Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, my amendment promotes collaborative forest management, cuts red tape, and encourages the Forest Service to plan for the long- term health of our Nation's forests. Mr. Chair, if we were to go to the doctor and we had cancer and the doctor offered a treatment for that cancer but decided it might not be in our best interests, we wouldn't just leave. We would want to find out what the best treatment was. What is happening in our national forests is, if one plan is rejected, we do nothing, and we don't treat the disease of mismanagement that is currently happening in our forests. Implementing sound, scientifically-based management reforms is necessary to address the growing economic and environmental threats of catastrophic wildfire. Prevention through active management is the best medicine to make our forests healthy. By requiring environmental analysis of a collaboratively developed proposal to be weighed against a ``no action'' alternative--the impacts of doing nothing on forest health and wildfire risk--this amendment ensures that taxpayer dollars are spent only on analysis and project planning that protects our forests' long-term health. Further, my amendment ensures that long-term forest health is considered by the courts when granting an injunction on critical forest management activities. This amendment previously received bipartisan support in the House as part of the Resilient Federal Forests Act.…”