Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 471, the Fix Our Forests Act. Many forests across the Nation continue to be undermanaged and face significant forest health challenges. This includes forests such as the Allegheny, located in my district, which has its own difficulties with invasives among other issues. The devastating fires in Los Angeles and throughout southern California are the latest reminder of what can happen when we fail to properly manage our forests and the risk of catastrophic fire in fire prone areas. Unfortunately, these fires show that much work remains to help mitigate or prevent such catastrophes from occurring in the first place. Even with the additional treatments the Forest Service has been performing, tens of millions of acres of national forest and adjacent lands throughout the west are still at risk of wildfire and are in need of treatments. Many of these acres are tinderboxes ready to ignite due to decades of mismanagement, which has led to declining forest health and dangerous levels of overgrowth. We have continued to witness some of the most destructive wildfires on record in just the past decade, leading to significant property loss, recovery costs, and most sadly, the loss of human life. This truly is an urgent crisis that must be immediately addressed, and Congress must do more to better support the Forest Service and firefighters.…”