Department Of The Interior, Environment, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Floor Speech

Department Of The Interior, Environment, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

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Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I would like to enter into a colloquy with my colleague from New York.

Mrs. GILLIBRAND. I thank the chairman for entering into a colloquy with me and for her hard work on this bill. I want to discuss the need to add New York to the list of States included for Northeastern States Research Cooperative Funding.

The Northeastern States Research Cooperative, NSRC, was originally authorized by Congress in the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Research Act of 1978 and is managed by the U.S. Forest Service. The clear intent of Congress in creating the NSRC was to fund a competitive grants research program shared by the four states of the cooperative, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and New York.

The original intent of Congress was to have all four States jointly funded by the enacted authorization of this act. Unfortunately, New York has been left out of the Forest Service budget requests this year.

Funding through this cooperative will maintain critical forestry research programs in New York State. For instance, the State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry has received funding through this program in the past that has provided research, technology transfer and outreach to coordinate and improve ecological and economic vitality of the northeastern forests of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

The NSRC's research is critical to the economic vitality of and quality-of-life in the 18.5 million acres of the New York's forested land.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I would like to thank my colleague for bringing this to my attention and I will certainly look into this matter during conference negotiations.

Mrs. GILLIBRAND. I thank the chairman for her help and for her leadership.

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