Political Quotes

“In my district in Colorado, and in other States across the West and Northwest, our trees, in my district, primarily lodgepole pines, have been plagued by pine beetle. Dendroctonus ponderosae has infected our trees. They're killed by a related fungus. We have entire mountainsides for miles and miles where trees are dead and are now beginning to rot. It's really transformed, sadly, the landscape of Colorado. The reason for the rise of the beetle is that we haven't had cold enough winters over the last several years to kill off the larva in the winter. It requires a certain number of days below a certain temperature. So, again, this is not about preventing the spread of pine beetles. We have some ability to do that in small areas on private land. They can wrap trees, but we don't have a cost-effective way to do that across large areas. What we do need to do, though, is once the trees have been killed, they represent a tremendous risk for forest fires, particularly when they're near power lines and other sensitive areas. So what my amendment does is it adds language that makes it easier to access Federal land.…”