Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 2647, the Resilient Federal Forests Act. This bipartisan legislation will give the Forest Service tools it needs to better manage our national forests. As a professional forester, I see that our forests are in decline and lack resiliency. President Teddy Roosevelt, who worked alongside a fellow Yale forester, Gifford Pinchot, to create the U.S. Forest Service, are the two I would credit as the fathers of our national forest. Roosevelt said, ``The Nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value.'' We have problems with our current forest policy that is leaving one of our most treasured natural resources less resilient, decreased, and impaired in value. It is not only our forests that suffer. Without forests that are healthy, we have poor water quality, poor air quality, less wildlife habitat, less biodiversity. My bill aims to fix these problems, and it aims to fix them through proactive and sound management. First, our forests are living and dynamic, but we have a problem of delayed decisionmaking or, even worse, no decisionmaking at all. This bill incentivizes collaboration and speeds up the implementation of collaborative projects while safeguarding strong and timely environmental reviews.…”