Bruce F. Vento: “this is a good amendment, an amendment that talks about our fundamental priorities in this Congress in terms of the way…”

“this is a good amendment, an amendment that talks about our fundamental priorities in this Congress in terms of the way we fund various activities, and enable and empower people to have the opportunity to use our resources. In the bill before the House presented after a lot of work, I guess, by the appropriation committees, I know a lot of work, I think fundamentally that the priorities are out of balance. Many of us are very concerned about our forests and the rate of cutting. We had quite a debate in this last year on salvage harvest and the concerns that grew out of that in terms of the indiscriminate harvest of millions of board feet from our national forests without regard to the various laws that protect the species. In this bill today, though, Mr. Chairman, we continue a subsidy of over $160 million in terms of the Forest Service appropriations, and the fact is that this appropriation largely goes to subsidize the construction of timber roads. In fact, my colleague, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss], had offered an amendment, which he subsequently withdrew, which others from Florida spoke about and began the discussion of the subsidization of timber harvest on our national forests. This, of course, does not just involve the construction of the roads, is also involves what we call the restoration of roads. That is actually road closing.”