Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment to H.R. 2406, the SHARE Act, which would allow hunters better access to and from hunting areas in the Kisatchie National Forest in northern Louisiana. The Louisiana Legislature passed House Bill 581 by Louisiana Representative James Armes in 2015. This new State law would allow municipalities to designate certain local roads for use by utility terrain vehicles, also known as UTVs or side-by-sides. These are not to be confused with ATVs, or all-terrain vehicles. They are larger, weigh more, seat multiple passengers, and are often equipped with safety features like roll cages, seatbelts, and enclosed cabs. My amendment would build on the Louisiana law to allow seamless access from these designated local roads into hunting areas within Kisatchie National Forest. The size of these vehicles makes them more difficult to transport when compared with ATVs. The ever-increasing list of features for UTVs makes them very attractive to hunters in order to recover game and transport supplies and equipment. This amendment would allow the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to nominate roads that would be opened in the Kisatchie Forest travel plan, unless the Chief of the Forest Service determined that such an opening would pose an unacceptable safety risk. If so, the Forest Service would have to publish a justification in the Federal Register as to why the road could not be opened.…”