Norman D. Dicks

I hope you are going to make some judgments and not just do this on the basis of numbers.

Well, and is it not true that it is 2 percent of the fires that get to be mega fires, and that is where the real cost is? So having a strategy to deal with that fact is very critical.

I think also it is a manifestation of climate change. You have a longer fire season, and you have a lot more of these infestations that are not dealt with because of the weather, and these problems are going to get more and more serious.

I am a big supporter of the Forest Legacy program and I am also a big fan of water conservation, but if I had to choose between buying another piece of land and taking care of important research issues like this, I am not sure I would make…

This is the most important program. Why would we do that?

This is not on budget. This is off budget. So I do not think you even need the authority.

I think that is what the American people want to see.

I think the last thing we want to do is throw more money--if we cannot spend the money we have already got.

I brought the GAO in, and I asked them why have they not succeeded, and they said, bottom line, no accountability.

We changed the law so that we took the same kind of forgiveness procedures that we have under the safe drinking water act and applied them to clean water.

Before we enter into a prolonged debate about climate change and its source, our ability to regulate it, the cost of these regulations, and the economic impact of those regulations, please review for the committee how we got to this.

While suppression funding expands dramatically, the preparedness account which funds all the firefighters and equipments is level funded with no pay costs or inflation adjustment at all.