[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 121 (Friday, July 14, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H3603]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    CELEBRATING NATIONAL FOREST WEEK

  (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, this is National Forest Week across this 
country. I encourage everybody to partake and enjoy your national 
forests. Our Nation indeed was blessed by God with some truly inspiring 
natural beauty. It is our job to preserve it and utilize it for future 
generations.
  Unfortunately, many of our national forests are under threat not from 
the usual climate change nonsense but actually wildfire caused by 
overcrowded forests, too many trees.
  We haven't been tending to the forests for 50 years. The Federal 
Government has refused to properly thin and manage our forests, largely 
because of the lack of funding or, in a lot of cases, frivolous 
lawsuits--preventing the work that needs to be done--by extreme 
environmental groups.
  They are now overgrown, overcrowded tinderboxes. All it takes is one 
lightning strike, a cigarette butt, or a spark from a flat tire going 
down a rural highway. Once they catch fire, they become infernos, such 
as the million-acre fire I had in my district a couple years ago called 
the Dixie fire.
  A healthy forest has about 40 to 70 adult trees per acre. We have a 
situation where we have 500 or more trees per acre, a recipe for 
disaster. We need to do better and manage our forests.

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