During his remarks, chief mere also talked about chief moore also a talked about efforts to mitigate wildfires for parts of the western United States with. This is an hour and 25 minutes. [inaudible conversations] committee will come to order to. This morning were here to discuss the president s fiscal year 2025 budget request for Forest Service. Id like to begin by thanking chief randy moore and the Forest Service budget director for being with us this morning. Thank you both. I look forward to hearing about the justification for the 366 6. 5 increase requested. Although may would normally be just the start of the fire season, weve already had recordbreaking wildfires as is becoming all too common. In february while it was still snowing, over 1 million acres in texas burned killing 2 people and burning 1300 poems homes 130 homes. I me my colleagues from wen states are on pins and needs. Our committee has considered several bills that would support and improve Wildfire Response network
And what with our research and development, we are going to continue to do our work to be able to understand what we need to do to be able to resort forests and address the insect and disease outbreaks and continue our work to be able to find ways to expand current markets and develop new markets or would to be able to make use of the biomass that has to be removed from the landscapes to restore the healthy forest. We also provide an adequate level of Fire Suppression to deal with fires to suppress fires where we need to come in at the same time be able to manage them in the country. We will have over 21 air tankers in the 300 plus helicopters, over a thousand engines and the hotshot crews. The thing i need to stress, and i appreciate the support from the committee on finding a solution to pay for the cost of Fire Suppression. I appreciate the additional money that was supplied into the account, but i think that we have all seen what happens with the account and whether that will help
In terms of favorable and unfavorable opinions same thing well see here in terms of the opinions of most hispanics tend to favor the democratic party, and you would think well game over. We dont need to discuss this any further. Well, not exactly. Because weve seen how different candidates have done very well in different races, and i have given just three, three hispanic republicans that have done well in their respective states. Actually Governor Martinez and sandoval are extremely popular in their respective states, and they were both reelected in resounding victories. In terms of issues, gop is seen antiimmigrant and thats clear and certainly recent Public Discourse doesnt help in that front. And weve seen, for example, how some hispanic groups specifically Puerto Ricans in the i4 corridor in Central Florida even though they voted in 2004 for george w. Bush reelection they voted overwhelmingly for president obama in his reelection just a few years later. And thats a reflection on t
To make it easier for young people like the ymca to move through the current permit process and open the doors to hundreds of young people and organizations. So despite the good points, there are gaps in the budget request. We should work to address these so we can do more to Work Together on recreational access, Small Businesses in my state that rely on recreation in our economy are confused about some of the priorities in the budget. For example, the Forest Service is proposing to cut road maintenance and is exploring ways to close some of the major recreational routes in my state. This is were going to hear loudly from people on this. I hope we can ask a question and get some details on that. In the same budget the agency is proposing significant increases in new roads. So people are trying to understand the new roads versus maintenance. Without much of an explanation, we want to understand how we make sure that these priorities are met on both sides. I want to take a point of perso
And dont you think this is an unforeseen consequence of congress interjecting itself into the markets . Senator, thank you. I would say we are seeing what ducks unlimited and others are calling a crisis in the prairies. We certainly, if you think about the states of north dakota and south dakota, which are really the heart of water fowl production for the United States of america, we have Energy Development in the balken oil fields squeezing from the west and we have Agricultural Development squeezing from the east, and so there is no doubt that we are seeing widespread and unprecedented conversion of habitat that is and if i can interject, because that clock is ticking. Part of that reduction in habitat is putting more of the land into corn to to respond to this Public Policy decision that the federal government has made. That is a fact, is it not . Certainly a part of the demand is related to use for ethanol. But the market is a Global Market for corn and soybean, and the Global Mark