Greg Walden: “we heard about Theodore Roosevelt. Indeed, 100 years ago this year, Theodore Roosevelt created the Great Forest…”

“we heard about Theodore Roosevelt. Indeed, 100 years ago this year, Theodore Roosevelt created the Great Forest Reserves. He also created the Klamath Wildlife Refuge. He created the forest reserves for both the future home building needs of the country and for water, if we read his statements, and, of course, for nature as well. {time} 1445 He created the wildlife refuge in the Klamath Basin to ensure that we would have healthy wildlife populations for generations to come; and, indeed, the wildlife refuge is home to the greatest concentration of bald eagles in the United States, in the lower 48. Ninety-six years after he created that refuge, this Federal Government made a decision to shut the water off to 1,200 farm families in that basin based on the Endangered Species Act and interpreted by the government scientists without peer review, without peer review. When the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the decisions, they said the agency made mistakes in the outcome under the Endangered Species Act; and further they went on to say that those decisions put in jeopardy potentially those very species, the sucker fish in the Upper Klamath Lake and the Coho Salmon in the Klamath River. It potentially could have damaged both of those. This act changes that. This act changes that, because we put into law for the first time really clear criteria and guidance about science.…”