Joseph T. Burns: “this morning as I returned from Montana and I was listening to the local news, I heard a 30-second spot advising folks…”

“this morning as I returned from Montana and I was listening to the local news, I heard a 30-second spot advising folks to call the White House to stand up, to stop this disappearance of the national forest lands. It was paid for by the Heritage Forest--some group. We have not been able to run it down yet. The message went on to say we have to stop this because our forests will be gone forever. We can talk about semantics. We can talk about budgets. We can talk about where we apply the money. Let's face it; the $11 million for road maintenance that we increased is mostly being used for road obliteration. It seems we fight these little fights every year because there are those who completely do not, and I say this in all disrespect, know one whit about what is a renewable resource and how we are to manage it. It seems to me this is the reason a person on his ranch or farm does not run that ranch or farm by a committee. If we did, we would not get a crop in; we would not grow anything, and we sure would not get a crop harvested. I would say the good Lord above does have a sense of humor. If you want to look at what a committee does, I always thought a horse was a camel put together by a committee. Everything is an afterthought. Let's dispel some of this myth that seems to be going across our land. In the Flathead National Forest alone, we are growing 120 million board feet of lumber a year. The Forest Service, in their plans, only planned to harvest 19 million.”