Paul Gosar

There is a reason the ability to set aside Federal land generally rested with Congress.

Too often we find that some Federal land designations are causing endless bureaucratic delays, litigation and restrictions that could completely lock up much of the large and needed store of wealth and recreational opportunities.

Rural Arizona communities like the one in my congressional district depend on the multiple use of public lands for their livelihoods.

We need regulatory relief so we can actually go out and produce new wealth off the land.

If we were to get this project off, what would this mean financially, potentially, to Gila County?

If we were to mitigate, and one of the smaller fires up by the Schultz Pass Fire in Flagstaff, if we would have mitigated that, the cost would have been a minimum of one-tenth, at least one-tenth less than what we saw in mitigation charges…

This is the worst thing that can happen to the cattle industry out in the West. It will put a lot of family ranches out of businesses.

In these times of economic uncertainty, with ranchers facing drought throughout different pockets in the West, with ranchers taking voluntary reductions, with ranchers taking forest reductions implemented by the agency because of ESA…

This is an arbitrary tax that I oppose.

The burden of the Federal Government's failure to properly manage our public lands frequently falls on you and the local government.

I think from the standpoint of holding our own, we have to have an equal balance across the board.

The proposed legislation will expedite projects (timber thinning and livestock grazing), encouraging free-enterprise solutions on federal lands

H.R. 1345 was introduced by Congressman Gosar (AZ) to address the forest health, public safety, and wildlife habitat threats.

I support payments to the counties from the stewardship contract.

I strongly support it.

I think you just have to hand authority over to us to manage it under our State Forest Management Practices Act.

The problem is the pandemic of the endemic problem of the bureaucracy in between.

I mean it was vibrant. Today, a little over a year-and-a-half after the largest forest fire in Arizona history, we had yet to salvage one log, not one log here.

I want to sue saying, 'You know what? I get less than one-half of the money for schools west of the Mississippi than those in the East.'

I would like to work with you on some ideas about how we can maybe move forward to address this issue.

I appreciate your interest in helping us with that issue, and it is one of the things we continue to work on.

I cannot begin to emphasize the enormous economic damage that you have done to these communities.

I am out of patience.

So the Department is going to need this to implement the later stage of that project. Is that not true?

I appreciate all of your assurances... But after 4 years, I don't see it.