Tom McClintock

But we are also opening up vast acreage that has been set off limits for the enjoyment of the American people, and for the prosperity of the regional economy.

The Antiquities Act of 1906 provides the President with the authority to designate national monuments on Federal lands containing 'historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, or other objects of historic or scientific…

What is your organization's position on salmon hatcheries? Do you think we need more of them, or not?

What do you suspect the West is going to look like in 20 years if no new water projects are built or expanded?

Senator John Barrasso and Representative Tom McClintock have proposed bills to facilitate permitting of new water storage projects.

Is that typical of the hurdles that water projects now have to go through?

Or maybe just leave the hatchery and the dam that supports it alone.

With no consideration of the cost benefit to be derived.

Often in multiples of what the actual cost of the project is.

Our responsibility is to assist in the unavoidable acts of God.

The damage that your Commonwealth has suffered is appalling and your Delegate has kept us focused on those concerns.

Acts of God are the responsibility to repair by the Federal Government. But acts of government are the responsibilities of that government's citizens.

But again, we have to recognize part of those were pre-existing, and the result of bad decisions by the Puerto Rican government.

During the hearings on PROMESA, I pointed out Puerto Rico is a cruise ship destination. It should be the gem of the Caribbean.

All of us have been appalled by the devastation in Puerto Rico, and the stories have been heart-rendering.

We have lost 1,100 square miles of forestland in my district to catastrophic fire in the last 5 years.

The principal question I have is whether our laws are actually counterproductive to protecting endangered species.

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?

Well, in fact, there was one estimate that just a single fire in California recently released more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than had been saved by all the Draconian California laws over a period of 3 years.

What message can I take back to Congress, in your name? They said two words: treatment matters.

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

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…

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

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