Bruce Westerman: “If throwing money at a problem would fix it, then we wouldn't be having fires today. Over the past few years, our…”

“If throwing money at a problem would fix it, then we wouldn't be having fires today. Over the past few years, our Federal land managers have been showered with $12 billion to battle wildland fires and to make our forests more resilient. The result of that is that Forest Service estimates they are going to treat less acreage than they treated before. It is not a money problem. It is a policy problem and Fix Our Forests will help solve that problem. Mr. Chair, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock). Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, over the last 10 years, we have lost fully one-quarter of our Federal forests to catastrophic fire. An untended forest is no different from an untended garden. It will grow and grow until it chokes itself to death, and then it will succumb to disease, pestilence, drought, and ultimately catastrophic fire. This is how nature gardens. She doesn't care that it takes a century or more for a forest to regrow. We mortals do. Excess timber will come out of the forest in only two ways. Either we will carry it out, or nature will burn it out. That is why we created the Forest Service, to do our own gardening and remove excess timber before it can choke off the forest. Every year, foresters would mark off surplus timber, and we would auction it off to logging companies who paid us to remove it. For a century, we enjoyed healthy, fire-resistant and resilient forests.…”