Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the distinguished Republican leader of our conference, all the way from Bakersfield, California. Mr. McCARTHY. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Arkansas for yielding to me. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of my amendment to division E that would prioritize funding for critically important U.S. Forest Service initiatives, to mitigate safety hazards, to reopen and rehabilitate the Sequoia National Forest following the devastating SQF Complex fire. Giant sequoias are the largest trees in the world. Some tower over 26 stories high and grow wider than a city street. They can only be found growing naturally on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California, including in my district, in the Sequoia National Forest. Last August, the SQF Complex fire burned over 170,000 acres, primarily in the Sequoia National Forest, after being ignited by lightning. A preliminary interagency report, led by the National Park Service, estimates that this fire killed ``10 to 14 percent of all large sequoias across the tree's natural range in the Sierra Nevada. This translates to an estimated loss of 7,500 to 10,600 large sequoias.'' In modern history, we know of no other time to have this much devastation. In fact, the ninth largest giant sequoia, the King Arthur Tree, is still on fire to this day, almost one year later, and may ultimately die because of this fire.…”