16 U.S.C. § 6551 — Findings and purpose

(a) Findings. Congress finds that: (1) high tree mortality from insect infestations, including insect-and-disease interactions, may cause (A) greater fire risk; (B) loss of old trees and old growth; (C) loss of threatened and endangered species; (D) loss of species diversity; (E) worse watershed conditions; (F) greater potential damage from other disturbances, including exotic invasive species; and (G) lower timber values; (2) (A) forest-damaging insects destroy hundreds of thousands of tree acres each year; (B) more than 21,000,000 acres in the West are at high risk of forest-damaging insect^* infestation, and more than 57,000,000 acres in the South are at risk across all ownerships; and (C) severe drought in many Southern and Western areas will increase infestation risk; (3) the hemlock woolly adelgid (A) is destroying streamside forests in the mid-Atlantic and Appalachian regions, (B) threatens water quality and sensitive aquatic species, and (C) may threaten valuable commercial timberland in northern New England; (4) (A) the emerald ash borer is a nonnative invasive pest and a major hardwood-forest threat because infestation is almost always fatal to affected trees, and (B) it threatens more than 692,000,000 ash trees in Michigan and Ohio forests alone and 5 to 10 percent of urban street trees in the Upper Midwest; (5) (A) epidemic Southern pine beetle populations are damaging forests in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, and (B) Florida and Kentucky had population increases of 146 percent and 111 percent in 2001; (6) those outbreaks forced private landowners to harvest dead and dying trees in rural and increasingly urban areas; (7) according to the Forest Service, recent red oak borer outbreaks in Arkansas and Missouri were unprecedented, with more than 1,000,000 acres infested at never-before-seen population levels; (8) much red oak borer damage occurred in national forests, and the Federal response was inadequate to protect forest ecosystems and other ecological and economic resources; (9) (A) earlier silvicultural assessments were useful but limited in scale and scope, and (B) resources were insufficient to test a full range of individual and combined applied silvicultural assessments; (10) only fully funding, developing, and assessing possible applied silvicultural assessments over specified periods and across varied environmental and climate conditions can identify the most innovative and cost-effective management applications to reduce forest ecosystems' susceptibility to forest pests; (11) (A) insects and diseases often interact significantly, (B) diseases including white pine blister rust and beech bark disease can weaken trees and stands and make them more vulnerable to insects, and (C) some diseases, including Dutch elm disease and pine pitch canker, spread through insect vectors; and (12) funding and carrying out this initiative should not take money from other Secretary^* programs and initiatives. (b) Purposes. This subchapter's purposes are: (1) requiring the Secretary to develop an accelerated basic and applied assessment program against forest-damaging insects and associated diseases; (2) obtaining help from colleges and universities, including forestry schools, land-grant colleges and universities, and 1890 Institutions, State agencies, and private landowners; and (3) carrying out applied silvicultural assessments.