Michael Baumgartner: “I rise today to support the timber industry and the harvest of trees in our forests. When I was growing up, my father…”

“I rise today to support the timber industry and the harvest of trees in our forests. When I was growing up, my father was a forestry professor at Washington State University and my uncle was a smokejumper. I served in the U.S. Forest Service. Years of fear and hesitation around commonsense tools like select timber harvest and controlled burns have left many of our forests dangerously overgrown and chronically undermanaged. We need to harvest more timber for the economic revenue it produces and for the reduced fire danger it creates. Good environmental stewardship means empowering these professionals to be part of the solution and to help manage our Federal forest lands responsibly for today and generations to come.”