National Forest System

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation and Forestry, which I chair, conducted a hearing to review the National Forest System and active forest management.

The health of our national forests is an issue of vital importance for rural America. Not only are national forests a source of immense natural beauty, but they provide us with natural resources, healthy watersheds, recreational opportunities, and wildlife habitat.

Perhaps more importantly, they serve as economic engines for the surrounding local communities. Our national forests are capable of providing and sustaining these economic benefits, but they need proper management in order to do so.

The U.S. Forest Service manages more than 193 million acres of land across 41 States. Within those 41 States are over 700 counties containing national forestland. These counties and communities within them rely on us to be good stewards of these Federal lands, and there is a direct correlation between forest health and vibrant rural communities.

The people living in these rural areas depend on well-managed national forests to foster jobs and economic opportunities. These jobs come from diverse sources, such as timbering, energy production, or recreation. However, if those jobs disappear, so do jobs that support those industries. It is a snowball effect from there, threatening school systems and infrastructure in these rural communities.

As a result, effective management and Forest Service decisions have significant consequences on our constituents who live in and around national forests. Healthier, well-managed national forests are more sustainable for generations to come due to the continual risks of catastrophic fires and invasive species outbreaks. Especially with the decline in timber harvesting and the revenue to counties from timber receipts over the past two decades, rural economies will benefit immensely from increased timber harvest.

We can continue supporting a diverse population of wildlife through active land management practices, such as prescribed burns. Our national forests are not museums. They were never intended to sit idly. I say it frequently, but national forests are not national parks.

When Congress created the National Forest System more than 100 years ago, it was designed so that surrounding communities would benefit from multiple uses. Our national forests are meant to provide timber, oil, natural gas, wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities, and clean drinking water, not just for the rural communities, but these tend to be the headwaters of the waters that provide water for our cities as well.

During yesterday's hearing, members of the Conservation and Forestry Subcommittee called upon Forest Service Chief Thomas Tidwell to use the tools that Congress made available in the 2014 farm bill in order to strengthen rural economies and improve the health of our national forests. One certainly complements the other.

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