Political Quotes

“I thank the Chair very much, and I thank the leader on this. Here we go again, talking about health of the forests, talking about the elimination of jobs in research, when more research is needed, and talking about a situation that existed in damaged forests before this salvage bill was passed a year ago. It was simply management by committee at that time, and that did not work very well. It was not successful. Professional land and resource managers could not have or they could not have been allowed to apply good conservation measures when dealing with renewable resources. We are talking about renewable resources here. And the salvage program gave some hope, hope of predictability in the communities across the Northwest that depend upon that healthy, viable forest. A diseased forest supports nobody, not this Federal Government, not people who want to own houses, not people who use wood products, nor the people who live in those communities that are dependent on the conservation or the wise use of a renewable resource. The salvage program was passed by this Congress, with bipartisan support, as a tool to deal with forest health. The fires of 1988, 1994, and 1995 were devastating, so this Congress did exactly what it should have done in light of what the President and Vice President had promised the folks in the Northwest. Now, are we seeing the rug pulled out from underneath them again?”