Richard Pombo: “if we are going to have some kind of a national forest policy that takes care of our forests, that ensures that we have…”

“if we are going to have some kind of a national forest policy that takes care of our forests, that ensures that we have healthy forests that are full of wildlife and all the things that in our mind's eye we think of when we think of national forests, this is the wrong way to go; because what this is saying is we are not going to get together in a bipartisan fashion, we are not going to hold hearings, we are not going to go out to the forests and look at them and see what is there. We are not going to do anything that our constituents expect us to do. What we are going to do is, we are just going to willy-nilly accept any policy that this administration has in effect, or anything that they have proposed to put into effect, and we are going to accept that. That is not what our constituents expect us to do. That is not what they sent us back here to do. Whether we agree or disagree with the underlying bill, our constituents did not send us back here to vote blindly for any policy that this administration has in effect or anything that they proposed. When we talk about the roadless, they have not even finished the hearing process. They have not even finished the comment period process, and we are going to accept it. They have not even finished it yet, and we are going to accept it. That is bad public policy.…”