[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 28190]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
                    COMBATING THE EMERALD ASH BORER

  (Mr. ROSKAM asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. ROSKAM. Mr. Speaker, I rise today and urge my colleagues to join 
with me and our colleague Mr. Kirk in cosponsoring H.R. 3901, the 
Emerald Ash Borer Municipality Assistance Act.
  What is an emerald ash borer, you may ask. Well, it is a nasty little 
bug that has found its way on to our shores, which has a very 
aggressive disposition towards ash trees in particular. It is a native 
of China, and there are no known natural predators here in the United 
States.
  If you think of the districts that we all represent, many of them 
have beautiful canopies of trees that line our streets and create 
wonderful natural ways all throughout our districts. Yet this bug has 
shown up in Illinois, my State; Indiana; Michigan; Ohio; Pennsylvania; 
Maryland and West Virginia.
  As one researcher of the Morton Arboretum, which I represent, said, 
``The emerald ash borer doesn't just kill a majority of the ash trees 
it encounters; it seems to kill them all.''
  This legislation creates a revolving loan fund whereby municipalities 
have access to those moneys, and they use it in order to take on this 
scourge.

                          ____________________