Ron Wyden

I think I am advised by the staff, that last bill is in the jobs legislation, isn't it?

I am proud to be an Oregonian, and I am very proud to represent Grant County in the U.S. Senate.

I just want to take a moment, as chairman of this subcommittee, to applaud the residents of Grant County for the extraordinary rejection of hatred that they demonstrated last month.

Some current bills, including the 'Oregon Eastside Forests Restoration, Old Growth Protection, and Jobs Act of 2009', sponsored by Senator Ron Wyden, propose measures to increase logging levels on national forests based upon the…

I know in Washington, DC, people talk about infrastructure all the time.

This administration strongly supports the goals and the principles of S. 2895.

I expect to lead the fight for funding that is needed to manage all our national forests.

Each has enough to survive, but never enough to succeed when Oregonians that I meet at community meetings and certainly on the east side consistently tell me, 'Ron, we need the tools in order to have good-paying jobs in our communities…

This is legislation that I have introduced to get saw logs to Oregon mills, get our forests healthy again, and protect our treasured old growth forests on the east side of Oregon.

Senator Ron Wyden's introduction of this path-breaking legislation is an important milestone in those efforts.

I want to see us end the timber wars on my watch in the State of Oregon.

I am gratified by the examples I am seeing around this country on collaboration.

We need to incorporate good science into landscape-scale restoration work.

Yes, just yesterday. So thank you, and good points from both of you.

This ought to send a message across Oregon that we now have a partner at this agency who is going to be hands-on, who is going to work with us.

It is nonetheless a great bill.

I want to express my appreciation to you for your extraordinary leadership and energy and just effort in bringing this highly diverse group of Oregonians together.

Job one must be saving our remaining mills and our loggers, what I call the infrastructure of forestry in central and eastern Oregon, while preserving old growth and watersheds.

The proposed Oregon Eastside Forests Restoration, Old Growth Protection and Jobs Act is not the bill I would have written.

Let me start with you, if I might, Mr. Sherman?

I look forward to working closely with Senator Merkley to pass this bill, for it is urgent business, priority business for rural communities in my State that every single day are walking on an economic tightrope trying to survive.

We are just baffled as to why the Department doesn't think they should get the grant.

I am absolutely convinced there is nobody at the Department of Energy who got up that morning and said, "I want to spend my day being rotten to the people of Condon, Oregon."

I mean, these are tiny communities. I have open meetings every county, every year. I'm concerned that they walk away and think that the Federal Government is going to have policies that turn them into a sacrifice zone that basically say…

The project that they proposed clearly would save energy, it would save money, and it would save water.