Political Quotes

“I concluded my summer tour of Oregon at the fire control center on the Warm Springs Indian reservation. Summer was an amazing time in my State. Smoke enveloped downtown Portland and drifted all the way for 270 miles to the south in Medford. As I drove past, into central Oregon, the Crater Lake National Park consumed 25 square miles. Throughout the West, 8.5 million acres have already been burned this year. And like we hear almost every year, the 2015 fire season is one of the worst on record. We should acknowledge the amazing men and women who are on the front lines and the tremendous strain they bear. We need so many people that we have actually had active military personnel brought online for the first time in a decade. Even firefighters from Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have come to assist in these efforts. One cannot say enough about the tremendous bravery and sheer hard work involved on so many levels with the men and women who are literally putting their lives on the line for this heroic fight. But it is important to note that we are not just decimating our forests. We are decimating the Forest Service budget. The portion of the overall budget spent on fighting wildfires has grown in the last 20 years from 16 percent to over one-half, 52 percent.…”