Ron Wyden: “I close by saying that Senator Craig and I and all those who have been involved in this issue understand that as a…”

“I close by saying that Senator Craig and I and all those who have been involved in this issue understand that as a result of this updated, modernized approach to the Secure Rural Schools Act, we are going to make sure the rural communities of this country can survive and help them make a transition into other areas. Senator Craig and I held many hearings and have heard from rural communities about how they would like to have very strong thinning programs. This is something you don't know a whole lot about in Baltimore, Mr. President, but we have a lot of overstocked stands in our part of the country. If you don't thin them out, it makes for a big fire risk. If you thin them out, you bring the communities together-- labor folks, environmentalists, and others--and you deal with the fire risk and get the material to the mill. Plus you put people to work. However, if these rural communities can't survive, and I am of the view that many of them won't without this amendment, then we are not in a position to look at the next steps, which are approaches like I have outlined for thinning and biomass, where we take the woody waste off the forest floor, which makes for clean energy.”