Angie Craig: “Is the nature of a catastrophic event that is in the nature of forest health. We now have 22 million acres of our…”

“Is the nature of a catastrophic event that is in the nature of forest health. We now have 22 million acres of our forested lands in crisis because of the fuel loading that has been talked about because of a management style of the last 50 years. Yet there seems to be no desire to deal with this on a constructive, environmentally positive basis that begins to remove that fuel. The amendment of the Senator from New Mexico, of which I am now a cosponsor, which is a substitute offered to my amendment, goes at this problem in a very real and direct way. That is why I think it is so important that we move forward. I have been advised--and I agree--we should allow the courts to act on the Federal Advisory Committee Act. We will find out whether we have a real law or whether we have a false law; whether it works or it does not work. We will know that by mid-August. If they rule otherwise, we have either to come in and revise it or I think the Congress should act and intervene against the President in his rulemaking process, outside the public policymaking process of the Congress itself.”