George Miller: “So, Mr. Chairman, this is an effort to try to repair. Let us understand something. The Senate is at zero. The Senate has…”

“So, Mr. Chairman, this is an effort to try to repair. Let us understand something. The Senate is at zero. The Senate has made a determination that this practice is an outrage; that this is contrary to everything that the authorizers in these committees and the appropriators want to do. But this is something that has just grown up and kind of gone off. And now the question is are we going to enable them to continue to do this practice which is working to the detriment of taxpayers and working to the detriment of the environment? I just think that this is just fundamental. This is one of those things where, once again, we have kind of bad fiscal policy here mixed with the environment, and it ends up with bad policy for everyone. And that is why the taxpayers' organizations are supporting this amendment, that is why the environmental organizations are supporting this amendment. Because, in fact, if we can bring this back under the control of the Committee on Appropriations, if we can make these people go into the regular fund for administrative overhead, which is millions and millions and millions of dollars for the Forest Service, then we can have some accountability in this program, and we can go back to many of the areas in the gentleman's State, in my State and other Members' States that have never been properly reforested. And the cry always is, there is not money to do this.”