Cloture Motion

Floor Speech

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Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, what is the status of the floor?

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Mr. HEINRICH. I would ask unanimous consent to offer remarks as if in morning business.

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Mr. HEINRICH.

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Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, when I draw a hunting tag, especially for elk, one of the first things that I do is to look at a map of the unit where I drew. I do that for a couple of reasons. I look to see where the public land is, and I also look to see where the roads are because the vast majority of time, that is where the elk aren't.

Elk need habitat security. If there is food and water and a place to securely bed on national forest land in New Mexico, and that spot is a couple of miles or more from an open road, the odds that elk live there are really, really high. So it is almost like the roadless rule was written for elk country because, in fact, it was.

And if you like to catch wild trout that have never seen the inside of a hatchery, you are probably familiar with some of the roadless refuges where these fish still thrive. In fact, 70 percent of the roadless areas in the Nation provide crucial habitat for native trout. So it is almost like the roadless rule was written by fishermen-- because it was.

In fact, it was written by many hunters and fisherman, actually. One of them is, today, the President and CEO of Trout Unlimited, who served as the senior policy and communication advisor to the chief of the Forest Service when this rule was crafted back in 2001.

When my friends draw a coveted Coues deer tag in the Bootheel of New Mexico in what is a famous unit, Unit 27, where are they hunting? Chances are, they are hiking deep into inventoried roadless areas to glass for these deer that Jack O'Connor made famous when he referred to them in his writings as ``the gray ghost.''

So when the Trump administration advocates for eliminating the roadless rule, they are talking about endangering some of the last great wild game habitat on our national forests. These are the back- country places where we sit around a campfire under a sea of stars and pass our traditions down to the next generation of sports men and women.

Finalized in 2001, the roadless rule protects nearly 45 million acres of national forest land that belongs to each and every American. From the hazy blue peaks of the Appalachian Mountains to the imposing spires of the Rockies, from the saltwater estuaries of the Croatan National Forest in North Carolina to the towering Ponderosa Pines of the Santa Fe National Forest in my home State, across the country, many people's favorite hunting spots, their favorite hiking trails and biking routes, ATV trails, and fishing streams are in these protected roadless areas.

When the Nation debated the merits of the roadless rule 24 years ago, the Forest Service held 600 public meetings around the country. These were attended by tens of thousands of Americans. I should know, I attended one of them. The Forest Service received more than 1.6 million comments, and over 95 percent of those were in favor of these roadless protections. You could ask a group of Americans about apple pie, and you wouldn't get a number that high. At the time, this was the largest response to a public comment request ever--ever--that any Agency had ever seen.

Fast-forward 2\1/2\ decades to today, and the Trump administration is threatening to throw the roadless rule into the dustbin of history, except this time, the process looks very different.

The administration opened the public comment period on August 19 and will close it Friday. Now, I know how slow and deliberate government can sometimes be, but there should be no shortcut to public engagement and to the democratic process. Yet a shortcut--or maybe more accurately a short circuit--is exactly what this administration has chosen.

With an underresourced and understaffed Forest Service, I know for a fact that the resource professionals and the scientists at the Forest Service do not support eliminating the roadless rule. This is being imposed upon them by people in the White House who, frankly, have never harvested a bull elk or released a native trout or otherwise experienced the wonder of God's creation in the very lands that represent the anvil on which our Nation's character was forged.

The truth is that the roadless rule protects us from wildfires; it ensures clean drinking water for communities; and it sustains wildlife habitat for wildlife and for sportsmen.

Wildfire prevention is at the heart of why the roadless rule is so important. Eighty-eight percent of wildfires are started by human activity, and 95 percent of human-caused fires begin within a half mile of a road. You can imagine why. It is not complicated. Cars backfire. Cigarette butts get thrown out a window. Trailer chains can spark on a rock. Sometimes campfires get mismanaged. These things happen where we can get with a car or a truck, so roads vastly increase the probability of wildfires rather than reducing them.

The roadless rule specifically allows for the removal of fuels that promote unnaturally intense wildfire. This helps to create a healthier forest and reduce wildfire risk.

The bottom line is that when we build new roads in protected areas, we risk more fires, not fewer.

In States like Idaho and Utah, more than 35 percent of roadless lands have had work done to help reduce fire in those roadless areas. In Montana, almost 30 percent of roadless areas have had similar treatments.

The idea that the roadless rule somehow prevents us from taking steps to lessen wildfire risk and from affecting human communities is patently wrong and inaccurate. The reality is that the Federal Government should be spending its scarce resources to focus on protecting communities closer to roads because that is where the people, homes, and towns are.

Can I talk for just a minute about the economics of building roads in roadless areas? The Forest Service maintains a more than $8.6 billion-- with a ``b''--backlog on maintenance of its existing infrastructure and roads. Why would we countenance building new roads in back-country areas with low timber values and extremely high costs when we can't even take care of the existing roads that we already have?

Beyond wildfire prevention, the roadless rule protects the water sources that sustain our communities. Many people don't know that large cities like Atlanta and Denver and Los Angeles rely on water supplies from our national forests. In fact, some 180 million people--over 68,000 communities, large and small--rely on forested lands to capture and filter drinking water. That means that the Forest Service lands are the largest source of municipal water supply in the Nation, serving over 60 million people across 33 different States.

Roadless areas actually protect the headwaters of many municipal watersheds, and that includes places like the water supply for the city of Santa Fe, in my home State. When they rescind the roadless rule, it threatens access to clean water for millions of Americans.

Now, finally, the roadless rule preserves the fish and wildlife habitat and sustains the hunting, fishing, and recreation economy. Every year, I and millions of other hunters rely on public lands to feed our souls and to feed our families. The Sportsmen's Alliance estimates that in 2022, recreational hunters alone generated $133 billion in economic output, created 1.3 million jobs, and supported more than $80 billion in wages alone. And this is part of a larger pattern. The Bureau of Economic Analysis calculated that the economic output of outdoor recreation in 2023 was over $1 trillion.

If the administration builds roads in these places, we not only lose these experiences, but our economies lose their customers. It is not just me saying this; constituents across my State are saying it to me too. Michael writes from Albuquerque. He says:

[T]his seems to be rushed without full considerations of the ramifications. I do not want the health and solitude of our forests compromised by opening the door to unwanted development.

Diane from Taos writes:

Please vote to stop the plan to rescind the Roadless Rule. I lead herb identification walks in the Taos area . . . so many people come to this state to enjoy the beauty of untrammeled forest. We need to . . . stop Trump and his abuse of our public lands.

Hannah writes from Santa Fe:

Our forests need our help now more than ever. It's hard to feel so hopeless to help them these days, and I hope you will defend our forests.

So I stand here today, supported by my own experiences and supported by the voices of constituents, to defend these forests. But I am not only defending our forests. In fighting for the roadless rule, we are fighting for protections for our roadless areas and against putting special interests first. We are fighting for stronger local economies for all and against industrial development for a wealthy few.

Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, and he once said:

The vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only when we make ourselves responsible for that future.

We are responsible for that future, and the actions that we take today will reverberate for generations to come. I am fighting for the roadless rule, and I urge you to join me.

To my colleagues in the Forest Service, I ask that you extend the public comment period for the public so that we can hear their voices.

To the American people and my constituents in New Mexico, I urge you to engage in the public commenting process and make sure that your voices are heard.

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