Domenici Statement on the Forest Landscape Restoration Act
April 1, 2008
03:37 PM
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Pete Domenici, ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, today made the following opening statement during a hearing to receive testimony on S. 2593, the Forest Landscape Restoration Act. Domenici is a cosponsor of the legislation.
“Chairman Bingaman I want to thank you for holding this hearing on the Forest Landscape Restoration Act. There are two paths we can follow when it comes to the ecological health of our federal lands.
The first path is one that we have been travelling down for the last decade or two – we know that we have a big problem but it is a thorny problem so we take only small steps to resolve the issues. I fear that path will result in millions of acres burned and billion of dollars expended with little to show for the effort.
The other path is to get serious about undertaking the forest restoration work needed to truly change the risk of catastrophic fire across large landscapes. I believe that the Forest Landscape Restoration Act is an important step down this latter path.
I expect some witnesses will have concerns with the bill. I hope we will address as many of these concerns as possible. At the same time I have concerns that we in Congress are not addressing the fundamental question of process paralysis as aggressively as needed.
I think Congress needs to take steps to speed up the appeals process and to limit the time it takes to work through litigation. I fear that unless Congress finds the will to take-on these two issues, much of the good I see in the Forest Landscape Restoration Act will be lost to process.
I can understand why you and Senator Feinstein have some trepidation about taking these steps and I understand we must incrementally address issues to ensure we have the critical political support needed to prevail.
It was Winston Churchill who said: ‘You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.’
I know there are many that resist fixing the appeals and litigation processes. Sadly, these are the same folks that seem willing to sacrifice our forests to catastrophes. I do not think we should do that.
I suspect that in the end, Congress will ‘do the right thing.’ I just hope that it happens quickly enough to help rebalance the ecological integrity of our forests, without having to withdraw the balance in our federal treasury to fight decades of senseless and wasteful wild fires.”
