Put the Forest Service to Work

Floor Speech

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Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, the Forest Service has in its charge just under 200 million acres across this country.

We need the Forest Service to engage with private industry to help take care of those lands. There is not enough money, even after the massive influx when they bragged at the hearing the other day that they have more money now than they ever had before, but they still need another $20 million to move one particular project. How is there enough money for them to do their job when they can't even do it now.

We need the private sector to be able to access forest lands, to be able to harvest, because right now the U.S. is the number two importer of wood products.

Why are we the number two importer of wood products when we have so much over-inventory, especially our western States, where we burn millions of acres every year, including the 1 million-acre fire in my district just a couple years ago, as well as the Camp fire that killed 86 people 5 years ago.

We need to put the Forest Service to work or we need to move them out of the way. The private sector is an important part of that. We need industry because the Forest Service is not and will never keep up with that. They need to get out permits, contracts, and allow this wood to be harvested in a sustainable good way as the industry knows how to do.

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