Political Quotes

“first of all, I wish to thank Chairman Enzi for his courtesy in allowing me to take a few minutes to discuss a bipartisan amendment I will be offering on this bill. It deals with what I think is going to be an enormous challenge this summer for the West, and that is dealing with this wildfire challenge and the prospect that we could literally have enormous fires--what could be virtually infernos--throughout the West this summer. I make that judgment because recently when I was home, I got a briefing. For example, in Medford, OR, they told me it was the driest it had been for 25 years. In Medford, when you get an update on the fires--and, colleagues, it is worth noting that nobody used to have a fire briefing in March. That is just unheard of. We have fire briefings well into the summer. But fires are getting to be a year-round occurrence. I was there in March, and the fire experts said it is going to be very dry. When you look southward to California, all you see is dry, dry, dry. The fact is that as it gets drier and as it gets hotter on the forest floor, should lightning strike, which is very common in rural America, all of a sudden you can have an inferno on your hands and one that really knows no boundaries and can affect private property owners, State lands, and Federal lands. We had an important hearing in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee the other day on the sportsmen's bill.…”