Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, this strikes all the potential wilderness designations proposed in this package, which is a very vague and ambiguous designation that gives broad discretion to the relevant land management agencies to designate these areas as wilderness at a later time. As I previously mentioned during debate on the last amendment, one of the clear flaws of the package before us is the apparent arbitrary process that was taken in determining the areas to designate as wilderness. This shortcoming, unfortunately, extends to the potential wilderness designations in the bill as well. Official testimony from the land management agencies raised concerns about many of these suspect designations not possessing appropriate wilderness characteristics. For example, in the Washington portion of this package, many of the 5,000 acres set to become potential wilderness are largely near roads and include large amounts of previously harvested stands of timber. These are clearly roads that the proponents of this bill want to close. However, this is the wrong way to do that. Locking up vast swaths of land is a bad way to manage Federal land. And I reiterate, if we want to do something about atmospheric carbon and use our forest as a tool, locking them up where we can't touch them is not the way to do that. We should be investing in sustainable, proactive measures that balance both resource stewardship and local input.…”