Political Quotes

“This legislation has 17 Democrat co-sponsors. We have 137 overall filed on the bill. Three of those Democrat co-sponsors are the ranking members of their committees. This is land that was on fire at Squires Peak last year, 2002. This is in a treated area that is burning right now. This is where the Forest Service workers have gone in and done the treatments we are advocating in this bill. Here is the aftermath. We can see the trees are green, some of the brush, but otherwise the forest is in pretty good health. This is the fire burning the same location but just over the hill a bit from where the first photo was. This is a place where it had not been treated. See the severity of the fire, the density of the stands. This is what it looks like when that fire is finished, enormous catastrophic fire. In fact, there are still some trees burning there. Dense stands, black timber, scorched ground, sterilized soil, ruined habitat. Here we see a pine beetle infestation in the Nez Perce National Forest. This is what we are trying to figure out the best way to treat.”