On the recordJuly 9, 2015
The challenge that we face in the West is very obvious. Overgrown forests, bark beetle devastation, threat to our watersheds, threat to habitat, threat to public property that sensible people have long called for a solution to be able to have rendered. I would like to be able to applaud the hard work of Chairman Bishop, the committee, and particularly the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman) in putting commonsense pieces of legislation forward in H.R. 2647, the Resilient Federal Forests Act. The concept of being proactive rather than being reactive, putting the health of our forests, protection of our watersheds, habitat for wildlife, and saving private property while bringing some control back to our States and our communities is long overdue. Forward-looking and innovative legislation like the Resilient Federal Forests Act speaks to the very heart of responsible forest management. This is a piece of legislation, which is long overdue. We have seen the impact in pilot projects of healthy forests, the opportunity to be able to get the forests again in a healthy state, creating abundant ground cover and forage for our animals and protecting those watersheds. This is a commonsense piece of legislation that I would like to encourage my colleagues to be able to support.
