Angie Craig: “For well over a decade now, we have studied the issue of how to manage our forests in light of the recurrence of wild…”

“For well over a decade now, we have studied the issue of how to manage our forests in light of the recurrence of wild storm style forest fires that continue to devastate our forests across the Pacific Northwest and across the Southwest every time we get into a dry period, especially the kind the Southwest, New Mexico and Arizona and Colorado, are experiencing at this moment. What we have found, Mr. President, is that in our great ability to put out fires, we have allowed to build up on our forest floors, massive amounts of fuel in the form of dead and dying trees as a result of bug kill, as a result of fungus, or simply as a result of the overpopulation of our trees and therefore their death because of lack of moisture. In my State of Idaho and across the inland West, where before man came to that region we had tremendously healthy forests and populations of trees of 40 or 50 or 60 trees per acre, now, because of our ability to put out fires, we are finding that we have 300 and 400 trees per acre.”