Congressional Record, Volume 149 Issue 170 (Friday, November 21, 2003)

[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 170 (Friday, November 21, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H12113-H12117]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

WAIVING POINTS OF ORDER AGAINST CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 1904, HEALTHY
FORESTS RESTORATION ACT OF 2003

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the
Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 457 and ask for its
immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

H. Res. 457

Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be
in order to consider the conference report to accompany the
bill (H.R. 1904) to improve the capacity of the Secretary of
Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior to plan and
conduct hazardous fuels reduction projects on National Forest
System lands and Bureau of Land Management lands aimed at
protecting communities, watersheds, and certain other at-risk
lands from catastrophic wildfire, to enhance efforts to
protect watersheds and address threats to forest and
rangeland health, including catastrophic wildfire, across the
landscape, and for other purposes. All points of order
against the conference report and against its consideration
are waived. The conference report shall be considered as
read.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings)
is recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate
only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my good friend and namesake,
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself
such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution,
all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.
(Mr. HASTINGS of Washington asked and was given permission to revise
and extend his remarks.)
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 457 is a
rule

[[Page H12114]]

providing for the consideration of the conference report to accompany
H.R. 1904, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003. The rule waives
all points of order against the conference report and its consideration
and provides that the conference report shall be considered as read.
Mr. Speaker, recent reports of catastrophic wildfires in the West
have helped millions of Americans to understand what Members of western
districts have known for years, that steps must be taken to improve our
management of national forests in order to reduce the risk of runaway
forest fires that threaten lives, property and even entire communities.
H.R. 1904, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, contains several key
measures that will enable Federal land managers to better manage
potentially explosive stands of timber and underbrush. Passage of the
bill would also enable local communities to play a more meaningful role
in the management of lands that pose potential threats. H.R. 1904 would
authorize the removal of dead, dying and diseased trees and underbrush
from Federal lands. It would also strengthen the ability of land
managers to pursue fire prevention strategies under an expedited system
that would limit excessive court challenges to proposed changes in
management plans for Federal lands.
The bill authorizes $760 million annually for fire prevention,
suppression and management activities, a significant increase over
current allocations.
Mr. Speaker, the conferees have done an excellent job of protecting
the House position on this legislation, which passed the House by a
large margin back in May 2003. The conferees should be commended for
moving to complete the work on this important legislation before
Congress adjourns and we in turn should pass it without further delay.
Accordingly, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support both the
rule and the underlying conference report.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend and
namesake, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings), for yielding me
the time.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, it was just a little over a year ago that the Biscuit
fire was raging in southwest Oregon in an area shared by myself and the
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden). We held a hearing in the Committee
on Resources during that fire about the issue of the fuel buildup in
our forests. After I listened to a few of the witnesses, I really did
not ask any questions, I gave a pretty impassioned speech about how I
was tired of the fact that we all kind of went to our political corners
on this issue when a real solution was warranted. Surprisingly after
the hearing I was approached by a number of Members that people would
be surprised could sit down in a room and work together on an issue
like this, but notably the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) came
forward and said to me, I really agreed with a lot of what you said and
I would like to try and work something out, as did the gentleman from
Arizona (Mr. Shadegg), the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), and the
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller). We sat down and began
some very difficult negotiations.
Unfortunately, last year the clock ran out on us. We had an election
year, so we did not get the bill done. But now here we are hopefully at
the point of adopting the bill in the House and the Senate and seeing
it signed into law. This is not exactly the bill I would have written.
It is not exactly what we negotiated last year, but I believe it is a
bill that can get the job done. Most importantly, it authorizes $760
million. I think we could even authorize and do more work than that on
an annual basis given the unnatural buildup of fuels in the forests,
but if we can get that money actually spent, it will provide for a lot
of jobs. It will provide for tremendous protection for communities and
resources.
The bill has language about how the work should be conducted. The
idea is to leave the big old fire-resistant trees and return the forest
to what we call a presettlement condition, before we began unnaturally
repressing fire more than 100 years ago with the settlement of the
West. What you need to do, and there was a dramatic example at the
Davis fire in central Oregon this year, you could see where the
lodgepole pines were growing up into the crowns of the big old fire-
resistant Ponderosas and unfortunately a lot of those Ponderosas went
because that is called a ladder fuel. It just ran up this crummy old
lodgepole and right up into the beautiful old Ponderosa and we lost
everything. We need to go in and remove those lodgepole pines and other
unnatural fuel buildups. That will provide both for jobs, potentially
for some merchantable material in certain areas, and eventually we will
be able to manage our forests back or help return them to a state where
low-intensity fires can burn through, fires that do not destroy whole
stands, that do not turn the Earth into glass and sterilize it. That is
the condition that prevails today in the West.
This bill is not without controversy. That is again part of the
process. I think the protections are there. People still have a right
to appeal but appeals will be expedited. People have to participate
meaningfully in the process. I do not have a problem with that. I think
people should participate meaningfully in the process and we should
open it up to everybody who is concerned. People will still have a
right to go to court if they feel that the law is being violated but we
are going to have the money, we are going to have the tools and if this
administration applies this properly, if they get and spend all the
money that is promised under this bill, we will begin a very long
process of restoring our forests to a more natural state in the western
United States and in a state that will not lead to a multi-number of
catastrophic fires on an annual basis, which is the state we are seeing
today.
I want to thank my colleagues on that side. I neglected the Committee
on Agriculture, where I do not serve, but I know that the Committee on
Agriculture also played a key role in this legislation. I think we will
be all the better for it.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4
minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte),
chairman of the Committee on Agriculture.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington for
yielding me this time and for bringing this rule to the floor and I
thank the Committee on Rules for very expeditiously moving this
process. I know that when I left the Committee on Rules last night it
was close to 9:30 and they were still going on to other legislative
business. So often the members of the Committee on Rules have to do
that. Of course part of the reason for that is that we are so very near
the end of this session of Congress. So it is critically important
given what happened in California just a few weeks ago and what is
going to happen again next year that we pass this legislation promptly
so we can begin the process. It is going to take a long time.
The gentleman from Oregon is correct. There are not enough resources
nor are there enough acres being addressed in this legislation, but
nonetheless this is a very important first step and this is the first
major piece of legislation related to forestry to be passed out of a
House-Senate conference committee in more than 20 years. This is a
very, very important development. We have a tremendous opportunity
today, and when the Senate acts to send to the President a good bill
that will give us the first step in this process.
It has been a fair process that has involved everybody in it. Over 2
weeks ago, we came to the floor to appoint conferees. The ranking
Democrat on the House Committee on Agriculture who has worked with us
every step of the way, and I might add that I believe 19 of the 24
House Democrats on the Committee on Agriculture voted for the original
House-passed legislation, very strong bipartisan support in crafting
this legislation. He made a motion to instruct conferees calling for
the prompt action at an open conference to report back a bill a week
ago. Unfortunately, the other body did not respond in that fashion and
did not appoint their conferees until yesterday

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morning. Nonetheless, in the meantime there was a tremendous amount of
bipartisan and bicameral discussions going on about how to move the
House and the Senate closer together on these pieces of legislation and
we achieved that. Then yesterday we did have in the short period of
time after the Senate appointed conferees the opportunity for an open
conference, Members were given the opportunity to offer amendments,
there was clearly a tremendous amount of consensus on both sides of the
Capitol and in both parties on the need to move forward with this and
we had a very expeditious conference.
Nonetheless, I think we kept the commitment made by the House on the
motion of the ranking member, the gentleman from Texas, to have an open
conference and to move as expeditiously as the process allowed us to
do.
This bill is going to allow us to take major steps to let the Forest
Service do the job they are charged with doing, protecting our national
forests. This will also allow us to make absolutely certain that we
have a process that is open and fair to everybody who is concerned
about our national forests from any perspective. We are accelerating
the process so that when ideas about what needs to be done to protect
our forests take place, they can take place promptly, but we are not
excluding the public in any way from this process. They will have the
opportunity from start to--a judicial review if that becomes
necessary--finish to have input in the process, but it will be done in
such a way that the system can no longer be rigged to stretch out these
decisions for many years and have our forests destroyed in the
meantime.

{time} 1015

That is vitally important.
I want to thank everybody who has been involved in this process. The
gentleman from California (Chairman Pombo), the Committee on Resources,
made important contributions. The gentleman from Colorado (Mr.
McInnis), the subcommittee chairman, was also vitally important. He
introduced the legislation. And certainly the gentleman from Oregon
(Mr. Walden) has been with us every step of the way as well. The same
thing has been true on the other side of the aisle, whether they have
agreed with all the measures or not. We thank them for their input.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the
underlying bill.
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the
distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), my good
friend.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to join in
this in thanking Members on both sides of the aisle for their
participation and cooperation in this legislation. As the gentleman
from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) noted, we started some 2 years ago with the
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) and others talking about what
would be possible. The gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden) and we came
up with what we thought was possible, we did not make it, went back
this year and continued that process.
And we passed a bill out of the House, a bill that I did not agree
with in its entirety by any means, but then the Senate was also able to
pass legislation. And as a result of those negotiations, which I wish
had been a little bit more open, but the fact of the matter is as a
result of those negotiations, we now have this, we will have this bill
before us later today. And I want to thank the Committee on Rules for
providing us this opportunity.
Mr. Speaker, let me just say this one point. I wish the firefighter
protections that had been offered and accepted in the Senate, they were
offered by Senator Boxer of California, would have been kept in the
bill. I think it is important now as we see these larger, more
catastrophic fires, as we see fires that move through residential
areas, to understand that the firefighters there are put in jeopardy
from many other things besides just the fires themselves, but also the
chemicals and building materials and the rest of it that are caught up
in these huge winds created by the fires.
But let me say as to the bill, I think this is a bill that is a vast
improvement over what left the House. In this compromise, in this
conference report we will target half of the appropriated money into
those areas most likely to have the most catastrophic fires. The rest
of the money can be used in forest treatment and other areas of the
national forest. That is important.
It is also important that we involve the communities, and communities
can come up with those plans that they think serve their area best.
Hopefully, they will use community resources, small businesses, and
others to develop those plans. People are also entitled to have some
review of those plans.
But what this bill does not allow you to do is to drag the process
out forever, forever and ever. You have got to come in, make your case,
you made it or you have not made it. But those rights are protected,
and you can appeal that to court.
Some people do not like the fact that the bill extends the urban
interface area out to a mile and a half. The fact of the matter is when
you see the size of some of these fires, the treatment in the urban
interface area is nothing more than a firebreak. And a little tiny area
is not going to stop some of these fires that we have seen over the
last decade in the West.
Finally, with respect to the treatment in the larger forest, the
goods for services contracts are still allowed, but as the gentleman
from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) pointed out, the important part of this bill,
what Senator Feinstein was able to do was get an authorized amount of
money in here, because if we just do it on goods for services, we will
either have to cut down all the trees to save them in order to get
enough money to carry out the project, or we will not be able to treat
those areas, as we saw in southern California, of negligible timber
value but high risk to the communities.
And so we need to have an appropriation to follow this authorization
so we can treat those areas of high intensity, of great potential of
catastrophic fires, the potential to engulf communities. We have got to
go there with some Federal dollars and some goods for services. And I
think that is a balance that makes sense.
I spend several weeks a year backpacking in the high country and the
forests and parks of this country. You do not have to walk very long in
the forest to see the need for treatment. If you love the big old
trees, as the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) again pointed out,
you have got to understand that we have allowed a ladder to build up in
these forests. And the big ponderosas, the big sugar pines are at risk
because of the understory, the undergrowth that is there that will take
the flames right into the crowns. And, obviously, once in the crowns,
with any wind they move so fast that we cannot deal with them.
So, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that I think that this is a
product that the House should vote for. Members on both sides of the
aisle should support this. It is very, very important to so many of our
communities and very important to the stewardship of our natural
resources.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), an individual that has had a great
deal of impact on this legislation.
Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from
Washington, with whom I have worked closely on this and other
legislation to improve the great Northwest and certainly improve and
protect America's forests. I want to thank the chairman of the
Committee on Agriculture, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte),
and the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), the chairman of the
Committee on Resources, and certainly my friend and colleague, the
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis), for their yeoman's effort on
this legislation; my friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. George
Miller), and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) as well for their
work; and certainly the President of the United States, who on not one,
but two occasions has come out to the Northwest to drive home the point
that we had to pass legislation that embodies the principles contained
in H.R. 1904.
I think it is especially important. There are not many of us who do
not recognize that if we do not remove the ladder fuels that my
colleague from California talked about, the old growth

[[Page H12116]]

policy that will be out there is one of let it burn, because that is
what is happening today in America's forests. Because we have taken
natural fire out of the equation and taken human management out of the
equation, these forests have become completely overstocked. So it is
like any other fire, it is about the fuel load. And the fuel load is
such that when fire starts today, unlike 100 years ago, when it starts
today, it burns catastrophically.
We witnessed it in the Biscuit Fire in southern Oregon a year ago. We
witnessed it in the B&B fire this summer in my district. We witnessed
it in California. We can see it all across America's great forests and
rangelands that when there is too much fuel, the fire is nearly
uncontrollable and certainly catastrophic.
Let us talk about the human consequences, because we saw it
especially this year in California, but we have seen it before. Last
year 23 firefighters lost their lives, and the American taxpayer spent
$1.5 billion containing 2002's record fires.
This shows you a scene that, unfortunately, is one that has been seen
far too often: a home that has been destroyed in a forested area. This
next shot shows you what happens to fish habitat. This was in my
district in eastern Oregon, a fire that took place in 1989. This is a
stream that used to be part of the spring Chinook salmon habitat. You
can see it is nothing but a mudflow here. There is no buffer. These are
all dead trees. It looks like a moonscape or a Mars-scape. This was in
the Wallowa Whitman National Forest. This is what you get when you
cannot control forest fires.
This, on the other hand, is an example of how a fire that has been
treated like we are talking about treating performs. This is an area
where President Bush accompanied me and Senator Smith and others,
Senator Wyden, up to the Squires Peak fire in 2002. And you can see
where the land had been treated, there are good healthy trees left
behind. There is a fire burning here, but it has fallen to the ground,
because that is what happens when you treat in these areas. The fire
drops to the ground, and our firefighters are able to control and
contain it. The damage is not that significant. In fact, it can be very
positive in terms of when a fire burns like this to regenerate.
But just on the other side of this hill where the same people who
fought the fire have been doing the thinning work, it was completely
obvious because they had not thinned there yet. Where they had not
thinned, the fire had been in the canopy, it had been at the top. It
had been catastrophic and extraordinarily destructive.
Finally, let me make this point. By streamlining this process we are
going to be able to get in and do this kind of work sooner so we do not
end up with that kind of devastation I showed you earlier. But we also,
as a policy, as a Congress, need to take a look at what happens after a
catastrophic fire. How can we get in and restore America's great
conifer forests instead of letting them become brush? How do we get in
and protect the habitat that remains after a fire and improve it so our
fish runs can come back? That is a debate we will have to have in the
future.
Today, though, I am delighted that we are at this point with a
comprehensive bipartisan, bicameral plan that will move us an enormous
generation forward to protect and preserve America's forests, create
jobs in our rural communities, and make sure fire, when it burns, is
not catastrophic.
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr.
Goodlatte) and the ranking members. I know that they have done a
serious and yoeperson's job in bringing us this far, which, while I
thank them, I still have reservations, and I know the gentleman from
Oregon (Mr. Walden) and I have talked about them. But that does not
mean that they did not work hard.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr.
Inslee), my good friend.
(Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, actually the way this final
package was developed was a continuation of the sad deterioration of an
effort to actually reach consensus in this body. And the reason I say
that is the way this package was put together is some folks went into a
closed room and excluded other Members of the House from consideration.
In fact, the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest
Health of the Committee on Resources was excluded from consideration to
try to reach a consensus product here, as was virtually anyone who
questioned the original bill who left the House.
This is the system, if you can imagine, when they are sitting around
a table in Iraq right now and they ask, how do you do democracy in
America, I guess you would have to say, in the House we just have this
secret group and exclude Members from the minority party who are
ranking Members. And that is what happened here, and it is unfortunate
because we may have been able to reach a consensus of unanimity here on
the House floor.
Now, let me point out a couple significant concerns with this final
product. Number one, it does not cut the mustard in saving our houses
and our towns from fire. We just witnessed this enormous devastation in
California as a result of these fires, hundreds and hundreds of houses
that were burned. And we do not have enough money in the Federal
Treasury to come close to treating all of the acres that need
treatment. At most, under this bill, we will only treat about 2 percent
of the acres that need treating a year in our forests. That means we
have got to be smart and target our resources where it is going to do
the most good, and where it is going to do the most good fastest is
around our homes and our towns to prevent the devastation that happened
in California.
It ought to be a clear, unanimous consensus in this House that we put
the majority of our resources protecting our families and our homes and
our towns. And this bill does not do it. Yes, it is better than the
House version because it says 50 percent, but what are you going to
tell people next time? Sure, you had 200 houses burned, we will save
100 of them this time. Well, 50 percent is not good enough saying we
are just going to save half your town; 50 percent is not good enough
when we say we are going to save half your subdivision.
We ought to put a clear majority of our resources in protecting these
belts, these protective moats, if you will, around our houses, and we
are not doing it. Why we are not doing it? Because the timber industry
has driven a lot of this debate. Who is for this is the timber
industry. And who is against it is the Sierra Club. And it is too bad
we did not really reach a consensus when we could have on this bill.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis), who has worked extremely hard on
this issue and has been working on this issue.
Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me time.
I also thank the Members and my colleagues on the Democratic side who
worked with me on my bill. This is a bill I introduced. I have been
working on it in great detail for a number of years.
Now, it is true that in the process I did not include 435 Members to
come to our meetings to come to some kind of compromise. Now, there are
reasons I did not include 435. First of all, that is not routine.
Second of all, we could not get them all into one location. Third of
all, not very many of them were interested. They are interested, most
of them, in the final product, but they are not interested because they
have their own priorities in putting this together.
And, finally, there is a very definite class of people that you
cannot bring in to a room and expect a compromise. My good colleague,
the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), is not one of those people
that I felt that I could bring into these negotiations and come out
with anything positive.

{time} 1030

I have got to get people in there that are willing to come up with a
solution, and I will give you two good examples, two very ardent
spokesmen for the environment, the gentleman from California (Mr.
George Miller) and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
Those are about two of the toughest individuals on this House floor
when it

[[Page H12117]]

comes to speaking about environmental issues. While the gentleman from
Washington (Mr. Inslee), for example, is very tough on environmental
issues, the fact is I can negotiate with the gentleman from California
(Mr. George Miller). I can negotiate with the gentleman from Oregon
(Mr. DeFazio). And that is exactly why the gentleman from California
(Mr. George Miller) and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) and the
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden) and myself and the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo),
that is exactly why that group of people came together to work out a
compromise with the Senate to come up with a bill that is good for all
of us.
So what we are seeing today is not opposition to the content of the
bill by the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee). What we are seeing
with all due respect to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is
sour grapes. Hey, I did not get to play in the game. I was not invited
to the meeting.
As I said, there is a reason why the gentleman from Washington (Mr.
Inslee) was not invited to the meeting. I wanted a meeting with
production. I needed to have a meeting that would come out with a
product that could pass both the Senate and the House and accomplish
something out there with our forests, and that is exactly what this
bill does. That is exactly why we should pass this rule and that is
exactly why I expect this bill in both the Senate and the House, the
Senate and the House, to pass with bipartisan; that is, Republican and
Democratic, support.
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume. I thank again my good friend from Washington (Mr.
Hastings) for having yielded me time.
As the gentleman previously mentioned, this is a typical rule for a
conference report and I will not oppose it. I will, however, oppose the
underlying conference report, not because my good friend said it would
not have been productive to have some of us in the conference. I do not
serve on the committee so I do not know how I got thrown into that. I
would not have been in the conference in the first place and perhaps he
should not have been.
But, Mr. Speaker, President Theodore Roosevelt told Congress in 1907,
``The conservation of our natural resources and the proper use
constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other
problem of our national life.''
Indeed, it does, Mr. Speaker.
In 2002 alone, wildfires burned more than 6\1/2\ million acres at a
cost to taxpayers of more than $1 billion. Hundreds of families were
evacuated and uncontrollable fires caused millions of dollars worth of
damage. The images of the recent wildfires in southern California are
fresh in our minds and pictures of homes burning to the ground and
thoughts of livelihoods being destroyed will never be forgotten.
Yes, the underlying report takes significant steps to improve our
ability to combat and mitigate wildfires. And, again, I congratulate
the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), the gentleman from Virginia
(Mr. Goodlatte) and their ranking members and their committee for their
work. But in my opinion it goes a bit too far. And for anyone who says
that this or any other bill is not a perfect bill but we should support
it anyway, I say absolutely not. If we know that a problem exists in
the legislation, then let us fix it. Let us fix it before it becomes
law.
The underlying conference report loosens current law regarding the
logging and controlled burning of our Nation's forests. Moreover, it
eviscerates environmental studies and the ability of organizations and
private citizens to submit appeals on the cutting down of as many as 20
million acres. Under the report, appeals are subject to, in my view,
unnecessary and unrealistic deadliness that insult the process and
force Federal judges to adhere to judicial deadlines that make it
impossible to fully consider the complexities of the appeal.
Mr. Speaker, at a time when more than half of the United States is
experiencing some form of drought and dryness, it is critical for
Congress to consider legislation that is proactive in defending and
responding to the adverse effects of wildfires. And I spoke last night
with the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden) and the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) and my friends in the Committee on Rules about
the fact that drought is an attendant feature that must deal with our
concerns about forest fires.
It is equally critical for Congress to also consider legislation that
helps communities mitigate the effects of the reoccurring events that
often result in an excessive and prolonged fire season. In fact, my
colleague on the other side of the aisle, the gentleman from Montana
(Mr. Rehberg) and I have introduced a bill that does just that. H.R.
2781, the National Drought Preparedness Act, moves our country away
from an ad hoc response-oriented approach and towards a more proactive
mitigation-based approach.
Our bill provides States and local communities with the resources and
tools to develop drought preparedness plans and think about the
ramifications of drought before we find ourselves in one.
We are now faced with a vote clearly indicative of the concerns
raised by President Roosevelt nearly one century ago. Whether we answer
the challenge made by the late President or allow his legacy to fall
victim to an influential timber lobby is a decision that Members will
have to make later today.
I realize we do not oppose removing excess vegetation that increases
the risk and facilitates the spread of wildfires. I certainly do not
take issue with the report's efforts to address insect manifestations
in forests. It is, in fact, crucial that Congress address these two
issues.
What I do take issue with, however, is why the majority cannot just
stop there. Instead, it uses the report to further its agenda under the
blanket of healthy forests. Cutting down national forests and limiting
public participation and administrative reviews does not get us any
closer to stopping the spread of wildfires, and it certainly does not
make our forests any healthier.
Teddy Roosevelt once noted, ``Forests are the lungs of our land,
purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.'' He
continued, ``A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself.''
Mr. Speaker, we must not allow the late President Roosevelt's warning
to be realized by the 108th Congress. I urge my colleagues to support
the rule and oppose the underlying report.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as
I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, the bill that this rule allows to be taken up is a very
significant piece of legislation, and I just want to make one point
that I do not think has been made in the debate on this rule regarding
this underlying legislation, and that is that this legislation is
geared towards what we call multiple use areas within our national
system, our national forests and our BLM lands. Multiple use by
definition means it should be open for recreation, commercial activity,
and so forth. But, unfortunately, with policies that have been enacted
de facto in the past 10 or 15 years, in fact, we have closed up these
multiple use areas.
This legislation addresses these problems that have built up for a
time and as a result has built up to unhealthy forests and unhealthy
BLM lands. So it is a significant first start, an extremely significant
first start.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the rule and
support the underlying legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the
previous question on the resolution.
The previous question was ordered.
The resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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