Greg Walden: “The other thing we learned as Scouts, and, like you say, we are both Eagle Scouts, what has always stuck with me when it…”

“The other thing we learned as Scouts, and, like you say, we are both Eagle Scouts, what has always stuck with me when it comes to how we manage our resources was a very simple line: ``Leave your campsite better than you found it.'' That, I think, is a great guiding principle for those of us in this body, not only for natural resource policy, but for this country, to leave it better than you found it. Mr. Speaker, let me just suggest that we burned more than 8 million acres this year, and 5.7 million acres, which is our new average that we are burning every year in this country, is an area larger than the entire State of New Jersey. We throw these big numbers around in Washington, the bureaucrats do it all the time, and we do it from time to time. Think about every year you're burning an area of your national forest and grasslands and other areas larger than the size of the State of New Jersey. Let me tell you what just happened in my district of eastern Oregon.”