I agree, this should not be a partisan issue.

Thank you, Chairman. This is the second time I have had the honor of sitting on this Committee.

So, in other words, 110 Americans were killed as a result of improper forest management here in the United States of America.

The Sacramento Bee... are actually destroying the environment all in the claim of protecting.

You either change the management practices or places like Yosemite... are going to continue to be threatened.

We have to get to a point where we respect the loggers, the ranchers as the true stewards of these lands or we are simply going to lose them to catastrophic fire.

I am so honored to be up here... a dream team of foresters and leaders here in the Sierra Nevada.

Are our grandkids going to listen to us when we blame the Democrats?

We have to be able to act as fast as the fire.

These fires are becoming all too frequent, becoming all too often, and all too catastrophic.

But hopefully, the majesty that we are witness to with the trees and the mountains and the waterfalls also gives us hope and inspiration to do the hard work and be persistent and to keep at our job so that we can make those improvements.

I want to say too that many members on this Committee, many members of the Western Caucus have come forward with ideas to improve our response to wildfires and improve the situation as it relates to our management of our forests.

It is symbolic of sometimes the walls that we run into in Washington, DC when we try to make substantive changes and improvements.

I want to say thank you to all of our witnesses here today for coming and sharing with us your experiences and your perspectives.

These restrictive laws and the endless litigation that they spawn could been put aside in favor of doing the forest management that would have saved the town of Grizzly Flats.

Excess timber will come out of the forest, and it comes out in only two ways: Either we will carry it out or nature will burn it out.

An untended forest is no different than an untended garden. It is going to grow and grow until it chokes itself to death.

If that categorical exclusion authority had been available to the El Dorado National Forest as it has been for 7 years to the Tahoe Basin, would the town of Grizzly Flats have survived?