Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, the point of the farm bill at issue with this motion deals with a concept of public interest. Will private land adjacent to forest land be protected or will it be sold off and developed into very nice, very expensive private lots, taking land out of general public access and enjoyment? That's really the issue. I believe it's an extremely serious issue, and I'm going to introduce into the Record coverage of this that appeared in the New York Times October 13, 2007, under the title ``As Logging Fades, Rich Carve Out Open Land in West.'' This article cites the prospect of vast timber sales by a company named Plum Creek Timber. And I would quote from the article: ``Some old-line logging companies, including Plum Creek Timber, the country's largest private landowner, are cashing in, putting tens of thousands of wooded acres on the market from Montana to Oregon. Plum Creek, which owns about 1.2 million acres in Montana alone, is getting up to $29,000 an acre for land that was worth perhaps $500 an acre for timber cutting. `` `Everybody wants to buy a 640-acre section of forest that's next to the U.S. Forest Service or one of the wilderness areas,' said Plum Creek's president and chief executive, Rick Holley.”