Bruce F. Vento: “I would like to close some of the roads. I think that is really where we ought to be putting some dollars, because I do…”

“I would like to close some of the roads. I think that is really where we ought to be putting some dollars, because I do not think in the long run you can keep 379,000 miles of road open and maintained properly, because they do, in fact, disturb the watersheds of all of these areas and they are unnatural and there are a lot of problems with them. I understand the restoration to maintain the roads. We ought to be closing the roads. Restoration, not just the reconstruction. The problem with all of that is these roads were put in place and to an extent not 379,000 for recreation. There may be some for recreation, nothing to that. The other aspect is, it just is an indication of past problems where we did not require those that were harvesting the timber to pay for an adequate closure of those roads and for the maintenance of them in the future. My concern here, of course, is that there is in this bill, appears to be, $50 million for new road construction.”