On the recordJune 20, 2019
I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Chair, 32 fires in 2015. The average over the last 10 years has been 15 to 20 fires. We ought to know better. In Arizona, I have had to witness the most catastrophic fires in Arizona history because of our mismanagement of forests: The Wallow fire, the largest fire in Arizona history; and then the Yarnell fire, where we lost 19 firefighters. It is incredible that what we are doing is we are trying to have jurisdiction over fires. There is a reason why we have had to subsidize that: because we have put the industry out of business by sue and settle. Folks, there is a cost to these fires, and you have to start looking at mitigation in that aspect. If you want climate change mitigation, the best thing you can do is have a dynamic forest that actually produces more oxygen than carbon. That means medium- and small-growth trees, not old-growth trees. A happy medium of all is a dynamic forest. So if you are preventing this--the gentleman from Arizona ought to know better. We are sitting on catastrophic results in Arizona. Let's not impugn the trees in Alaska.
