[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5945]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        CLIMATE CHANGE SOLUTIONS

  (Mr. HUFFMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, across this country, we are seeing the 
ruinous effects of climate change, from more powerful storms in the 
East, to persistent drought and catastrophic wildfires in the West.
  We are not powerless in the face of this threat. We know what we have 
to do: slow our emissions of greenhouse gases, deploy clean energy 
solutions.
  But we also must do another thing. We must manage our forest lands to 
be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. Healthy forests 
can actually help remove carbon dioxide from the environment, from the 
atmosphere.
  We sometimes hear about technologies that, in the future, may be able 
to do this, may be able to capture and store carbon dioxide; but we 
have natural infrastructure that can do it right now. And a great 
example of that is from my own district in California, the Pacific 
Forest Trust.
  They've been working for over 20 years with landowners, as well as 
local, State and Federal officials, to conserve and manage forests to 
capture carbon. Their work with forest conservation easements is paying 
off for wildlife, for landowners, and also for our climate.
  Their Van Eck forest in Humboldt County was the first forest 
emissions reduction project registered under California's climate 
change law.

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