We need to take immediate action.

As time passes, the value of this dead timber declines, until after a year or so it becomes unsalvageable.

Four hundred miles of roads are now in jeopardy. If nearby trees are not removed before winter, we can expect dead trees to begin toppling, risking lives and closing access.

If you want timely salvage operations in Yosemite or anywhere else in the country--if that's really your goal--fund the Government.

What he didn't explain was that process takes a year or more, and by the time the normal environmental review of salvage operations has been completed, a year from now, what was once forestland will have already begun converting to…

Basically what we are doing is consigning what was once forestland to become brushland for the next several decades?

The crisis at the Westgate Mall is deeply troubling and represents a serious security concern to East Africa.

The situation is particularly urgent because of the early infestation of bark beetles, which have already been observed attacking the dead trees.

This was cute, but not an effective way to end this shutdown. I voted against this piecemeal strategy.

Even though the impacted land in the park is primarily wilderness, the bill waives all environmental review.

How will we know that they will apply the kind of rigor that you just indicated if we are waiving all normal procedures and judicial review?

Would you agree, sir, that there are instances where salvage logging is not appropriate; where if it is not done right, you could actually worsen some of the things that you have mentioned in your testimony, things like erosion, water…

Again, if done incorrectly, if impacts are created, let us say water quality impacts for the city and county of San Francisco, who pays for that mitigation if there is no NEPA process, if there are no safeguards in place to address the…

There is also a maxim about making sure that the cure is not worse than the disease, and proper procedures and safeguards are an important part of ensuring that.

this bill would basically mandate, or at least permit, salvage logging without any normal administrative procedures or judicial review, safeguards in every part of it.

This is an incredibly broad bill. It covers a broad area of land, a lot of acreage that includes forestland, National Park Service land.

the majority of these threats, when you look at these organizations and you look at the funding streams, the majority of them tie back to the Saudi peninsula in terms of funding.

This is something, Madam Chair, we are going to have to deal with at some point in time.