[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 109 (Wednesday, June 23, 2021)]
[House]
[Page H3067]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                FRIVOLOUS LAWSUITS BLOCK FOREST CLEANUPS

  (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, access to our public lands is being cut off 
by road closures throughout the national forests in Region 5. The U.S. 
Forest Service is citing public safety concerns due to hazardous trees 
from past fire seasons.
  But this blocks the public from accessing the public lands, and it 
also prevents those roads being used as evacuation routes or access 
points to fight fires in coming seasons.
  One road that has been closed, the Greyback Road in the Rogue River-
Siskiyou National Forest in northern California, is a California Office 
of Emergency Services designated evacuation route for the town of Happy 
Camp, California. If Highway 96 is blocked, this is the only other way 
out of Happy Camp.
  Litigation is preventing the U.S. Forest Service from working with 
private-sector partners to clean up the forests. For example, in the 
Mendocino National Forest, 300,000 acres burned in 2018. The Forest 
Service wanted to do 4,700 acres, a tiny 2 percent of that, yet it was 
blocked by a lawsuit from doing that cleanup work.
  Without offering the salvage timber sale, that means it is going to 
cost taxpayers $5.5 million instead of being able to recover some of 
the money.
  This litigation harms the public by leaving hazardous trees and snags 
out in the forest, which create safety issues and become fuel for the 
next fire season.
  We must reform NEPA and ESA.

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