Elizabeth Furse: “This amendment takes $80.5 million from the timber management line item and the National Forest Service section of the…”

“This amendment takes $80.5 million from the timber management line item and the National Forest Service section of the Interior Appropriations bill and it reallocates that money to watershed improvement and recreational management. Let me also say what it does not do. It does not cut money for road maintenance; it does not eliminate the Federal commercial timber program; it does not affect forest stewardship or personal use sales, and it does not prevent Americans from obtaining fire wood and Christmas trees. How did I arrive at the $80.5 million? That number is derived from adding together the money lost, lost, I repeat, on commercial timber sales in individual forests in all nine Forest Service regions. I added them together and we have a total of $80.5 million. It allocates that money to some things that will really improve our forests. What does it do? It allocates money to restoration, to restoration of watershed. Why do we do that? Because not only are watersheds vital to drinking water supply, they are critical to the survival and restoration of healthy fish populations in the West and in other parts of the country. It puts money to recreation management; $20 million is sent to recreational management, because recreation is going to be more and more the use of our national forests, and we need to get our Forest Service ready and able to deal with that.”