Patty Murray: “I rise today to make a case for a commonsense, responsible forest policy. Today, I want to plead with my colleagues to…”

“I rise today to make a case for a commonsense, responsible forest policy. Today, I want to plead with my colleagues to fix a mistake that this Congress made last year and put in place a long-term plan to restore the lawful expeditious salvage of dead and dying timber in our Nation's forests. Today, our national forests are at the center of extreme controversy. My constituents are angry and many believe that the salvage rider from last year went way too far. It is very critical that we address this situation now. Let me remind my colleagues about the course of forest policy in these past few years. I will spend most of my time discussing the Pacific Northwest, because that is where much of the forest controversy is right now about salvage timber and it is where it is currently focused. When I came into office in 1992, the national forests of the Northwest were locked up, they were closed to timber management because the agency had not followed the environmental laws of this Nation. The courts prohibited the agency from selling trees, and Congress was gridlocked. Nothing was moving, and there was war in the woods. Rural communities were hurting, and environmentalists were winning in the courts of law and in the courts of public opinion because the public saw mountainsides ravaged and felt betrayed.”