Political Quotes

“I appreciate my friend from California's comments, especially about the smoke and his sympathy for the folks all across the West, and especially in the Pacific Northwest. I am a native Oregonian and, tragically, we have been choking on smoke for a very long time, for decades and decades, as these forest fires have burned unnaturally because fuel concentrations are unnatural. You know, we did a great job as Americans with Smokey the Bear and putting out fires. For 100 years we have fought fire. The problem is that in the last 50 years there have been court decisions, lots of litigation, lawsuits to stop active forest management. We lost tens of thousands of jobs that used to take place in our rural forested communities of people that would go out and tend to our forests. When they would harvest, they would replant. If there was a fire, they were on the scene to help put it out. All that went away through litigation and lawsuits. In the early 2000s, I worked with then-President Bush to pass the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, to allow us to get in, at least in the wildland-urban interface, and thin out these unnatural stands, get them back in balance with nature. The Forest Service tells us today 63 million acres of our national forests, America's people's forests, are at high risk of fire. It is out of balance. We have 7 million of those acres in my home State of Oregon. 7 million acres. We treat something like 2 million a year.…”