Secure Rural Schools

Floor Speech

Mr. DAINES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah, and I thank the chairman for reserving this hour for this very important issue, saving our national forests and our forested communities, which is very important to my home State of Montana.

H.R. 1526, the Restoring Healthy Forests and Healthy Communities Act is important to Montana because many of our counties in Montana rely on the forest economy or at least the relics of what used to be one. Several decades ago, Montana forests supported local timber jobs and provided a steady revenue stream for our counties and schools.

In fact, I remember growing up when I was riding in the back seat, mom and dad in front in the station wagon and I would be in back with my sisters, we would watch logging trucks drive up and down our highways. Our counties enjoyed the benefits of the receipts from timber sales. It used to help support our schools.

But today, as I now drive around the State representing the State of Montana, most of our forest counties struggle with unemployment. In fact, Lincoln County, the most northwest county of my State, which is comprised mostly of national forest land, it used to generate timber jobs. They now face double digit unemployment.

The Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest faces a very high mortality rate due to beetle kill. The tragedy here as we drive all over the State this time of year, we are seeing forest fires on one hand and then standing dead timber on the other that has died because of beetle kill. We can't even go in and harvest the dead trees, which we have a couple years to do so, because of the onerous process here on our national forest.

Inflexible and outdated Federal laws like the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act have imposed a huge administrative burden on Federal agencies, which limits our timber industry's access to wood and ultimately resulted in the mismanagement of our forests, allowing places where we love to recreate instead to burn up in smoke. And when they burn up in smoke, as the gentleman from Oregon mentioned, it threatens our watersheds as well.

In fact, so far over 100,000 acres in Montana have burned this year. The number of large fires--large fires--has been as high as five just this week. My son last year played high school football his senior year. We had ``Friday Night Lights'' high school football games in Montana canceled because of air quality, because of forest fires.

Laws like NEPA and the Endangered Species Act are often the basis of lawsuits. These aren't filed by the rank and file Montanans who are working to collaborate to improve access to our national forests, but they're filed by fringe extreme groups to halt healthy timber management projects that could help prevent these fires and, importantly, create hundreds of jobs.

In fact, in one of our hearings in our committee, a top national forest official, Deputy Chief Jim Hubbard, said litigation has played a huge role in blocking responsible timber sales in Montana and other region 1 States, including projects supported by collaborative groups consisting of timber as well as conservation leaders. To quote Mr. Hubbard, he said this: ``It has virtually shut things down on the national forest.''

As the gentleman from Oregon mentioned, the numbers in Montana are the same. Timber harvests are down 90 percent on our Federal lands from where they were when I was growing up.

Mr. Chairman, something must be done, and I'm glad to join you in introducing this very important bill. H.R. 1526 will help revitalize the timber industry throughout Montana and create thousands of good, high-paying jobs. It also tackles beetle kill, protecting our environment for future generations and reducing the threat of catastrophic wildfires in Montana.

The Restoring Healthy Forests and Healthy Communities Act will cut the red tape that has held up responsible forest management in timber production. It also includes comprehensive reforms to discourage and limit the flood of frivolous appeals and litigation. It requires the Forest Service to increase timber harvest on non-wilderness lands now that it will have much needed latitude to do the work it knows how to do.
This improved management will protect the health of our forests, the health of our watersheds, the safety of our communities, and allow jobs to return to the timber industry. In addition, the legislation restores the Federal Government's commitment to provide 25 percent of timber sales receipts to timber counties. It extends the Secure Rural Schools program pending the full operation of the new timber program.

SRS has provided crucial stopgap funding to timber counties after timber sales, and the corresponding receipts, after they plunged in recent decades. It is the taxpayer now who is funding that gap when instead we could have the timber industry cutting down trees and supplying jobs and supplying revenue to support our schools.

Recently, we welcomed Chuck Roady, the vice president and general manager of F. H. Stoltze Land and Lumber in Columbia Falls, Montana. He came back to Washington, D.C., as a witness for a House Natural Resources hearing on forest and fire management.

During the hearing, Chuck perfectly summed up the challenges we face. He said:

This is a nonpartisan, nonregional issue. It's simply the case of doing the right thing to manage our public forest. If we don't, Mother Nature is going to do it for us, and when she does it, it's uncontrollable and catastrophic.

Mr. Speaker, I could not have conveyed our challenges any better than that. We all know too well how devastating wildfires can be to our communities and our local economies.

I urge passing the Restoring Healthy Forests and Healthy Communities Act.

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