Political Quotes

“While I appreciate and share the gentleman's desire to preserve forests in danger of conversion--that's very important to me. I chair the Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Energy, and Forestry, but I don't believe that this is the best way to do it. I respectfully oppose the amendment. The Forest Legacy Program has been successful, to date, due to its unique structure, partnering with States to preserve forested land threatened by development. Since its creation in the 1990 farm bill, the Forest Legacy Program has more than been successful in fulfilling that purpose. The program has protected more than 2.2 million acres in 43 States and has leveraged $739 million of non-Federal funding over the last 20 years. By opening the program to nongovernmental programs, we're doing nothing to promote the program's purpose. Demand is quite high for the program. For the last 3 years, USDA has only been able to fund roughly a quarter of the funding requests under this program. Additionally, this change only has the effect of making the program more similar to other conservation programs. In the 2008 farm bill, we created the Community Forest Program with the purpose of allowing groups such as land trusts and Indian tribes the authority to manage forest easements. This was done in part to allow nongovernment groups to participate in protecting local forests.…”