Jay Inslee: “we are looking forward to a healthy, open conference. We hope this conference will set a new high standard in openness…”

“we are looking forward to a healthy, open conference. We hope this conference will set a new high standard in openness and bipartisanship in the House. But there are a couple things I think we need to talk about that are challenging us in bringing this bill to completion, and that is, first, a recognition that we have a severe resource limitation that is the real limitation as to what real treatment we can do on our forests, and that no matter what we do in this bill, the amount that has been appropriated to date still will only treat about maybe 2 percent of the acreage of the hundreds of thousands of acres that need treatment in our national forests. That is an important point, because if we only have enough to do 2 percent of the acreage that really could potentially use thinning or other treatment in our forests, we have to really prioritize where we are going to do this work. One of the elements we hope to talk about in our conference is how to prioritize this work where it is going to be most effective. That is why many of us have been talking about prioritizing our work to be in the areas where it will have the greatest benefit to save human life and human property, and that is in the wild-line urban interface and the areas closest to our towns, suburbs, and homes.”