Political Quotes

“today I am joining with my colleagues from Idaho, Senator Crapo and Senator Risch, and my colleague from Alaska, Senator Begich, to correct a regulatory problem that left uncorrected will bury private, State and tribal forest lands in a wave of litigation. If we have learned anything from the court battles that have contributed to the widespread gridlock and mismanagement of our Federal forests, it is that this is not the best path to ensure our forests' future and should be considered only as a last resort. Now those battles threaten to spill over onto private forest lands. Since the advent of the Clean Water Act, Democratic and Republican administrations have held that most silviculture activities were nonpoint sources for purposes of the act and would be best regulated at the State level, under the States' individual forest practices laws. Under this rule, known as the ``silviculture rule, `` silvicultural activities, such as nursery operations, site preparation, reforestation and subsequent treatment, thinning, prescribed burning, pest and fire control, harvesting operations, surface drainage, or road construction and maintenance, from which there is natural runoff, were regulated through the Clean Water Act by States best management practices.…”