National Forest Small Tracts Act Amendments Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. AMODEI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you Madam Ranking
Member. I also want to thank the chairman of the full committee as well
as my cosponsors in this measure: Mr. Polis from Colorado, Mr. Shimkus
from Illinois, and Mr. Jones from North Carolina.

So as not to risk snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, I will
be brief. I would like to say that this was my idea and it is a
wonderful thing, but this represents taking care of business that has
been knocking around for probably a decade or more as far as the Forest
Service is concerned. We are not moving the frontier into national
forests; we are simply giving them the ability to administratively
dispose of those lands that have become not attached to the national
forest and have no management or land use characteristics with respect
to the managing of a national forest.

The other thing I want to point out is that it will allow them the
ability to dispose of well into six figures' worth of acres,
potentially, over the next few years, much more than last year, which
was almost nothing.

The most interesting thing is that the resources generated by this
will stay with the Forest Service for use under their various charges
as opposed to disappearing into that sometimes black hole in space,
referred to as the ``United States Treasury.''
I urge nationwide bipartisan support.

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