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.

I really appreciate the administration's support for the LWCF.

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

We don't want to lose this mill.

We've got to do more on the front end.

How do we responsibly address forest health if we can't have a robust fuels reduction program on the front end?

This has been a key, key set of programs.

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

I appreciate that you've taken special attention, personal attention to this issue.

I rise to speak to the nomination of Michael McShane to serve on the U.S. district court of Eugene. Judge McShane is an exceptionally qualified nominee and will make a terrific addition to the Federal bench in Oregon. Over his entire…

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?

we have long recognized the principle that when taxpayers are paying for public infrastructure projects, it makes sense for American business, for the American economy, for our workers to do as much of the work as possible to create that…

I call up amendment No. 866. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment. The assistant bill clerk read as follows: The Senator from Oregon [Mr. Merkley], for himself and Mr. Brown, proposes an amendment numbered 866. The…

I rise today to remember an Oregon hero. CMSgt Arden Hassenger was a 29-year-old from Lebanon, OR, when he and five other airmen set out on Christmas Eve 1965 on a reconnaissance trip over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Tragically, they never…

The heart of the WIFIA program is about jobs. It is about infrastructure. Five years after the greatest economic crisis in 80 years, we still face a serious jobs crisis. Too many are out of work and too many are unemployed. A good…

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…

I think that's exactly the right approach.

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.

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.

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

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.

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