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National Forest Products Week

Floor Speech

Date: Oct. 22, 2015
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Environment Natural Resources

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Mr. ZINKE. Mr. Speaker, this week we celebrate National Forest Products Week, and I rise to recognize the important contributions of our wood products across Montana and the country.

In my home State alone, we have more than 20 million acres of timber. We have 12 sawmills that employ thousands of Montanans; yet, we can't cut a tree in Montana. The number of lumber products has gone down because we can't figure out in this body how to cut a tree without a lawsuit.

There is a bipartisan bill in the Senate, the Resilient Federal Forests Act, that passed out of this body bipartisan, and the Senate is not picking it up. We are not going to hear about forest fires from now until the end of winter, but they are there, and it is time to act.

When a bipartisan bill comes out of this House and the Senate refuses to pick it up, it has consequences on Montana, and it has consequences on hardworking families that just want to make a living in the timber industry.

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