Our Committee, in the hearings that we have had, has often been shown aerial photographs of forests throughout the western United States.

Congressman, I can't even get to this fire on the ground. We used to have good timber roads. I could get equipment there. All I can do now is drop stuff from the air and pray to God the wind shifts.

Doesn't it make sense to harvest the older trees and replace them with young growing trees to sequester more carbon?

At these hearings, I have often been reminded of Eric Hoffer's line that every great cause becomes a movement that becomes a business that becomes a racket. And that might be making the environmental attorneys rich, but it is killing our…

Employee surveys rank it at the bottom.

I just want to acknowledge that and tell you how much it was appreciated from the rank and file and the general public.

I want the rangers to be number one, period, the best job in the world, as it should be.

What can we do about that?

I am going to, we are going to, push a lot of resources back where they belong, out of the middle and upper management, and back on the front line.

My point is that the projects were actually approved, for the most part, prior to the Obama administration.

My opinion, as a former SEAL commander, is that our front line, that is people that are out there with our parks and wildlife refuges, we are too short in the front line and we are too heavy in middle and upper management.

I believe Pinchot's maxim was the greatest good for the greatest number of people in the long run.