Bruce Westerman

I commend Chairman McClintock for holding this hearing today and taking steps to discover what barriers the Administration is facing.

NAHB strongly supports Representative Westerman's Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2017.

Conservation means the wise use of the earth and its resources for the lasting good of men.

If any of my friends across the aisle can present a better way to manage our forests, please present your ideas. Let's debate the ideas.

If we truly want clean air, clean water, better wildlife habitat, more biodiversity, thriving rural communities that can supply renewable, American-made building products, energy, paper, and packaging products, then we will pass this bill…

These policies may be making environmental law firms rich, but they are killing our national forests.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and if we will manage these forests and spend some money to do that properly, then we will save a lot of money on the back end.

Our national forests sadly are not healthy, and the effect we see are the increasing wildfires.

I have said this a lot, but there are no negatives to a healthy forest system, and healthy forests, they provide clean air, clean water.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, after serving on a school board, in my State legislature, and now in Congress, I have witnessed firsthand that government works better when it is closest to the people. That is why I rise…

American workers and American businesses are the most innovative and productive in the world. This is no more evident than in our oil and gas fields--the ones in my district, in my State, across our country, and offshore. Mr. Speaker, in…

Scientific intellectual integrity is an important thing to everyone across these party lines, and it is something that we simply just cannot tolerate.

I believe the number one way to move people from poverty to self-reliance is not a government program. If we want to make a difference in the lives of the impoverished, we must help them find a pathway to employment. In my hometown of Hot…

In 2012, the Arkansas Department of Agriculture began the Arkansas Century Farm Program. This program honors those Arkansas farm families who have owned and farmed the same land for at least 100 years. Since 2012, 297 Arkansas farms and…

Where I am from, we say actions speak louder than words. The words I hear from this Administration is it is all about protecting the environment.

There is not a downside to having healthy forests, and that includes on the environmental side.

What seems like a good idea from a building in Washington, DC, has real impact out on the ground across the country.

So, I hope that we can move forward here and put the decisionmaking where it belongs, and that is in the hands of the tribes and the local community.

We are loving the trees to death and not doing what we need to help them.

So, you were using good forest management to keep your forest healthy. But for your neighbor, a Federal forest that may not be managed as well, the insects, the disease, the fires, it does not recognize your boundaries.

When we look at poverty, the number-one anti-poverty program has always been a job, and it is the local entities, it is the tribes, it is the businesses that create jobs.

When I ran for Congress--and I am in my first term--my campaign slogan was 'less hassle, more freedom,' and it was about this very kind of issue where Americans want to live their lives with less hassle from the Federal Government, and…

I firmly believe that government is most effective when it is closest to the people, and those decisions that are made locally have a big impact on local communities.

I believe there was a program that was tried in Tennessee that failed back in the 1990s.