Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WALDEN. I thank my colleagues from Oregon and Washington for their work on this amendment, bringing it forward. Look, this is extraordinarily important to men and women who work in the woods in the Northwest and across the United States.

As you've heard, for nearly four decades the Environmental Protection Agency said that driving down a forest road was not the same as pumping raw sewage into a river. They're much different activities. This amendment would prevent the Federal Government from subjecting forested communities and businesses to further costly permits for everyday activities like driving down a road.

Rural forested communities in the Northwest have been hurting for a very long time. Those who live there, we know about all the high unemployment rate, we know about the high poverty rate, we know about the percentage of kids on free and reduced lunch because of burdensome Federal regulations that have shut down activity on our Federal forests. Now lawsuits threaten to do this on our private forests as well. The last thing we need is more costly and lawsuit-prone regulations that will further impact rural communities and the good people who live there that simply want the opportunity to work in the woods, raise their families, and grow in the communities.

Passing this bipartisan amendment will provide some certainty moving forward for rural forested communities, forest managers, and the people who work in the woods. So I urge my colleagues to stand for jobs, stand for rural America, and vote for this bipartisan amendment.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source