[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 3 (Friday, January 7, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H123-H124]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, much of my district comprises forests 
managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Over the last 2 years, I have 
received a growing volume of complaints protesting the increasingly 
exclusionary and elitist policies of this agency. These complaints 
charge the Forest Service, among other things, with imposing inflated 
fees that are forcing the abandonment of family cabins held for 
generations, charging exorbitant new fees that are closing down long-
established community events upon which many small and struggling 
mountain towns depend for tourism, expelling longstanding grazing 
operations on specious grounds, causing damage both to the local 
economy and to the Federal Government's revenues, and obstructing the 
sound management of our forests through a policy that can only be 
described as benign neglect, creating both severe fire dangers and 
massive unemployment.
  Practiced in the marketplace, we would renounce these taxes as 
predatory and abusive. In the public sector, they are intolerable.
  Combined, these actions evince an ideologically driven hostility to 
the public's enjoyment of the public's land and a clear intention to 
deny the public the responsible and sustainable use of that land.

[[Page H124]]

  Most recently, the Forest Service has placed severe restrictions on 
vehicle access to the Plumas National Forest, despite volumes of public 
protests. Supervisor Bill Connelly, chairman of the Butte County Board 
of Supervisors writes that ``the restriction applies to such activities 
as collecting firewood, retrieving game, loading or unloading horses or 
other livestock and camping.''
  He goes on to write: ``The national forests are part of the local 
fabric. The roads within the national forests are used by thousands of 
residents and visitors for transportation and recreation. These 
activities generate revenue for our rural communities which is critical 
for their survival.''
  Mr. Speaker, this is not a small matter. The Forest Service now 
controls 193 million acres within our Nation, a land area equivalent to 
the size of Texas.
  During the despotic eras of Norman and Plantagenet England, the Crown 
declared one-third of the land area of southern England to be the royal 
forest, the exclusive preserve of the monarch, his forestry officials 
and favored aristocrats. The people of Britain were forbidden access to 
and enjoyment of these forests under harsh penalties. This exclusionary 
system became so despised by the British people that in 1215 no less 
than five clauses of the Magna Carta were devoted to redress of 
grievances that are hauntingly similar to those that are now flooding 
my office.
  Mr. Speaker, the attitude that now permeates the U.S. Forest Service 
from top to bottom is becoming far more reminiscent of the management 
of the royal forests during the autocracy of King John than of an 
agency that is supposed to encourage, welcome, facilitate and maximize 
the public's use of the public's land in a Nation of free men and free 
women.
  After all, that was the vision of the Forest Service set forth by its 
legendary founder, Gifford Pinchot, in 1905: ``To provide the greatest 
amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run.''
  In May of 2009 and April of 2010, some of my California colleagues 
and I sent letters to the Forest Service expressing these concerns. 
I've also personally met with senior officials of that agency on 
several occasions in which I have referenced more than 500 specific 
complaints of Forest Service abuses received by my office.
  All that I have received to date from these officials are smarmy 
assurances that they will address these concerns, assurances that their 
own actions have belied at every turn.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time for Congress to conduct a top-to-bottom 
review of the abuses by this increasingly unaccountable and elitist 
agency to demand accountability for the damage it has done and is doing 
to our forests' health, to the public's trust, to the government's 
revenues and to the Nation's economy, and to take whatever actions are 
necessary to restore an attitude of consumer-friendly public service, 
which was Gifford Pinchot's original vision, and for which the U.S. 
Forest Service was once renowned and respected.

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