Sheila Jackson Lee: “Let me thank the committee, both the staff and the gentlewoman from Minnesota, the gentleman from California, and the…”

“Let me thank the committee, both the staff and the gentlewoman from Minnesota, the gentleman from California, and the gentleman from Idaho who are now managing this appropriations bill. I call this the good health appropriations for the quality of life of many Americans, both urban and rural. I ask my colleagues to consider my amendment, which deals with the urban reforestation program. I live close and personal to both urban areas and rural areas in my congressional district. Given close to 80 percent of the population of the conterminous United States lives in an urban area, the benefits provided by urban forests touch most U.S. citizens. My amendment specifically reinforces the importance of urban reforestation, as well as preserves our ability to return urban areas to healthy and safe living environments for our children. I offered these amendments in years past. I know it from a real-time experience. Over the last couple of years, when the drought hit Houston and many other areas in Texas, millions of trees were lost. Millions of trees were lost. Today, now, we face the large and very challenging effort of trying to reforest parks like Memorial Park, MacGregor Park, and many parks in the northeast part of my district. In the past 30 years alone, we have lost 30 percent of all of our urban trees, a loss of over 600 million trees. I have certainly seen neighborhoods in Houston benefit from urban reforestation.…”