[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 130 (Thursday, September 10, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H5878-H5879]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                STOP THE BARRIERS OF OUR FOREST SERVICE

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, well, once again, with the end of a summer 
vacation that still has, in California and the West, the onset of fire 
season, California has seen twice the number of acres of trees burned 
so far this year, and fire season is far from over.
  While we are working to pass reforms to return responsible management 
to our national forests, the work doesn't stop when the fires are put 
out.
  Every single day that a tree lies dead on the floor of the forest 
means it loses more and more of its salvage value and then becomes a 
cost of the taxpayers to remove later, and it is also more dangerous 
fuel for the next fire.
  It is imperative that the Forest Service act rapidly to salvage these 
downed trees and conduct replanting and forest recovery or we will 
simply end up with more fuel on the ground the next time an area burns.
  While the Forest Service estimates there are 12 million dead trees 
already in the Sierra Nevada, virtually no work is being done to remove 
these dead trees from these forests. We must stop the barriers to 
getting the work done that is needed for our forests to be healthy and 
safe.

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