Norman D. Dicks: “Mr. Chairman, we have too many miles of forest roads. There is absolutely no question, 380,000 miles is too much. But…”

“Mr. Chairman, we have too many miles of forest roads. There is absolutely no question, 380,000 miles is too much. But thousands of miles, though, one cannot just walk away from too many miles of road and from poorly constructed roads. We have thousands of miles of roads in need of maintenance. Unfortunately, the Forest Service often calls that reconstruction. If you take a 6-inch culvert and replace it with a 12 because it is blocked, that is not maintenance, that is reconstruction. That would be virtually eliminated by the Kennedy-Porter amendment. The Dicks amendment takes the appropriated funds down to the level requested by the Clinton-Gore administration for construction- reconstruction. I can guarantee the Members most of that budget, virtually all of that budget, is going to be used for reconstruction of roads, which is environmentally benign. Some of it will even be used for removal. I had hoped to come to the floor to add funds to maintenance and add funds to removal, but it is not allowed under the bizarre rules under which we consider appropriations bills at this point. There is a $440 million backlog, everybody admits to that, for maintenance. But they are saying, we are just cutting construction and reconstruction. No, you are not just cutting construction and reconstruction.”