Bruce Westerman: “There are a couple of things that I would like to point out here. First off, I am having a hard time understanding the…”

“There are a couple of things that I would like to point out here. First off, I am having a hard time understanding the logic. I appreciate the gentlewoman trying to explain what these potential wilderness areas are, but in the debate on the last amendment, the gentlewoman pointed out that we shouldn't be ceding any power to the executive branch, which designating something a potential wilderness area would cede all that power to the executive branch to determine if that could be a wilderness area in the future. There is a process to designate a wilderness area. It is called a wilderness study area. We have done that all across the country. I have seen it done in my State, and there are certain criteria that you have to meet when you are in a wilderness study area to be designated wilderness. Congress can change the law if they want to. They can violate the Wilderness Protection Act that was put in place, but that is not a wise thing to do. For instance, there is an area in my State that is in a wilderness study area that has beautiful trees on it, but those trees are loblolly pine trees. They are nonnative to that site. So you could put that into a wilderness area, but by definition, you can't have nonnative tree species on that site. Those are the kinds of things that the agencies look for when they go through a wilderness study program and when they propose to designate areas as wilderness.…”