Political Quotes

“I thank the senior gentleman from Colorado for the time. Mr. Speaker, I want to discuss a couple of the terrible conservation and environmental bills that affect the district I represent, our State, and our country. As the gentleman from Oregon mentioned, the elimination of the Conservation Stewardship Program, a program that has been successful to help preserve over 70 million acres, is, frankly, inexcusable. The Conservation Stewardship Program supports farmers, ranchers, and owners of forests who want to pursue high-level conservation stewardship activities. It is important to protect our watershed that our towns and communities rely on, to keep our air clean, to sequester carbon, to maintain diverse habitats for wildlife, and, yes, to keep our farms productive and sustainable in the long term. Working lands conservation programs are so popular that the Natural Resources Conservation Service wound up having to have a waiting list. It had to turn away almost three-quarters of the qualified applicants. Under the proposal today it would have to turn away 100 percent of applicants. Now, they claim that they are consolidating some programs into the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP, but, frankly, those programs are very different. Whereas, the Conservation Stewardship Program helps farmers and ranchers implement advanced conservation and stewardship systems to help preserve and protect the resources on their lands.…”