your old growth trees, as I mentioned before, no tree is generally going to live beyond two fifty years, let alone three hundred. And when it dies, it is going to die. It's going to off gas methane, which is an even more terrible greenhouse gas for our atmosphere. And it's going to essentially, because if you just leave the wood alone, it's going to dissuade the potential for new growth to occur in other trees. With respect to flooding, your second point, whether or not, if you look out the window at the trees behind us, none of that is old growth, but that root system and the infrastructure that exists in those trees is going to absorb water. It can only absorb so much and the root structure can only absorb so much. So when you have a hundred year flood like Vermont had two consecutive years in a row, essentially what happened in your watershed areas didn't occur because of timber harvesting. There's only so many places that water can go, and in a situation that it's beyond where that water can flow, it's going to create flooding.

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Right. Just to kind of dig in a little bit. In old forest, what I'm understanding, because when we saw after a hundred years or whatever, it breaks down. It becomes like peat moss. And so with flooding, when water comes, it's like a sponge. The ground is like a sponge as opposed to like cement. So that's what that's the testimony. But my my other question is, like, what compromise would you be willing to make? You know, because we're talking about outdoor industry, you know, outdoor, you know, an outdoor industry. We're talking about the environment. It's a big economy for us, a lot of money. What So, would you

[Dana Doran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: yeah, it's a fair question. As I mentioned before, Act 59 effectively discussed ecological reserves, but there's no actual statutory definition for state lands what an ecological reserve consists of and what treatment can take place. So I also provided you with what Maine has done on ecological reserves on state lands. I think that's a good reference point. I think if the state of Vermont would take a look at codifying what an actual ecological reserve is and potentially providing some limitations on the types of lands that could be considered ecological reserve rather than just going to a full blanket approach, I think that's a reasonable situation to take a look at. Again, we're not against ecological reserves. There are highly sensitive areas that deserve being placed in an ecological reserve, whether it's for fauna, flora, insects, mammals, whatever it may be, types of growth, absolutely. There are places where you should reserve some forest land, but a full blanket approach where there is no management, ecological reserves can still receive some management. If there's a fire, if there's an invasive species, if there's something else that's impacting it, that can still take place. That's not what this bill does.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: You're welcome.

[Speaker 0]: Representative Pritchard?

[Rep. Christopher "Chris" Pritchard (Member)]: Yeah. So thank you. And I appreciate your, you know, your testimony here. As as representative said, we've had testimony that may collaborate a little different. But all the testimony that we've had so far to you has been at a different perspective. It's been at a different perspective. And this is an important issue. So I think there's good points made on both ends. But I think there should be equal time of those perspectives. And I would encourage the chair, if we could invite some more people with this perspective, and then take it all in. Because I think that's important. I think it's important.

[Speaker 0]: We're actually targeting a witness right now. You can speak. I I do provide opportunities for folks to speak at the end of sessions. I hear you. Do you have a question? No. No. Do other members have questions? Representative Noor?

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Yeah. Thank you, Dave. I appreciate your testimony. Can I just get some clarification? There was some arguing back and forth that I wanted to make sure I understand. Percentage of logging and timber harvesting occurs currently within Vermont that is on Vermont state land versus the whole state?

[Dana Doran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: So I think you've got testimony tomorrow from Vermont Forest Parks and Rec. I would ask them that question because they manage state lands. They're gonna be able to tell you how, you know, how many acres are treated on an annualized basis. They could probably give you the last five years. I think that would be get that directly from the landowner.

[Rep. Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Yep. Yep.

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: On sawmills, I heard that there weren't a lot of sawmills. I'm just wondering the manufacturing of products, how much of that is our economy?

[Dana Doran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: So exact numbers of sawmills, again, I represent the timber harvesting community. Your numbers of sawmills, I think last time I heard there used to be in 2020, don't quote me on this, this is a mass generalization, I think they were around 80, some small sawmills, I think you're down to somewhere in the 50s or 60s. You've lost some significant sawmills recently in the last few years. So again, and there's no pulp and paper market for low grade. You do have some two biomass markets. This complex is actually heated with wood biomass directly across the street at the Montpelier District Heating Center, but most of your wood production is set out of state, to Canada, New York, Maine, or other settlements. Representative North.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Yeah, just one more question to clarify statistics again. I think you quoted a 75% number. What I'm trying to get at is what was the percentage of North Vermont state lands that was talking about being preserved against wildlands in this bill?

[Dana Doran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: I did. Again, I'm quoting a little bit from Mr. Porter's testimony a couple of weeks ago, and then utilizing what I know is managed by the state. So that's state forest land, state parks, etcetera, as well as property that's managed by inland fisheries and wildlife. So that property is 360,000 acres. What it appears to look like is if all of the state parks, state lands that were in this bill were effectively taken out of production, that equates to 268,000 acres of the three sixty, which is 75%.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Thank you very much.

[Speaker 0]: Representative Labor?

[Rep. Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Thanks, Jerry. Dana, in the process of managing forests in Maine, has there been any thought given for management of invasive species such as emerald ash borer or woody. In this bill, there's that application doesn't exist. Also, all last summer, the northern part of the state ate a lot of smoke.

[Dana Doran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: I'm sorry. I didn't hear that last part.

[Rep. Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Northern part of the state residents ate a lot of smoke. It came from Canada. Their forever forests were burning.

[Speaker 0]: Actually, they were managed forests that were burning. But sorry. I you said that the other day. I wanted to just

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Most of

[Rep. Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: the ones on Shalipwat Street were not made in big old wild forests. When they burn, we have to close our windows, shut the air conditioners off. And the asthmatic people and people with COPD are affected. And yet there was a thick AIDS. I'm concerned that this one of my concerns of this bill is that there's no salvage locking, and there's no provisions for disease or harvesting of infected trees. In other words, calls. So if we're doing that, how

[Dana Doran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: do we defend ourselves? Appreciate the question, representative labor. So with I think you asked about main and treatment of invasives. So, again, I would reference you to the statute that I gave you on ecological reserve management, on public lands in Maine, just public lands, not private, public. So if you review the statute, even if it's an ecological reserve in Maine, you can treat the forest because of invasives and fire. You can remove trees if necessary in those situations. So the authority is there with an ecological reserve in Maine with respect and that would go for fire or invasives. So that can happen with an ecological reserve. We don't have any wild land preserved lands on public lands that are managed by the state in the state of Maine. There no public lands, including I heard yesterday, Baxter State Park was referenced. So Baxter State Park is 156,000 acres. The scientific management unit in Baxter State Park consists of 30,000 acres, that is used for harvesting. So of the 156, 120,000 acres are off limits unless there is a fire, they can manage that property. If there's a forest fire in Baxter State Park, the state can go in and treat that fire. There are 30,000 of the 156, there is timber harvesting. We have members who are conducting that timber harvesting. So we don't have preserved state lands in total for the state of Maine. Maine had to increase their budget for fire control, RE towers and staffing for So Maine Fire Control through the we have a it's a little bit different than Vermont Forest Parks and Rec in Maine. So the state of Maine has Maine forest rangers. Maine forest rangers are in charge of forest fire protection. They are paid for through a tax of landowners. So if you own more than a thousand acres in Maine, you pay a tax to the state for every acre you own and that money goes into forest fire protection.

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Thank you for your testimony.

[Dana Doran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Thank you very much for having me in. Yep.

[Speaker 0]: Is there a stony person? Yeah, she's ready. Just check-in.