Norman D. Dicks: “I must, unfortunately, oppose the Kennedy amendment. In my judgment, there is a correlation between how much money we…”

“I must, unfortunately, oppose the Kennedy amendment. In my judgment, there is a correlation between how much money we spend in roads and how much timber harvesting we are able to do. If we cut the timber road purchaser credit program by 60 percent, we are going to drastically reduce timber harvesting in the States that use the timber purchaser credit program. We are also going to cut back the other construction program. Now, I agree with the gentleman from Minnesota, but if we cut the money for roads, then we are also cutting road maintenance and we are cutting recreational roads. These things all are affected. These roads are used for multiple purposes. The Forest Service provides more recreational opportunities than our entire National Park System, and we have to have roads to get into these recreational areas. So we cannot walk away from the truth here. The truth is, if we are going to cut the road program by 25 percent, total, then we are going to dramatically reduce the level of timber harvesting.”