[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 62 (Thursday, April 11, 2024)]
[House]
[Page H2302]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1715
                          MAKING FORESTS SAFER

  (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, we will soon be heading into fire season, 
unfortunately, in the West. What does that mean? Each year, hundreds of 
thousands, even millions, of acres of forestland are lost due to 
wildfire due to the nonmanagement of these lands.
  The U.S. Forest Service needs to increase its pace and scale 
dramatically to get the work done out there that will make a forest 
safer and also use the product that we grow in this country. Since 
China is now buying a little less materials these days, the U.S. has 
gone from number two to number one as a wood importer.
  Why in the heck are we importing wood products when we have the 
timber in our Western lands, which we have to instead watch burn year 
after year?
  We could be putting jobs back in this country in these rural 
communities that have been boarded up in so many cases.
  We are losing lumber mills every day because the Forest Service is 
not acting quickly enough or with the pace and scale that needs to be 
done. We need to have the jobs and harvest here and the healthy forests 
and much less wildfire that comes with all that.
  It is a win-win-win. Let's get to work.

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