Elizabeth Furse: “Mr. Chairman, there are tremendous parts in H.R. 3534. I think we do need to look at all the information when we make…”

“Mr. Chairman, there are tremendous parts in H.R. 3534. I think we do need to look at all the information when we make decisions. But the only problem is that we have seen some really terrible examples where something came through on a rider. I want to speak about these riders. Mr. Chairman, we had a terrible rider that went through on our forests, and we were told all sorts of things, but it was just stuck on a bill, 1030 one night. Here it came, nobody debated it, nobody had had a hearing on it, and some of us fought it, and we lost. And that rider has cost my district, it has cost the Northwest. It has cut trees on steep slopes, and from that cutting, again, nobody discussed it, nobody had a hearing on it, from that cutting we have had flooding, we have had deaths as a result of that clear-cutting on areas that were unstable. So I want to talk a little bit about why it is important that we talk about the environment and we understand that it is great to get the costs from the CBO, it is great to know what the mandate will cost us. But I think what we do not get if we do not have full debate is we do not hear what the benefits will be from an environmental law. So I want to talk about the benefits. Mr. Chairman, on the Columbia River we have lost hundreds and thousands of salmon, and it is going to cost us a lot of money, a lot of money to bring those salmon back. But what is the benefit if we spend that money?”