Congressman Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., is making the voice of the 5th District heard when it comes to funding for Allegheny National Forest.
And he shared some news about the Republican efforts to replace Obamacare.
“We’ll have a healthcare policy that promotes health and healing for all,” he said. “It will be marked up and in committee next week. The goal is to have it to the Senate by March 23, and then the Senate’s goal is to have it to the president’s desk before Easter.”
Regarding the national forest, Thompson said, “Speaker Paul Ryan has done a great job making sure rank-and-file members like myself can go testify before the appropriations committee. It allows me to be a stronger voice for the Fifth District.”
On Tuesday, Thompson addressed the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, advocating for robust funding for the Forest Service, including the ANF.
“That was a real honor to do,” Thompson told The Era on Friday.
“I talked about a whole host of things,” he said, explaining he discussed the need for adequate funding for the Forest Service, the importance of harvesting timber, and the fact that resources to fight western wildfires need to be funded in a different manner.
“We need a better way to fund those fire resources than sucking funds away from our forests,” Thompson said.
In his remarks to the committee, the congressman said, “As this subcommittee knows well, wildfire costs have skyrocketed in the past two decades, burning up 6.7 million acres per year on average since 2000. In addition to the significant challenges of firefighting itself, national forests around the nation continue to have great difficulties performing essential activities due to budget cuts as a result of fire borrowing. Accordingly, in the Allegheny, like most every national forest, we routinely lose funding, staff and resources each year during the wildfire season. This directly diminishes the local Forest Service’s ability to manage the ANF, allow for needed timbering and pursue other projects.”
He gave testimony on the payment in lieu of taxes and Secure Rural Schools funding from the national forest as well. “We need to strengthen the payment in lieu of taxes,” he said. “It doesn’t serve our families well. And I put in a strong word for Secure Rural Schools funding.”
His remarks were as follows: “I would like to register my great support for the Payments in Lieu of Taxes program as well as Secure Rural Schools. Though its authorization is currently expired, Secure Rural Schools has been a critical lifeline for national forest counties in providing essential services because of greatly reduced timbering in national forests since the early 1990s.”
Through the program, the federal government provided consistent and reliable funding to rural counties and schools located near national forests across the nation. Before the act — and now, since the act has yet to be renewed — rural counties and schools receive 25 percent of the revenues generated from timber sales on national forests.
He advocated, too, for more timber harvesting.
“Like many national forest regions in the West, the lack of timbering in the ANF directly undermines our local economy, as well as my four counties that lose out on funding for essential services,” he told the committee. “We can do much more harvesting in the Allegheny National Forest, but that won’t happen without the necessary funding or direction from Congress.”
He continued, “Forests are living and breathing ecosystems that need to be managed. And providing necessary funding for such management activities — including timbering, prescribed burns and thinnings — is essential for forest health and in order to help prevent wildfires.”
Thompson told The Era he felt his testimony was well received.
“I appreciated the chairman’s support with everything I had submitted.”
