[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 39 (Tuesday, March 31, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E529]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               FOREST RECOVERY AND PROTECTION ACT OF 1998

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                               speech of

                         HON. MICHAEL P. FORBES

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, March 27, 1998

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 2515) to 
     address declining health of forests on Federal lands in the 
     United States through a program of recovery and protection 
     consistent with the requirements of existing public land 
     management and environmental laws, to establish a program to 
     inventory, monitor, and analyze public and private forests 
     and their resources, and for other purposes:

  Mr. FORBES. Mr. Chairman, I know all too well how valuable our 
Nation's forests are, because in Eastern Long Island we have lost to 
development hundreds of thousands of acres of pine barrens that protect 
and filter the water that settles into the sole source aquifer that 
holds our drinking water.
  The Forest Recovery and Protection Act (H.R. 2515) before us today 
would sacrifice the public benefits of our forests like water quality, 
wildlife habitat and recreation and instead promote clear cutting in 
our last remaining unspoiled wild forests.
  Instead, we should be building on recent Forest Service efforts to 
study and protect these vanishing roadless areas.
  When the studies are done and the facts are in, only then should we 
decide what to do about the practice of commercial logging on public 
lands.
  The Forest Recovery and Protection Act (H.R. 2515) before us today 
pretends to be about a ``forest health crisis;'' in fact, the only 
crisis in our National Forests has been caused by excessive road 
building and destructive logging--a practice that would continue under 
this legislation if it is passed today.
  The Leach-McKinney bill that I am an original sponsor of would put an 
end to decades of forest management for the benefit of timber industry 
profits and instead protect the public benefits of our forests like 
watershed protection and recreation.
  The Forest Recovery and Protection Act (H.R. 2515) would steal money 
from environmental restoration and roads maintenance programs and put 
it into a new slush fund to promote clear cutting programs.
  It specifically directs the government to ignore the costs to 
taxpayers of the clear cutting programs in this bill.
  Money that now goes to promote irresponsible logging through Forest 
Service slush funds, should instead be put into environmental 
restoration and job training programs to create sustainable local 
economies, no longer based on environmental destruction.

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