Northwest Newspapers Endorse Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act's Common Sense Approach to Forest Management

Walden to hold hearing on forest recovery legislation this Thursday in House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health

Washington, DC - Newspapers throughout the Northwest have shown strong support for the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act, H.R. 4200, bipartisan legislation introduced last week by U.S. Congressmen Greg Walden (R-OR), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, and Brian Baird (D-WA).  Within the first week since the bill's introduction, many Oregon and Washington newspapers have editorialized in favor of its common sense approach to land management, which would give federal land managers the tools and resources necessary to - if necessary - quickly restore the health of America's forests damaged by catastrophic events such as wildfires, hurricanes, ice storms or windstorms. 

The Oregonian (Portland, OR), November 4, 2005: "This country's policy on dead trees is rotten.  The government spends many months and millions of dollars writing salvage plans after wildfires and windstorms, and then environmental groups fight those plans until most of the trees decay and topple over."

H.R. 4200 "is an attempt to stop the waste of time, money, wood and jobs inherent in the current salvage policy."

"To fight even a modest salvage program is to imply that dead trees, killed in an Oregon wildfire, are more precious than live trees somewhere else, even in a vulnerable rainforest.  Like a lot of things about our country's salvage policy, that just doesn't make sense."

The Chronicle (Centralia, WA), November 4, 2005: "The Baird-Walden bill achieves the primary goals of reducing waste of an economically valuable natural resource and at the same time allowing for faster recovery of the burned forest and the habitats that provides."

The Bulletin (Bend, OR), November 2, 2005: The Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act "is a bill that would bring reason to what now, too often, is an unreasonable process

The Democrat-Herald (Albany, OR), November 8, 2005: "In a society that uses wood, it can't be wrong to get it from trees that are dead instead of from green ones, or from countries where environmental laws don't exist."

The Columbian (Vancouver, WA), November 4, 2005: "This bill was written after two years of hearings and nationwide input.  More than ample research was conducted.  And, full public notice and participation in the future is mandated in the bill's language."

The Olympian (Olympia, WA), November 3, 2005: "This bill is expected to draw protests from the environmental community, but common sense needs to trump environmentalists' suspicion of the forest industry."

The Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act, which currently has more than 100 bipartisan cosponsors, will have a hearing in Walden's Forests and Forest Health Subcommittee this Thursday, November 10.  The Act has also been referred to the House Committee on Agriculture and the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure. 

Congressman Walden has represented the people of Oregon's Second District since 1999.  He is chairman of the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health and a member of the full House Committees on Resources and the Committee on Energy & Commerce.