HILL CITY -- Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop said Sunday that a congressional field hearing on mountain pine beetles held outdoors in view of thousands of bug-infected trees was a telling experience that could inspire him to push for congressional action on the beetle epidemic.

That action could include forced policy changes in the U.S. Forest Service at levels above the Black Hills National Forest, making it easier to fight the spread of the beetle, Bishop said following the hearing.

“The problem is higher up in the chain,” he said, referring to Forest Service officials and policies at the regional and national level. “And that’s something where maybe we can step in and help.”

Bishop, a Utah congressman who serves as chairman of the U.S. House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, brought the subcommittee oversight hearing to the Black Hills at the invitation of Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D. Noem sought a hearing environment that would emphasize the widespread beetle damage. She believes she found it outdoors at the Rafter J Bar Ranch Campground south of Hill City.

The campground is located in and around a grassy clearing with forested hills and mountains on all sides. Most of the hills are marked with swaths of reddish-brown trees killed by pine beetles.

Noem said the location helped Bishop see the pine beetle “devastation.”

“It was an unusual request to make, but we really felt we needed to have it in a unique setting as well,” she said.

Bishop said he is well aware of the pine beetle problem affecting millions of acres across the American West, including his home state of Utah. But he also admitted that seeing is believing on a more personal level.

“You hate to do things because you have a personal relationship with them, but you do,” he said.

The setting, hearing and the issue itself attracted more than 250 people to a picnic shelter near a swimming pool and play area at the Rafter J Bar Ranch. And attendees got to see more than position papers.

Prior to the hearing, law-enforcement personnel and Pennington County Commission Chairman Ken Davis hustled to give aid to a woman who crashed her bicycle on a sidewalk nearby. And during the hearing, the voices of children on a playground set mixed with testimony offered by people on the pre-selected witness list.

The witnesses included state and federal forestry officials and representatives of business interests, in particular tourism and logging. They did not include environmental groups, some of whom dispute the kind of intensive tree cutting in the name of beetle control advocated by those called to testify.

Members of the audience were not allowed to speak or ask questions during the hearing, a point that troubled rural Hill City resident Chuck Landon.

“There needs to be some time when they just listen to us, and not just the people they pick for their list,” Landon said. “They need to hear from us, too.”

Tom Blair of Deadwood, a member of the Black Hills National Forest Advisory Board, said the official witness list was impressive but incomplete.

“I think there should be an open forum, too. The people who really count are sitting on the other side of the table,” Blair said, gesturing to the audience. “Sometimes the process gets too spoon-fed.”

It’s not unusual for congressional field hearings to have witness lists aimed at a particular point of view, typically the one a hosting member wants told. And there was no disputing the credentials on the witness list or their experience with pine beetles.

Black Hills National Forest Supervisor Craig Bobzien of Custer said more than 400,000 acres of the 1.2-million-acre national forest have been affected by pine-beetle damage. Another 400,000 acres remain at risk, he said.

A denser forest and a long drought helped create conditions that encouraged the beetle outbreak and killed pine trees on “an epic scale,” Bobzien said. The forest service is fighting to control by authorizing tree removal to make it harder for bugs to spread, Bobzien said.

“We are using every resource available to address the growing crisis in forest health,” he said.

But other witnesses argued that the agency must do more, quickly, to prevent even more losses that damage forest aesthetics and tourism and increase the threat of catastrophic wild fires. State Agriculture Secretary Walter Bones read a letter from Gov. Dennis Daugaard following a common theme of praising Black Hills National Forest officials, while condemning their superiors in the Forest Service and the policies they impose.

“(Local forest officials) have been great to work with,” Bones said. “But unfortunately, they’re just being hamstrung by environmental policy.”

Reading from the letter, Bones said the Forest Service must do more to prevent beetles from spreading to private and state land.

Jim Scherrer, a member of the forest advisory board and landowner, who has been fighting pine beetle encroachment from federal land for years, said the local forest officials are effective, when the rules and supervisors allow it.

“These guys want to get it done,” Scherrer said.

Scherrer urged Bishop and Noem to further streamline regulations and make it easier for the Forest Service to fight beetles by thinning forest and removing infected trees.

“Please use all the tools necessary,” he said. “Create new tools. Figure it out.”

Jim Neiman, vice president and chief executive officer of Neimen Enterprises, said his corporation’s ability to maintain existing sawmills in Spearfish, Hill City and Hulett, Wyo., depends on how much of the Black Hills can be saved from the tree-killing beetle. If too many trees are lost, one or two of the mills might have to close, he said.

Cutting more trees now will save trees on a larger scale later and keep the forest and the timber industry healthy, he said. But that means fewer restrictions on tree removal, he said.

“You have to take the restrictions off, so we can attack the bugs like they’re attacking us,” Neiman said.

That stronger counterattack can’t come soon enough for Rafter J Bar Ranch Campground owner Todd George. The operation his family has owned for 41 years is being jeopardized by the beetles, George said. And a planned expansion project is on hold as the family ponders the future and spends money to protect key trees from infestation and remove others.

“Until the deleterious effects of the pine-beetle epidemic are fully dealt with, we will continue to take a defensive, fight-for-survival approach in running this business,” George said. “All expansion plans at our business must remain on hold until the uncertainty of this potential catastrophe is resolved.”

Noem said the hearing should help on that resolution. Congress and the federal agencies must act quickly to slow the pine-beetle spread and avert even worse damage, she said.

“This is an emergency and should be treated as an emergency, much like a wildfire is,” she said.