Political Quotes

“I join in thanking Representative Westerman for this legislation and this Special Order tonight, explaining the extent to which these catastrophic wildfires are destroying the West and other areas of our country. This year, over 9 million acres have burned in the West. It is a new record for catastrophic wildfires. This year, most of the damage has been in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and northern California. You heard the gentleman from northern California earlier talk about the number of houses that have been destroyed; the lives that have been disrupted; the wildlife that has been destroyed; the habitat that has been destroyed; the carbon that has gone up in the air and the illness that that has caused; the watersheds that are destroyed; the oxygen that is destroyed when you have ash running down hillsides into streams, choking the oxygen out of the water, killing the fish. The habitat destruction, the effects on people and ungulates and fish and resources, it is irresponsible. We have a stewardship obligation for these lands. We know how to manage these lands. This doesn't need to be happening. Representative Westerman is a professional forester and an engineer. He has spent his career studying the science of doing this right. I have a photograph here of an example of how to do this right. He showed us some earlier from his State of Arkansas. I want to show you how his methodology works in the Black Hills that straddle the border between South Dakota and Wyoming.…”