Jeff Bingaman: “I will today offer an amendment to expedite forest thinning on our national forests and public lands. I am pleased that…”

“I will today offer an amendment to expedite forest thinning on our national forests and public lands. I am pleased that Senator Daschle is a cosponsor of this amendment. I would like to thank all of my colleagues who have worked with me to craft this amendment and who offered invaluable input and expertise. Everyone in the Senate wants to do what we can to reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire. We all agree that we need to accelerate fuels reduction activities because the risk of severe fire is so high. Ongoing, drought, past fire suppression policies, and excessive harvesting of timber have all contributed to the problem. All of us also agree that it is much better to devote limited resources to proactive efforts to reduce fire risk rather than paying to fight the fires once they occur. I have tried for years to improve the Federal agencies' forest thinning program in a variety of ways. I am also a vocal proponent for spending Federal dollars conducting proactive forest restoration to reduce fire risk rather than continuing to spend billions of dollars each year fighting fires. Although some may contend that restoration costs too much money, over the long-term, it is much less expensive than fighting fires. Restoring our lands is the preferred alternative for the environment as well because, unfortunately, important species habitat burns right along with the forests during a fire.”