Political Quotes

“I thank Chair Westerman for the work he has done in creating the Fix Our Forests Act. The path to solving any problem starts with an understanding of scale. The Western United States has millions upon millions of acres of trees, over 85 million acres of forests on the West Coast alone. In my State of Oregon, there are 30 million acres; Washington, 22.5 million; and California, 33 million. There are 85 million acres of forest, 132,000 square miles, an area bigger than New Mexico. Now, it is not a problem to have forests. When they are managed well, they are an incredible, essential, and an irreplaceable asset. However, our forests are growing faster and faster, building up huge amounts of potential energy which, without any doubt whatsoever, will burn as things are currently situated. Fires are perhaps started by an arsonist, a lightning bolt, or the negligence of a camper. When this happens, the overgrown and dry forests will burn like paper. If there is even a moderate wind, these fires spread just like wildfire because they are burning up and destroying land, animals, structures, homes, and even people. Just this year in Oregon, in my home State, almost 2 million acres burned. A huge amount of these 2 million acres was forestland. The Forest Service says that about 250 million of our tax dollars were spent fighting these fires. At least 32 homes were destroyed. That is in addition to hundreds of homes that have been lost in previous fires.…”