Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, on the issue of hazardous fuels reduction activities, as the gentleman from North Carolina knows, many of our national forestlands are covered with unnaturally dense vegetation. This unnaturally dense condition has contributed immensely to the devastating wildfires which the western United States is experiencing right now and which it has experienced for the last several years. My own State of Arizona is experiencing the most severe wildfires of the entire West right now and is being devastated by those fires. Scientific research has shown that unnaturally dense vegetation not only leads to an extreme risk of catastrophic wildfire, such as the Rodeo-Chediski fire we had in Arizona last year and the Aspen fire we are having this year, but also that overgrowth in and of itself is extremely damaging to the health of the forest ecosystem. One example is the bark beetle infestation, which is currently affecting over 800,000 acres of forest in Arizona, and whose outbreak was directly tied to the overdense tree growth in our forests. Insect infestation not only kill and weaken the vegetation but also increase the threat of fire. Hazardous fuels reduction treatments which are narrowly confined to the wildland-urban interface are simply ineffective to reducing the risk posed by catastrophic wildfire both to communities, watersheds and to the overall forest ecosystem.”