Rob Bishop

I appreciate Congressman Young and Stewart for leading.

I am concerned that today we find ourselves investigating separate issues where there has been a failing of a federal agency to work cooperatively with local residents.

The Park Service needs to prove that they deserve those 7 acres.

Your testimony you have given is a mass of platitudes that have no specific value.

Only Harry Reid and his band of merry geezers can have that attitude.

This is not about policy, this is about personality.

As I said earlier, you know, if this was the first cut we were asking to you do, tough, but this is the third cut.

Okay. I don't know to whom to ask this question.

If sequestration was the first cut we were asking of the military, I wouldn't really have much sympathy for you.

I do have some concern, at least personally, about our research and development that we are putting into the Minuteman III...

If this was the first cut we were asking to you do, tough, but this is the third cut.

I don't know to whom to ask this question.

We are treating the military differently than we are treating every other segment of Federal Government.

OK. And as an old school teacher, I really appreciate that one.

Forest management is complex. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach.

2 percent of the paperwork, nearly 1,000 times the result, and this is a lesson we need to take very seriously.

We will hear from one of our witnesses today about a similar model in Wisconsin.

Rather than offering the all-too-familiar rhetoric of how complying with one Federal order or another costs too much, it is time for the Federal Government to adjust how it does business, and honor its statutory responsibilities to manage…

The last few decades have seen our National Forest System fall into complete neglect.

What was once a valuable asset has deteriorated into a growing liability. So I believe our national forests and public lands are long overdue for a paradigm shift.

Today this Subcommittee is hearing testimony on non-Federal forest management and what the Federal Government can learn to better promote healthy forests and rural communities and jobs.

Thank you for being here. The hearing is adjourned.

I appreciate the fact of what you have done with the lands that are yours as part of the Reservation, part of the treaty rights that you have.

I hope it was worth your time. I do know that the answers that you gave to Committee members were interesting, were insightful, will be helpful for us.

One of the ironies I have found is that often those, even in the Federal Government, who are on the land and who actually live there, make decisions that seem to be common sense.