Robert Smith: “Mr. Chairman, the recently withdrawn amendment certainly should have been withdrawn, because the gentlewoman from Oregon…”

“Mr. Chairman, the recently withdrawn amendment certainly should have been withdrawn, because the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Furse), my friend, had this amendment exactly correct. There will be room with her amendment, should her amendment have passed, to harvest firewood and Christmas trees. That will be the end of any harvest practically on the public forests. We know that there are more than 40 million acres, Mr. Chairman, that are in jeopardy of catastrophic fire in this country. We also have followed Chief Dombeck's suggestion that unless we manage forests, quote, manage forests, we indeed will lose our public forests. The most effective tool we have, obviously, to fight catastrophic fire or to eliminate insect disease, is a timber sale program and managing forests. The amendment would have basically eliminated all U.S. timber sales and that, indeed, threatens the health of our forests. I want to quote Chief Dombeck because he is right on point on this issue. We are hearing calls increasingly for a zero-cut policy for the National Forests. I am opposed to this position. Both science and common sense support active management of National Forests. And he is right. Now, this idea went so far that it should have been withdrawn, but it also indeed threatens the health of our forests. It is not only economically unreasonable; it jeopardizes jobs throughout the United States nationwide.”