Bruce Westerman

Thank you to the witnesses.

No one is suggesting that right whales do not deserve protection. However, there are alternatives to shutting down the entire East Coast.

Time and again, the Biden administration has proven that they would rather use a sledge hammer than a scalpel.

This hearing goes much deeper and gets into the core of a problem in our system of government today, and that is where we have bureaucrats who are making laws that Congress never made.

I thank Chairman Newhouse not only for his leadership here tonight in setting up the Special Order but also his leadership on the Western Caucus, which is a voice for us on not just Western issues but rural issues all across the country. I…

There is a proper time and place for fire, but it is not when your forests are overgrown, overstocked, dried out, and bug-infested.

I am a huge supporter of more Good Neighbor Authority.

It is a great example of how you can have a healthy environment and a strong economy at the same time.

I just wanted to make the point that we do sacrifice some hydropower for renewables.

When we are in a world where we are wanting more carbon-free electricity on the grid, it seems to me that we would be trying to get every ounce of energy out of these hydro dams that we could.

We talked about using clean American energy, we talked about permitting reform so that we could build new distribution systems.

Secretary Haaland said there were 20. Can you get that list for us?

If you really claim to utilize the best science, why is BLM proposing to fundamentally change the way we manage these forests on flawed science?

Conservation should be throughout all of the uses on BLM land.

If you go back to Teddy Roosevelt, he said that conservation means development as much as protection.

But it is really hard to come in here and talk about increased money for firefighting, when that is just putting a Band-Aid on the wound instead of going to the symptom of what is causing the problem.

I think the Forest Service has to create some credibility, and it has to be long-term commitments like the 20-year stewardship contract if you ever want to get that industry back.

If you care about clean air and clean water, you should care about forest management.

How many more of these Paradise, California-style fires must occur before we actually do the right thing and start taking preventative measures?

We should be looking at what is causing these fires, not just how do we spend more money to pay firefighters.

I hope everybody in the House and the Senate on both sides of the aisle can come together this Congress so we can enact real change.

The U.S. compacts with the FAS countries are a balance of extraordinary security and defense right and strategic stability secured for the United States, and extraordinary economic gains and stability for the Freely Associated States.

Their sacrifices highlight why it is a strategic imperative to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific.

We need to remember that those U.S. lands in the Pacific, including the-then U.S. territories of Hawaii and the Philippines, were directly attacked and in some cases occupied by an aspiring imperialist dictatorship attempting to conquer…

The record we create today will support the mission and work of this Committee to ensure that U.S. citizens and our locally self-governing U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands benefit and prosper under…