Jeff Merkley

It makes a lot of sense to try to make these things work, but there has to be a framework in what has been a very uncertain world that provides much more certainty.

We're looking at a proposed budget that cuts the hazardous fuels reduction in half.

We had a fire the size of Rhode Island last year in Oregon. We had the worst fire season, you know, in 100 years.

Let me be clear. Congress has already written the law and it says 'exclusively.'

Are you deeply disturbed that this prosecution free zone has been created for HSBC and other large financial institutions?

I rise today to talk about one particular aspect of this bill, which is WIFIA. Before I explain what WIFIA is, I want to thank the Chair for managing this bill in a very bipartisan discussion of the committee. It has come to the floor with…

Thank you. And in my final minute, I wanted to mention how important the Federal grants have been for the Northwest Center for Small Fruits Research.

But I think the concept behind this rider, which basically said, it can be planted regardless of concerns in the normal process, interrupts that strategy of cooperation and working out the coexistence.

I think that's exactly the right approach.

It's like a person starving to death in a room full of food.

I am doubtful that there's anything in that strategy which says that the accumulation of fuels is not a problem and that we should cut the funding by one-half.

A lot of our private landholders are very concerned about forest fires that are moving from public land onto their private land.

I think about the small businesses that would be subject to so many jurisdictions that they now have a tax relationship with and the responsibility to collect for and the possibility of having to basically call them and say: Well, you…

I urge the Senate to pass S. 335, which was also included as part of the Water Resources Development Act of 2013.

We urge you to resist any attempt to remove this exemption.

Oregonians want an assurance that the water won't be cutoff to the Klamath project this summer.

I first wanted to ask about, we have a mill in John Day that has been at high risk of closing.

Thank you. And I do appreciate the advocacy for funding. This has been a key, key set of programs.

Thank you. And are you satisfied with the stewardship contracting reauthorization as structured in the Senate farm bill?

With the changing or the more extensive droughts, we're going to see that this problem of accumulated fuels becomes of more and more dreaded effect.

Okay. So we anticipate getting that done, and hopefully, we'll get it arranged through the House.

We're looking at a proposed budget that cuts the hazardous fuels reduction in half.

If we lose the infrastructure that's out there because we don't have predictable supply, then it all falls on the taxpayers, it all falls on your budget.

We had a fire the size of Rhode Island last year in Oregon.

I wanted to start by echoing Senator Udall's comments in regard to the proposed reduction in funding for hazardous fuels reduction.