Doc Hastings: “As we come back after our August district work period, there have been several major events that have happened and…”

“As we come back after our August district work period, there have been several major events that have happened and generally do happen in late summer in the western part of the United States. Those events generally revolve around forest fires. I'm joined on the floor tonight by a number of my colleagues from the western part of the United States in whose districts we've experienced some of these forest fires. But the reason we wanted to have this time, Mr. Speaker, is because this issue about forest management that I'm going to get into and my colleagues will be getting into has been building up for some time. I have the privilege to chair the House Natural Resources Committee. We have broad jurisdiction over all Federal lands, and that certainly includes our forested lands. And what I have observed in the time that I've had the privilege to be in this body is that our national forests are being badly mismanaged, particularly on Federal lands. They're being badly mismanaged generally because of events and regulations coming from the Federal Government. We'll talk about that a bit tonight. But there is a solution to what we will be discussing tonight for the problems we've had in the western part of the United States with these forest fires--and that's the Healthy Forest Act that we'll have on the floor, hopefully, later on this month.…”