Michael Bennet: “I rise to speak about Bennet-Hoeven amendment 2548. Our amendment would formally establish the Joint Chiefs Program at…”

“I rise to speak about Bennet-Hoeven amendment 2548. Our amendment would formally establish the Joint Chiefs Program at USDA. I know a lot of people haven't heard of this initiative, but it is really, really important. As I have said on this floor before, in Western States like Colorado and North Dakota, our forests and our grasslands are as important to our economy as the Lincoln Tunnel or the Brooklyn Bridge are to New York, but they haven't received nearly enough investment over the years. The result is that we have people on the ground across the West who are working with incredibly constrained resources. But, despite their best effort, there is a lot of important work to maintain the health of our forests and grasslands that they are unable to do. The consequences of this have been terrible in the West. In Colorado, we had the three largest wildfires in our history last year. The fires were still burning when the snow fell, for the first time. That has never happened in anyone's memory. As we consider this infrastructure bill tonight, one of the major east-west corridors in America is closed because of mudslides that poured down the burn scar from the wildfires last year. Now I-70 may be closed for weeks. We need to deal with this on the front end, and that is why the Joint Chiefs Program matters. At USDA, the Forest Service works mostly on public lands, while the Natural Resources Conservation Service supports efforts on private lands.…”