Jeff Bingaman: “this amendment requires the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to establish a collaborative monitoring…”

“this amendment requires the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to establish a collaborative monitoring process in order to assess the environmental and social effects of a representative sampling of projects implemented under this act. There are many forest-dependent communities that support collaborative monitoring of forest projects on public land. This simply means it is collaborative monitoring. That phrase simply means that interested communities and individuals may participate with Federal agencies in monitoring the ecological and social effects of forest health projects. Proponents of the legislation that we are considering today continually state that they want more collaboration at the beginning of the process. However, unless there is collaborative monitoring of the effects of the projects, we will never be able to rebuild trust between rural communities and these agencies. Congress enacted a similar requirement when authorizing the Stewardship Contracting Program. In addition, Senator Craig and I sponsored the community-based Forest and Public Land Restoration Act. That bill, which was passed by the Senate unanimously, also required collaborative monitoring. This is a simple amendment. I believe it is noncontroversial. I hope this is acceptable to the managers of the bill and can be adopted.”