Angie Craig: “for several weeks now, the Senate has been considering the Interior appropriations bill, of which the Byrd amendment to…”

“for several weeks now, the Senate has been considering the Interior appropriations bill, of which the Byrd amendment to that bill would put critical fire money back into our Forest Service budgets that have been badly depleted by the season that we are hopefully beginning to leave, which is known as the fire season, especially in the Great Basin West. That money is critical. But it was because of our concern about fires and the wildfires that have swept through the West this summer that I and Senator Domenici and a good many other western colleagues joined in working with the administration, and for a good long while in a very bipartisan way, to see if there was not some middle ground to create some flexibility to go into those worst fuel-laden lands and to develop a thinning and cleaning process that would be environmentally sensitive and at the same time effectively reduce the fuel loading that has gone on there that has precipitated in some of these very dramatic wildfires that have occurred out West this summer. I recite, again, for the record, we have burned well over 6.5 million acres to date of wildlife habitat and watershed, possibly several million acres of old-growth forests. We have lost about 3,000 homes, private homes of our citizens. Over 25 people, I believe--26 or 27 at least--have been killed in relation to these fires. It is without question a national emergency, a national crisis.”