Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. GIANFORTE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment I cosponsored with Representative Gosar that will expand the Good Neighbor Authority for counties.

Good Neighbor Authority allows the Forest Service to enter into cooperative agreements and contracts with States and Puerto Rico to execute projects that perform watershed restoration and forest management services on National Forest System lands.

The current text of the farm bill includes language to expand the Good Neighbor Authority to include Indian Tribes. This simple amendment seeks to build on that commonsense provision by empowering local communities and allowing the Forest Service to include counties as partners to these agreements.

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Mr. GIANFORTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, my amendment would allow land management agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and BLM to quickly remove dead trees after wildfires to pay for reforestation and rehabilitation after devastating fires.

Last year, over 1 million acres burned in Montana. Livelihoods were threatened, wildlife habitats were destroyed, and whole landscapes were scarred.

My commonsense amendment was passed, verbatim, in the Resilient Federal Forests Act by this body. It would allow the agencies to quickly respond, as well as to raise funds to further rehabilitate the forest. An expedited environmental assessment would still be required and public input would still be included in order to move forward with the project. Most importantly, this amendment would require that at least 75 percent of the burned area would be reforested.

These landscape scale projects are badly needed. The Rice Ridge fire burned over 160,000 acres alone. Quickly responding to the damage caused will protect our public lands and restore our watersheds for the future and restore them to the quality we have come to love in Montana.

As I mentioned, similar language was included in the Resilient Federal Forests Act, which passed the House on a bipartisan basis on November 11, 2017.

My amendment is supported by the Federal Forest Resource Coalition, the National Association of Counties, the National Water Resources Association, and the Idaho Forest Group.

Mr. Chair, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar).

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Mr. GIANFORTE. Mr. Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson).

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Mr. GIANFORTE. Mr. Chair, at this time, I urge adoption of my commonsense amendment.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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