Political Quotes

“I strongly oppose this amendment. I know this amendment may have good intentions, but it is misguided. It will hurt the employment in the Native villages of Alaska. We have studies that show that the employment would not increase if we cannot export some of our logs. By the way, this amendment was in the Natural Resources Committee, and it was defeated 30 13. Last night, the Alaska Forest Association wrote in strong opposition to the amendment. And, very frankly, it is not right for the government to tell somebody on private land where they can sell their product. The only person who should be able to do this is the owner of a product. We don't tell where the Californians can sell their rice. We don't tell Weyerhaeuser where they should sell their timber. And so we shouldn't be telling a private landowner where to sell their timber. In fact, if we had the Tongass National Forest, what little land we have left of less than a million and a half acres that is federally owned as far as harvesting capability, if the Forest Service would do their job, we'd have some timber to harvest, but they're not doing it. But what timber they do harvest on Federal land, they allow 50 percent of old-growth timber sales and 100 percent of new growth, 100 percent to be sold. So this is a little bit, I say, not sincere in the sense that this is not going to create jobs, and the Federal Government is already allowing timber to be sold wherever they wish to.…”