Political Quotes

“Mr. President, in a few minutes, I am going to start sprinting to the airport to get home to listen to Oregonians who have been clobbered by several megafires unlike anything we have seen in my home State of Oregon. On top of that, in addition to the megafires, there are numerous other fires. Just up the road from my hometown of Portland, the Eagle Creek fire has merged with the Indian Creek fire and spread over an area of more than 31,000 acres. What we have seen--again, just staggering in its implications--the fire jumped the Columbia River into Washington State. It is ravaging our iconic Columbia River Gorge. This is a treasure beloved by the millions of people who visit every year and the people of my home State. Next to me is a shot of the fire which has been burning in the Columbia River Gorge now for days. Although it appears the first sparks of the Eagle Creek fire were ignited by a young man, it is clear the inferno was accelerated by the unusual heat in early September. Now the lives and the homes of Gorge residents are under threat, and a world- renowned treasure in my home State has been devastated. Sadly, this wildfire devastation this month has rippled across Oregon. The Chetco Bar fire in Southwestern Oregon has consumed more than 167,000 acres--an area bigger than all of Portland. The Umpqua North fire east of Roseburg and the Milli fire in Central Oregon have torn through tens of thousands of acres each. I could go on.…”