Political Quotes

“I want to thank Chairman McClintock and my friend from Arizona for their work on this, especially Chairman Bishop as well. The Natural Resources Committee has been terrific to work with on this measure over a period of time. The bill is really an important public safety measure. This is a life-and-death measure. There are more than 5,000 people who live in Crooked River Ranch. This is an unincorporated community in central Oregon. It is wedged between two river systems, river canyons. You can see it here on this map. I want to point out the two rivers here. It is actually on a peninsula. It sits up. These are deep canyons. To the west over here is where the wilderness study area is that we are talking about. It is juniper. It is cheatgrass. It is sagebrush. These are the most volatile fuels you can have. Unlike here on the East Coast, where in the summer you get thunderstorms and heavy rain with it, out in Oregon, we have humidity. We call it rain that stays in the ground. But in the summer, we don't get that. What we get is dry lightning and very little rain. When lightning strikes occur in that kind of vegetation, it explodes. I have talked to the firefighters, and I will show you what happens when this happens. This the terrain. The overstocked juniper, you can see it over here. This is very volatile terrain. That is grasslands. As I say, there are all kinds of other volatile fuels in there.…”