Greg Gianforte: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment I cosponsored with Representative…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment I cosponsored with Representative Gosar that will expand the Good Neighbor Authority for counties. Good Neighbor Authority allows the Forest Service to enter into cooperative agreements and contracts with States and Puerto Rico to execute projects that perform watershed restoration and forest management services on National Forest System lands. The current text of the farm bill includes language to expand the Good Neighbor Authority to include Indian Tribes. This simple amendment seeks to build on that commonsense provision by empowering local communities and allowing the Forest Service to include counties as partners to these agreements. {time} 1430”