Elizabeth Furse: “last July it was about 10:30 at night, and this House passed the notorious timber salvage rider. That rider was slipped…”

“last July it was about 10:30 at night, and this House passed the notorious timber salvage rider. That rider was slipped onto a bill that actually gave funding to the Oklahoma bombing victims. We knew at the time, some of us, that it was a bad idea, this bill. We knew this rider was a bad idea. Yesterday, it just got worse, much worse. Yesterday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the logging rider, which is called by the people of this country the lawless logging rider, that this logging rider, requires the Forest Service to immediately release for logging every timber sale ever offered in every national forest in Washington and Oregon since 1990, even though those sales were stopped because they are old growth sales in environmentally sensitive areas. Not only are they old growth sales, Mr. Speaker, but they are critical for endangered fish and wildlife. Mr. Speaker, I want to tell people that this bill has been called the salvage rider, but let me tell the Members about some of the trees that are being cut. Some of those trees are nearly 1,000 years old. they are not salvage, they are the heritage of the people of this country. Those are trees on public land, land set aside for the people, and yet, under this lawless logging rider, under this rider, the people have been shut out. Under this rider, all laws that protect that public heritage have been suspended.”