Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act

FOREST EMERGENCY RECOVERY AND RESEARCH ACT

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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I rise in favor of H.R. 4200, the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act (FERRA).

Many of you are supporting this bill because of wild fires. My state and I have a different, but just as important need. Hurricane Katrina caused the largest single forest and wildlife habitat devastation in our Nation's history--5 million acres--and it did not discriminate between public or private land or the rich, poor or the middle class. She was an equal opportunity destroyer. By the way, this represents 19 billion board feet of timber with a value of $5 billion. This is enough timber to build 800,000 homes and make 25 million tons of paper and paperboard.)

National Wildlife Refuges, National Parks and National Forests were all severely damaged. The DeSoto National Forest was hit the hardest. But besides trees, we had a diversity of plants and animals that lost their homes too. In fact, the damage left by Katrina is the largest single devastation of fish and wildlife habitat since the Exxon Valdez.

I have witnessed the devastated, high quality forests of the DeSoto degrade to a point that we must appropriate many millions to clean up the debris and recover this forest. That was not necessary.

By acting in a timely manner as FERRA will allow, we can salvage valuable wood products before they deteriorate. This will generate much needed dollars for rural schools and return more dollars to federal and state treasuries. It will also generate funds to restore the homes of wildlife and the citizens of places like the Gulf Coast and New Orleans.

We don't need to cut down live trees that are valuable at producing oxygen, sequestering carbon dioxide and providing fish and wildlife habitat when we can use ones that are already damaged. It's just common sense.

As the first member of my party to co-sponsor the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, I ask you to vote in favor of H.R. 4200.

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