George Miller: “Mr. Chairman, the Smith amendment does not do what the gentleman from Oregon said that it does do. I appreciate while he…”

“Mr. Chairman, the Smith amendment does not do what the gentleman from Oregon said that it does do. I appreciate while he would prohibit Federal roads prohibited by any Federal environmental law, of which would obviously be, that is just current law, and the second one, any applicable land management plan. The problem is most land management plans, one, are out of date and, two, never spoke to the issue of creating roads because most of the land use management plans for the national forests were designed to allow for the continued construction of roads because that is what they were predicated upon. We are undergoing a review in California in the Sierra Nevada of the land management plans for the very reason that they do not address these issues. That makes it imperative if the Smith amendment is going to be accepted that it be accepted with the Boehlert language, because the Boehlert language speaks to the reality of what is taking place; that is, that we have some 380,000 miles of roads in the national forests. We have a $10 billion backlog in these forests because they are deteriorating. We cannot take care of the ones that we have. They are starting to wreak havoc with good portions of the forests as they fall into disrepair. They are destroying the fisheries and the streams and the watersheds of some of our most valuable rivers for the production of fish for sports purposes and for commercial purposes.”