Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, last year this Nation lost 6.9 million acres to catastrophic forest fires. That is an area larger than the entire State of Vermont. The Federal Government spent $1.6 billion in a losing effort to save that forestland. The Healthy Forest Restoration Act would expedite hazardous fuels reduction projects on a fraction of the 190 million at-risk acres in our national forests. The Miller substitute seeks to throw us back into the morass of inaction and delay that is destroying our natural resource base. According to the Chief of the Forest Service, last year the Forest Service spent over $250 million on land management projects. Forty percent of that amount, over $100 million, was wasted on process delays. If we continue to approach catastrophic fire losses like this, we will have lots of lawyers and still lose the forests. The Miller substitute would reinstate the opportunities for procedural delay and even adds new unnecessary steps. This will drag the system even further into the mire that is exposing forest after forest to catastrophic fire threats.”