Political Quotes

“today there are wildfires burning across the West. I wish to speak for a few moments about some very important work that Chair Mikulski and her colleagues have done on the Appropriations Committee that is really built on a bipartisan proposal that Senator Crapo, our colleague from Idaho, and I, with a large group of bipartisan Senators, are proposing to change the way in which forests are managed and reduce the likelihood of some of--what I call-- these infernos. These are fires that are bigger, hotter, more damaging, and they act like a wrecking ball pounding at the rural West. What has happened over the years is that the preventive efforts in the West in terms of our forests are underfunded. There isn't enough effort that goes to hazardous fuels management and thinning and programs that reduce the huge load of fuels on the forest floor. Just this past weekend I was in Medford in rural southern Oregon and in Portland, meeting with the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. They told me about the problems that Senator Crapo and I are trying to address in bipartisan legislation that Chairman Mikulski has included in her appropriations bill. The heart of the problem is that these prevention efforts are underfunded. When it gets very dry and very hot, and particularly when there is a lightning strike or a series of lightning strikes, what we have is an enormous fire in a hurry.…”