Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for offering this amendment. The issue of salvage is a very important part of proper management in forests, and I think your amendment adds to that. I support your amendment. Mr. LaMALFA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I respectfully request your support, and I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Oregon is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman has made the point that it is not mandatory, but the problem would be we already have inadequate funds for firefighting. As the gentleman, I'm certain, well knows, the Forest Service has devastated the remaining funds for fuel reduction, probably restoration activities, and a whole bunch of recreation activities and other things that have all been ripped from this year's budget because they had to spend $1 billion fighting fires, and I believe Congress appropriated less than half that amount. This is an annual problem, and it's time to get real around here about the problem. One is to adequately invest in fuel reduction and not underinvest in firefighting. Until we do a lot more fuel reduction across the West, we are going to have big fires. If we have big fires, we need to fight them. But we don't need to make the big fires more prevalent, more common, by cutting the fuel reduction budgets.…”