Providing for Consideration of H.R. Protect and Serve Act of Providing for Consideration of S. Veterans Cemetery Benefit Correction Act; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I want to draw attention to provisions of this bill which attack bedrock environmental laws and recklessly promote logging over clean water, recreation, and wildlife.

In a district like mine, where the holdings of the U.S. Forest Service are extensive, this bill is a critical part of helping to protect our economy, our way of life, and the way we enjoy our public lands.

Title 8 of the bill includes blatant attempts that undermine the Endangered Species Act, NEPA, and the roadless area conservation rule. This bill allows for congressional exemptions--basically, an earmark-- to prevent environmental reviews and public comment periods that actually prevent communities from having a say over what happens quite literally in their backyard. I think that we need to make sure that we involve our local communities. This bill empowers Washington, D.C., decisionmakers by taking that control away from our communities.

It weakens the Endangered Species Act by eliminating scientific expert opinion about whether projects would harm endangered species and their critical habitats, and it prioritizes logging over recreation, even going so far as shifting incentives to emphasize logging over environmental restoration in other areas that support the outdoor recreation economy, one of the biggest sources of jobs in my district and in my State.

Before the ink is even dry on the omnibus, this farm bill threatens to renege on the bipartisan wildfire budget deal with more proposals that weaken protections and mitigation on our public lands.

In my State, the 6,000-acre congressional exemption or earmark would have a detrimental impact, but it would have an even worse impact on the much smaller Eastern and Midwestern forests, where 6,000 acres would vastly exceed the annual sustainable maximum harvest.

When the Forest Service needs to do a 6,000-acre project, it already can. It needs to take input from the public nearby in our neighborhoods and in our communities about how they would be affected. Of course, it should consider how water, soil, and wildlife habitat can be protected.

For years, congressional debate over forest management has been framed by the need to address hazardous fuels for wildfires. This bill takes a step away from that and makes it clear that reform efforts weren't actually about wildfire; they are about efforts to give away our public lands to timber and other industries and silence the voice of residents.

Congress should stop trying to legislate logging projects and take control. Washington should allow our communities to have a say. The Forest Service has many tools today that include local input. All Americans deserve is a say in how our public lands are managed. Endangered species should certainly not be sacrificed just so more of our forests can be logged.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from over 120 conservation groups opposed to these harmful forestry provisions in H.R. 2, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.'' May 11, 2018.

Dear Representative: On behalf of our millions of members and supporters we urge you to strongly oppose the extreme and divisively partisan federal forest provisions in the Forestry Title of the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018 (H.R. 2), also known as ``the House Farm Bill.''

The legislation is replete with provisions that undermine bedrock environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), and Roadless Area Conservation Rule (Roadless Rule). This bill consistently prioritizes the logging industry over all other forest stakeholders. It would cause irreparable harm to our federal forests, the millions of Americans who depend on them for clean drinking water, subsistence, recreation, and economic benefit, and the wildlife that call them home.

The federal forest provisions in the House Farm Bill also run contrary to the wildfire funding agreement reached only weeks ago in the Fiscal Year 2018 Omnibus. A deal was only reached after significant environmental concessions to pro- logging hardliners, even though a comprehensive wildfire funding solution had solid bi-partisan support in both chambers going into the omnibus negotiation.

Ignoring that compromise, H.R. 2 would allow logging, grazing, and many other activities on up to 6,000-acres-- almost 10 square miles for each single project--without any NEPA review or disclosure of potential harms. The numerous new exemptions are double the size of the legislated NEPA exclusion just passed in the omnibus deal and they also eliminate the requirement, preserved in the omnibus agreement, to consider cumulative effects and ``extraordinary circumstances'' such as wilderness areas and endangered species.

This partisan bill also goes further than the omnibus deal on the ESA, allowing federal land management agencies to ``self-consult'' on whether their actions would harm threatened and endangered species even though such self- consultation has already been declared unlawful by the courts. Additionally, it attacks the landmark Roadless Rule, makes resource management and forest stewardship dependent on logging revenue, creating a perverse incentive, and jeopardizes fire-vulnerable communities by deprioritizing hazardous fuels reduction efforts in the Wildland Urban Interface.

The harmful federal forest proposals in this legislation solve no problem; they only add controversy to the House Farm Bill and weaken its chances of becoming law.

For all of these reasons we strongly urge you to OPPOSE the federal forest provisions in the House Farm Bill and any amendments that further undermine environmental safeguards on our federal forests. Thank you,

Alaska Wilderness League; Allegheny Defense Project; Alpine Lakes Protection Society; Appalachian Voices; Arise for Social Justice; Bark; Beaver Valley Preservation Alliance; California Native Plant Society; Cascade Forest Conservancy; Cascadia Wildlands; Center for Biological Diversity; Center for Sierra Nevada Conservation; Cherokee Forest Voices; Christians For The Mountains; Climate Change Major Disaster Declaration Campaign; Colorado Native Plant Society; Conservation Colorado; Conservation Congress; Conservation Northwest; Darby Creek Valley Association.

Defenders of Wildlife; Dolores River Boating Advocates; Earth Island Institute's John Muir Project; Earthjustice; Endangered Species Coalition; EnviroAce, LLC; Environmental Protection Information Center; Friends of Bell Smith Springs; Friends of Grays Harbor; Friends of Lake Monroe; Friends of Plumas Wilderness; Friends of the Bitterroot; Friends of the Inyo; Georgia ForestWatch; Grand Canyon Trust; Great Old Broads for Wilderness; Great Old Broads for Wilderness--Grand Junction Broadband; Great Old Broads for Wilderness--Rio Grande Valley Broadband; Great Old Broads for Wilderness-- Select Roaring Fork Broadband; Greater Hells Canyon Council.

Greenvironment, LLC; Heartwood; High Country Conservation Advocates; Hoosier Environmental Council; Idaho Conservation League; Indiana Forest Alliance; Izaak Walton League Bush Lake Chapter; Izaak Walton League Cass Count Chapter; Izaak Walton League W.J. McCabe Chapter; Kentucky Conservation Committee; Kentucky Environmental Foundation; Kentucky Heartwood; Kentucky Resources Council, Inc.; Kettle Range Conservation Group; Klamath Forest Alliance; KS Wild; La Cueva Guardians; League of Conservation Voters; Los Padres ForestWatch; Mass Forest Rescue Campaign.

Minnesota Division Izaak Walton League of America; Montana Wilderness Association; MountainTrue; National Parks Conservation Association; Natural Resources Defense Council; Nature Abounds; Nature for All; New Mexico Sportsmen; New Mexico Wild; New Mexico Wilderness Alliance; New Mexico Wildlife Federation; New River Alliance of Climbers; North Cascades Conservation Council; Northcoast Environmental Center; Ohio Environmental Council; Olympic Forest Coalition; Olympic Park Associates; Once a Forest; Oregon Wild; Partnership for Policy Integrity.

Partnership for the National Trails System; PennFuture; Pennsylvania Council of Churches; Public Lands Media; RESTORE: The North Woods; Rocky Mountain Recreation Initiative; Rocky Mountain Wild; San Juan Citizens Alliance; San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council; Sangre de Cristo Audubon Society; Santa Fe Forest Coalition; Save Our Sky Blue Waters; Sequoia ForestKeeper; Shawnee Forest Sentinels; Sheep Mountain Alliance; Sheltowee Trace Association; Sierra Club; Sierra Forest Legacy; Sky Island Alliance; Southern Environmental Law Center.

Southern Illinoisans Against Fracturing Our Environment; Speak for the Trees; Tennessee Wild; The Enviro Show; The Lands Council; The Wilderness Society; Tulare County Audubon Society; Umpqua Watersheds, Inc.; Virginia Wilderness Committee; Water Stone Outdoors; West Virginia Environmental Council; West Virginia Highlands Conservancy; West Virginia Rivers Coalition; West Virginia Wilderness Coalition; Western Environmental Law Center; White Mountain Conservation League; WildEarth Guardians; Wilderness Workshop; Winter Wildlands Alliance; Zumbro Valley Audubon.

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