Angie Craig: “while the Senate majority leader is still on the floor, I want to talk about a fire that happened in his State just a…”

“while the Senate majority leader is still on the floor, I want to talk about a fire that happened in his State just a few years ago because I was directly involved with that Senator in recognizing the dead and dying conditions of the Tahoe Basin in both Nevada and California. He came to the committee--the committee that I chaired at the time--and said: We have to fix this problem; a lot of people live in that area. And we did. We sent money out to the U.S. Forest Service to get in and change the character of that dead and dying forest. But the courts and the environmental groups would not allow it to happen. Lawsuit after lawsuit stopped it. And a year ago, the Tahoe Basin burned--3,100 acres, 250 homes, and what is more important, or as important, 140,000 tons of carbon released into the atmosphere. Do you know the second largest releaser of carbon into the atmosphere, after coal-fired utilities? Forest fires. The second largest releaser of carbon into the atmosphere. Yet this bill does nothing about it except give money to Brazil to save the rain forest because it is a popular environmental issue.”