Jon Kyl: “We have a problem throughout the Western United States with forest fires, not easily understood by those who don't…”

“We have a problem throughout the Western United States with forest fires, not easily understood by those who don't experience the kind of hot, dry conditions we do in the summer with our forests. People don't think there are forests in my State of Arizona. There are. In fact, about 5 years ago, we had a fire which burned an area-- and this is big Ponderosa Pine country--burned an area almost the size of the State of Rhode Island. Now, in Arizona and Montana, you can do that. But just think about that if it were in your State. One of the problems is, we have found that the Healthy Forest Act that we passed about 3 years ago, which was designed to limit litigation, has not done as good a job as we had hoped. I think we need to revisit that in addition to providing more funding. I will conclude this point by saying that one of the best summers of my life was spent in the State of Montana in Glacier National Park helping to put out forest fires in that beautiful place.”