Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman for yielding the time. As I speak, the West is literally burning. Major infernos are devastating States like California, Arizona, and Alaska. In New Mexico, the Hermit's Peak fire became the largest in State history nearly 1 month ago and is still not fully contained. This catastrophic fire has burned over 320,000 acres and cost taxpayers a whopping $224 million in fire suppression costs. In total, over 2.6 million acres have burned this year already, putting us on a pace to surpass every wildfire season in the past decade. Homes have burned to the ground. Thousands of brave wildland firefighters have put their lives on the line. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent trying to tame fires so intense, they create their own weather systems known as firenados. Why? The answer is simple. The lack of active forest management and decades of fire suppression and mismanagement have left our Nation's forests as dry as powder kegs and ready to ignite from a single spark. In the last decade, mismanagement caused over 70 million acres to burn, and we have no signs of it slowing down. According to the U.S. Forest Service, over one billion--that is billion with a b--acres across the country are at risk of experiencing severe wildfires. That is why I am offering this amendment.…”