Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is no secret that a reliable supply of electricity is important to us on many levels, from human health, and, of course, to commercial productivity. As a former public service commissioner, I can tell you that one of the main reasons for large outages is trees growing in power lines. And one of the reasons for forest fires, oftentimes, is power lines falling in the forest. Fires get to the power lines; power lines create fires. This bill, I think, helps alleviate some of that. With consumers and regulators demanding, of course, reliable service, and a utility company's natural incentive to keep the sale of electrons flowing, vegetation management has improved tremendously over the years. However, deep within the lands that are managed by our Federal agencies, the potential for problems persists. My bill creates a pilot program, as the chairman described, for utility companies to partner with the Forest Service to voluntarily perform vegetation management proactively. Under Forest Service approval, utilities can propose a plan to selectively manage vegetation within 75 feet of the right-of-way with the least amount of disturbances as reasonably possible, and outside of designated wilderness areas is a very important point. All of that work would be paid for by the utility company, not by the Federal Government.…”