Rob Bishop

As many of you are witness to each day, the Mountain Pine Beetle has turned most of Colorado, not to mention pine forests throughout the West, into a sea of dead and dying trees.

We can change courses, but if we do so, it will require that we are not impeded by inflexible regulations, impeded by frivolous lawsuits and appeals.

Fortunately, we are in a position to change course on this issue. Active, scientific forest management... can begin the process of restoring our forests.

I am convinced that for us to have sustainable forests, we must demand that the decisions made by our public land managers be based on proven science, not ideology and perception.

We all know that the Mountain Pine Beetle has turned much of Colorado, not to mention forests throughout the entire West, into simply a sea of dead and dying trees.

I believe that it is imperative that you become more involved in the processes which will ultimately determine the health and well-being of our public lands.

The solution is to thin trees. We all know that, and we are not doing it for over 20 years.

I want to thank Representative Tipton for his leadership on this issue, inviting us and our Subcommittees to Montrose to see firsthand the impacts of this issue and the paths toward addressing it.

This week, in conjunction with Teacher Appreciation Week, is National Substitute Teacher Recognition Week, recognizing the 270,000 men and women who fill in for permanent teachers every day in the United States. Research by the Substitute…

A thinly veiled attempt to gut a century's worth of environmental laws

What I want to do is get the Border Patrol what they need to secure the border, and they tell me that what they need more than money and people is access. There are enormous swaths of public land that have effectively been ceded over to…

The Department of the Interior ignored local concerns and local input.

Good grief, this is a recreation area. And the only thing you seem to be prohibiting is recreation.

This is a recreation area. It should be a primary concern.

This bill will restore reasonable pedestrian and motorized access to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area.

Thank you very much. I am going to yield a minute or so of my time to Representative Jones.

The Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands is meeting today to hear testimony on how the national park visitors are increasingly being denied access to our national parks in all defiance of common sense.

These overly restrictive policies show signs of developing into a nationwide problem that may require congressional action to correct

The park's new ORV policy has destroyed the economies of the community by limiting or cutting the access to the park.

The Committee will come to order. You just heard the gavel bang.

The Chair notes the presence of a quorum.

This legislation would authorize the transfer of a parcel of land known as the Crest of Montezuma from the Bureau of Land Management to the Forest Service. The Crest of Montezuma is remote from the current BLM-managed areas. It can be…

I appreciate the gentleman from New Mexico's introduction, which is far more fluent than my presentation will be. I share what the gentleman from New Mexico, as well as the gentlelady from Wyoming, have said on this particular issue, that…

Again we have a bill that does a great job in solving a problem that should have been solved a long time ago, especially if the Senate would ever listen to it. To introduce his bill, I would like to yield such time as he may consume to the…

And for some obvious reasons, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar), the sponsor of this bill that solves some real problems, for the introduction of this particular bill.