Can call on to reverse its effects. We can act today to advance the ball. We can limit the dangers of punting this problem to our own children. Its no accident that our proposal is a key piece of president obamas Climate Action plan and key to americas leadership in this Global Climate fight. Although theres still more work to be done, i am hopeful. Im hopeful when i see the progress that was made. Im hopeful because i see the patent of perseverance that defines america. From the light bulb from excels to your cell phones, america has always turned small step into giant leaps. Weve cured diseases. We have explored the stars. Because when critics say it cant be done, we say, you watch us. Thats what america is made of. We dont settle. We lead. Thats how well confront this climate crisis. When it comes to our plan, we may not agree on the details of how we do it but i sure do hope we can all agree on why we do it. When our kids ask us, if we did everything we could to leave them a safer and cleaner world. We all want to say yes we did. When we think of our children, its easy to see why we have to be compelled to act. As governors, mayors and ceos, school teacher, nurses, factory workers and most of all as as parents and in particular moms who are here, we have a moral obligation to ensure that the world we leave behind is safe, healthy and vibrant. Just like the one we inherited. Our Clean Power Plan is a huge step towards delivering on that promise. Whole thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] i have some signing to do. Whoever said the pen is not mightier than the sword [inaudible] thank you very much. Everybody. [applause] egypt has a new president. The former chief of the army was sworn in today for a fouryear term. The swearing in less than a year after the ouster of egypts first really elected president , office morsi, who took following the resignation of Hosni Mubarak in 2011. The reason were trying to focus on the speaker is because it is the speaker, with the full majesty and weight of his position, who yesterday made certain allegations, which at this point he has not answered. I will yield to you. You have an audience. You do not normally have that in the 26 hours you have presented the case to the public. The center of your remarks, going back to 1972, taken out of context. In my opinion, you want to imply that americans on the side were unamerican in their activity. Will you respond . You knew there was nobody here. Camscam. Put those two men from your perspective and give us your perspective on the two. Speaker oneill was really a giants. He knew the politics of the house. Of the the politics house, and he kept much of it to himself. He obviously received a great amount of intelligence all day long for members, what was going on in different places. He always believed that politics was the art of the possible, the nobody got their way all the time. He was a broker within the democratic caucus. Newt gingrich made a conscious decision that they would always be in the minority because they worked with the majority. He started adapting bob michael, the leader, and everybody on ,hat side in his own party jesse said the only avenue to the majority is through said theation he only avenue to the majority is through confrontation. That chamberact was empty, but the camera was very tight on the speaker at the time, wherever they were. It changes the whole dynamics. That was a process that many years later has torn this institution apart, and has really paralyzed the institution. Congressman george miller, tonight at 8 00 on q a. A Senate Environment subcommittee held a hearing recently on the impact of Climate Change on wildlife and agriculture. Witnesses included educators and representatives from the fishing, for history, and farming sector. The hearing is one hour. Welcome. Its great to have you all. I would like to introduce our second panel of witnesses. I will introduce everyone now, and then we will proceed with the testimony. Our first witness is from oregon. Jim serves as the executive director of lake county resources initiative, an organization dedicated to improving Forest Management and inanding the use of energy rural communities. He has worked for to foster more collaborative approaches in oregon. Our second witness is force wheattor generation farmer in oklahoma, and serves at the state association direct executive. He served in the Oklahoma House of representatives from 1994 through 2004. The third witness is daniel cohen. Ands a commercial fisherman does business on both coasts. A retired professor of forest tree at auburn university, where he also earned his phd in for history. He also served as director for the southern forests nursery management cooperatives. Our final witness is a joint associate professor of geography at the university of delaware. Hes also the former director of the center for Climatic Research at the university of delaware. Welcome, everyone. If you could kick off the testimony, the show is yours. Chairman, andmr. Fellow members, its a privilege to be here and in honor. A small nonprofit in lake county, oregon, concentrating on federal forest lands and renewable energies. We are 78 Government Land in our county. We are like many communities with forest over the past three decades. We have suffered high unemployment and poverty rates due to policies on our national forest. We looked at Renewable Energy as a way to change that economy and energy to the forefront. When discussing Climate Change, i cannot separate the actions of past Forest Management and impacts on Climate Change. They are the same. Treatments will have the same effects. They are intertwined. In our case i would like to point out that over the past decade, what has admit to our forest . In 10 years, the first fire was the toolbox fire. We lost 100,000 acres. 350,000 acres. Er in 2012, we had 93,000 acres lost. In less than a decade, we have Fremont National forest. If we keep this rate up, because fires are getting more intense, insects are getting more intense because of the warmer climate will lose in three decades our whole forest. That is a Severe Threat to us. It is not only a threat to our industry in timber, its a threat to our agriculture. 20 moisture0 to during the winter. Our summers are hot and dry normally. Without that snowpack, we dont have irrigation water. All you have to do is look to our neighbors in the klamath basin. We will seety, reduced irrigation rates because of the drought. Ofughts we have never seen the severity before. The climatee change, longterm, shortterm and all of that. I personally say that it is here, and the risk is way too high just to ignore you might be right that is not happening i hope we dont go there. By using Renewable Energy, we could offset that. We have developed a plan in lake county. Economic analysis and feasibility study, we will offset 93 of the fossil fuel emissions in a decade out of lake county, and we will do it economically. As we go forward with this debate, i would hope that we would look at the things like that that make economic sense. Can renewables compete with hydro . No. Can it compete with coal and other industries . Solar is there. The cost of a panel is cheap. Wind is there. Willand more of them become competitive that other rates throughout the country. And its a way to turn our jobs around. Thing is to change the definition, which senator cosponsored we have two Companies Looking at locating in lake county, but we only have supplies for one. Fuel company, and a Biomass Energy production company. With that definition, they do not want to invest because its not considered renewable. Please do change that heard it was senate bill 536. Get that passed so we change that definition. It does not make sense to me. We need to increase the scale of getting treatments. My full testimony about the worst neighbors, the Forest Service it is the amount we are getting done. Landed to increase that that is overstocked, and that we and not00,000 acres just to a small acres projects at the time. We dont want to skip any environmental rules. We want to be ecologically sound and economically both. As we move on, i hope we also look at the fire spending that was mentioned. We cannot get ahead of this if we dont deal with fires. As they get more intense and hotter, we need to deal with that. 185, i hope you endorse that. It is cheaper to treat the forest land than it is to suppress fire. Another thing Climate Change has done in the flickr forest is that he keeps the snow from hitting the ground. We get large amounts of evaporation rate in those thicker forests. I do see by implementing and , and common sense today after that, lets make the more challenging decisions. Thank you very much. Thank you for the chance to come before you today and speak about Climate Change. Always hadwe have wild weather on the southern plans. Will rogers put it best when he said, if you dont like the weather in oklahoma, wait a minute and it will change. What is different is the frequency and strength of the weather we have been seeing. Steroids. N put on in oklahoma alone, we have seen reductions in cattle herd of over 10 . By the first this year, the Cattle Inventory in the United States has shrunk to its lowest level since 1951. In oklahoma we may be looking at the fourth year in a row when the state ascot and will be abandoned. Cotton will be abandoned. The wheat crop is 30 below what was cut in 2012. A lateseason freeze also took what is new is the frequency. Clearly we have a problem. In the soil. Improving the health of our soil is the key to helping mitigate Climate Change. It is organic matter that feeds the Microbial Community under the soil that form our first and best line of defense against Climate Change. That equals on average to an additional 25,000 gallons of water available per acre for growing crops here and crops. We can greatly increase the infiltration water in our firm ground, and increasing the amount of moisture. This helps our farms better whether the drought, while providing more moisture for growing crops. This increases soil moisture also. We can also greatly reduce runoff. Soil,ot only protects the it reduces pollution in our streams and rivers. That same one percent increase in organic matter can make available up to 700 worth of nutrients. By improving the health of our soil, we can help lets more plants more effectively absorb. We all know that plants breathe in Carbon Dioxide and breathe out oxygen. That Carbon Dioxide is storm stored in soil. This is something we need to do. Through the farm bill conservation programs, usda has the ability to help producers do it. As budgets tighten, Financial Assistance through these programs and funding for Technical Assistance continues to shrink. It was determined it was in the publics interest to keep the farm ground in the Southern Plains in production. The tide was turned back. Even with these tools, research is needed to determine what technologies are best to help adapt to Climate Change. It will go unrealized if they are not provided with the resources necessary to do the job. We cannot lose sight of the fact that the droughts will come again. Droughts and floods have a tendency to come together in oklahoma. Oklahoma alone has 2100 structures, many of which need rehabilitation. With passage of the farm bill, funding was authorized to do this work. An rcs rule stated they can only be used to repair existing structures. This does not have to be the case. A change in the rules would allow federal funds to be made available to help new communities with water sources. If you look at the original flood act, flood mitigation of wildlife enhancement, you see this program as another tool that usda has help a better adapt to Climate Change. Agriculture plains is facing serious challenges from Climate Change. Copesda has the tools to with this challenge, and there is a path forward. The question is, will we take it . Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the opportunity to address the committee as you evaluate the impact of Climate Change on environment. The fishing agriculture industry especiallyed states, the shellfish industry, is especially susceptible to increases in ocean temperature. Our shellfish industry has been significantly impacted, and is a harboring or of the consequences of human use of fossil fuels and co2 increases in our atmosphere. Am seventh generation in the fishing industry. We operate from the east coast to the west coast, with facilities in new jersey, maryland, rhode island, massachusetts, and the pacific northwest. I spent a considerable amount of my time in fisheries research. About 15 years ago, recognizing the wild harvests of fishermen, to make sure we have sustainable harvests for the future. With the sustainable cap harvest, there would not be enough fish protein for the growing population. Now it is 7 billion. It will be 9 billion. The industry is looking more and more towards agriculture to meet those needs. I will use examples today. Industry,appened to backed up with scientific will help determine what is happening. These examples are coming from three sources. Changes slowly over time, temperature change in the ocean, changes in acidity ocean currents, which scientists ascribe to changes in temperature. We have oyster hatcheries in washington,egon and and scallop farming in british columbia. The robust new jersey fishery landed over 50 of the clams for the entire country. Clams are the number one ingredient in clam chowder, which i believe is still the number one soup in the country. Outlined in the written evidence i have given, bottom temperature rise is identified after the Fisheries Service determined a large amount of virginia. Of cooler waters in new england saw a greater spawning off new england. Lamp lights shut in virginia so opened in rhode island, showing a shift in population of the clams. In the pacific northwest, we have seen large ocean specification. We have documented over 110 million worth of losses to the hatchery industry alone. We are now having to buffalo the water. Buff all the water. They discovered the problem coming from ocean acidity. There was a major die off. 90 of all the scallops being raised offshore, threeyear classes were killed. The tide since who are researching this right now believe the ocean is at the highest levels of ocean acidification, and weakened the animals. Fishery, youluke have evidence in my written testimony, mostly documented by an article being released today by the Daily Climate that is documenting work by the national Fisheries Service. Changes in the east coast are affecting migration of fluke fisheries. The fluke fishery is completely rebuilt. Because the distribution of north,luke are moving traditionally they are fished off of North Carolina and are being fished off of new york. There is a user conflict, statebystate allocation of the food fishery and the recreational commercial conflict. Conclude by saying that i believe it is irrefutable the Climate Change is happening, the leaders of the east coast fishing industry along with myself have formed a Company Called fishermens energy, to try to adapt. We propose to build offshore wind farms. You. Thank you, mr. Cohen. Yous a privilege to provide with my views on forest and wildfires. Forresters know there are many examples of how human activity affects the total number and size of wildfires. Activemakers who halt Forest Management and kill green harvesting jobs really end up contributing to the buildup of fuels in the forest. This eventually increases the risk of catastrophic wildfires. To attribute this human caused is simplye unscientific. In todays world of alarmism, accuracy does not seem to matter. Im not surprised to see many journalists spreading the idea that Carbon Emissions cause large wildfires. Theres a wellknown poem called the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I cant change the behavior of the media, and i can change the weather. Early in my career i try to change the media and make them correct their mistakes about Forest Management. Just concentrate on my colleagues, trying to get them to do a better job of sticking to the facts. Guesses to thee future to the others. Untrue claims about the cause of wildfires can spread like wildfire. The false statement that wildfires in 2012 burned record acres in the u. S. Resulted in numerous articles and is found in more than 2000 websites. Wildfires in the 1930s burned four times that rate. Who push an agenda really need to exaggerate the claims in order to fool the public. This graph shows Carbon Emissions arising since 1926. If we cherry picked data from 9026 to 1970, we get a negative relationship between Carbon Dioxide and fire size. However, if we cherry pick data from 1985 to the current year, we get a positive relationship. Neither of these relationships prove anything about the effects of Carbon Dioxide on wildfire. During drought season, human activity is an overwhelming factor that determines the number and size of wildfires. In the 48 states, there have been about 10 extreme megafires. Eight of these fires occurred during cool decades. This data suggests that extremely large megafires were four times more common before 1940, back when Carbon Dioxide concentrations were less than 310 parts per million. Looks to me like we cannot reasonably say that manmade Global Warming causes extremely large wildfires. Ago, this Committee Conducted a hearing about Climate Change. Wildfires was not even mentioned in that meeting. Theyes, droughts were mentioned in number of times. Im pleased to provide you with my forrester he views fore stry views. Andke hurricanes, droughts the polar vortex, we can promote for history practices that will reduce the risk of wildfires. Our national Forest Management policies have contributed to increasing the risk of wildfires. Im certain that attempts to legislate a change in the concentration of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere will have no effect on reducing the signs of wildfires or on the frequency of droughts. Contrast, allowing Forest Management practices to create economically lasting for history jobs in the private sector might reduce the fuel loads of dense jobs in theorestry private sector might reduce the fuel loads of dense forests. Thank you for this opportunity to address the committee. Thank you very much. Carbon dioxide is plant food, and more of it can be a positive. If Global Temperatures rise for any reason, the length of the growing season will be increased and the diversity of crops will be enhanced. The big problem is a limiting factor for agriculture. Soil moisture in a warmer world depends on a complicated interaction with changes in precipitation. Globally, drought frequencies of not changed over the past 60 years. The percentage of the u. S. In moderate or extreme drought has not changed in 112 years. Droughts have not become more intense or longer in duration. The historical record does not warrant a claim that Global Warming will negatively impact agriculture. Forecasts of extreme drought arise from climate model simulations which are only as good as their ability to simulate precipitation. Most models overestimate rainfall, but underestimate its intensity. Models may appear correct in the aggregate. Accurateodels make productions when they cannot simulate precipitation . Models have overestimated the almostperature rise by one degree fahrenheit. If precipitation and air temperature are not modeled properly, how can modeled soil moisture prepare farmers for an uncertain future . Climate change is because climate has always changed. Droughts have happened in the past and are likely to happen again. Isparation for their return a better strategy than trying in vain to mitigate them through draconian Carbon Dioxide emission policies. I have become increasingly concerned about the scientific debate being corrupted. In my 2003 Senate Testimony regarding the hockey stick thomas stick, signs of a compromised. E were one of the journalists was threatened with an organized boycott. The Senior Editor move to bar two scientists. To report things have become better. In 2009, climate gate shed light on how the process was being subverted. I have been denied publication of an important paper solely due to collusion between another scientist and an editor. Over the years i have applied for several grants. It is not that i received bad reviews. No reviews. Ved Program Officers refused to respond. Their behavior appears related to an article, which is often used as a blacklist for researchers unconvinced of Global Warming. To colleagues in delaware received four years of materials related to Climate Change. The university general counsel told me he would review my documents, regardless of how or where they were produced. The other faculty members indicated for years four year did not apply to them. Be treated i will differently simply because he can treat me that way. I saw legal counsel. The dean informed me i could not hire my own lawyer, and the college would no longer support may. Decade inarly a development. Legal counsel finally agreed to treat all this equally. It never occurred. He never went through materials for anyone else. I alone was targeted and lied to. According to the cbo, none of my materials fall under the law. The actions violate the federal arbitration case. Theres nothing about my record that i am embarrassed over. There are many other cases in which the victims cannot speak out. The socalled war on science is nothing but a diversion. The real war is waged within our federal agencies. A healthy scientific discussion is being subverted for personal gain. Scientists who deviate from the playbook are removed from positions of power and influence. Young scientists learn to toe the party line. I leave you with this line. When scientific views come under attack from within academia, the loser is rational thinking and good policy making thank you. Thank you very much for all your testimony. We will now have a five minute time. The order will go to senator sessions. Senator wicker has said he will defer to his colleagues. I didnt see you come in. We will go back and forth. In lake county, i have been struck when i view the county in oregon, they are trying to replace fossil fuels with renewable sources. Is part of the factor driving that conversation the general observations by folks about the impact of Carbon Dioxide on the forests . In the beginning, about 10 years ago, we started analyzing it. We did a paper on it. We could offset 93 . My board approved that we will go public with our findings and try to develop a plan to use renewables to offset carbon. We grew into that as we learn more and more of the benefits of Renewable Energy. We said, what will that do to Climate Change . What will that do to Carbon Dioxide emissions . As i said in my testimony, what we have on the table would offset 93. To get to 100 is not that difficult from there. We are well on that road. I think we can be 100 offset within 10 years. I was looking at the climate assessment. It notes that Climate Change is exacerbating factors that lead to wildfires. Heat, drought, and the dead trees. Exacerbation of bark beetle outbreaks, which normally die in cold weather. I saw that there is a report that estimates if you increase the temperature 1. 8 degrees fahrenheit, you would quadruple the amount of acreage burned. As you look at the forest issues, if i understand your testimony, you are seeing the impacts of human management of the forest as a factor, but also the overlay of these factors. Exactly. It has impacted our snow pack. If you look at the forest to the south of us, they had six sites that were zero percent snowpack. With the drier conditions . Beetle kill. It gets into lodgepole pine naturally. It has never been the size it is today. That is because we do not have the cold temperatures and they get to live year after year. 350,000 acres is abnormal. Nobody has ever seen that. Throughout the entire west into canada was over 4 million acres of beetle kill. Thank you very much. Turning to the farming side, one of the things you said were changes in wheat farming. Are you arguing the changes in wheat are being impacted by changing temperatures . Yes. When you look at the situation on the Southern Plains, the drought has had a huge impact. When you look at the situation as far as precipitation and with wheat, wheat is a resilient crop. The challenge is, the rain patterns we are seeing. You put in the effects of the lateseason freezes and droughts, we are seeing an impact on the wheat crop from the changes in the climate. I think there are things we can do to help adapt to that situation. I hope we can do sthings to move forward as far as improving the soil health, making farms more resilient to drought. Heavy rain events. I think that is the challenge we have in front of us is having the tools to do that. Thank you. In the 45 seconds i have left, i read a recent report about oysters in the chesapeake and declining because of acidity. There is a secondary effect because oysters filter the water. Is that consistent with what you are seeing . Oysters are a great benefit for the environment. They are filter feeders. They do clean. Thats why they are to bring them back in the chesapeake bay. Similar to what is happening in the civic northwest, we have rising levels of pco2. Therefore rising acidity. We have been able to document it. It is a little harder in the wild environment to determine what is happening, whether spawning events taking place it is not really spawning, the baby larvae have a hard time setting up their shell. They cant get the calcium because of the acidity. Thank you. My time has expired. We have a number of folks who want to jump into this. I believe senator sessions, you are next. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The time that we can intimidate people who present scientific papers that disagree with the current idea that is in fashion needs to be over. We need to challenge that. Im not going to rest easy about it myself. I know the president , and i have challenged this twice, he has said the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even 10 years ago. He said it twice. Can any of you gentlemen support that statement . Do have any sense that would back that up . Mr. Ashton does not. We do not need to tolerate the president falsely asserting the status of climate. We have to allow scientists to present contrary views without being intimidated by the politically correct crowd. I feel strongly about it. We will keep working on it. The Climate ChangeScience Program said in may of 2000 eight, a tendency towards a decrease in severity and duration of drought over the latter half of the 20th century, a decline and decrease. I think about that kingston trio song. You can substitute oklahoma for texas. The world is full of strife. Texas needs rain. We had a lot of drought in the 1930s. More than you have today . If i can answer. It is drier now than it was in the 1930s. The drought in the 1950s is the the drought in the 1950s is the drought of record in oklahoma. You are saying it is more severe than the 1930s . Yes, it is. If it were not for the conservation practices, i feel confident that we would be experiencing the consequences that we did in the 1930s. You have a chart here that indicates rainfall in forest lands in different regions of the country have increased over 100 years ago. Is that the way i read it . Northeast . It indicates other areas have increases . You indicate other regions have reductions . There is no change in the west. A slight decrease in the southwest. Where the droughts are severe now. You have a four percent increase in the northeast . 0. 2 inches and 100 years. In the southwest. Overall, we are not seen a decline in rainfall. Throughout the country. Isnt it true that we have had a resurgence of game and alabama . In alabama . Certain species, that is correct. Is it true that many forests are being managed better . Better is a value term, but i would say yes. Marginal lands, erodable lands, are now in timber . Yes. So instead of having land is my time up the way we manage timber, you would plant in open field that is being harvested every year. Trees grow for 15 years. They are thinned. They grow faster because there is a penny. Event harvesting. Then they are replanted. I would say that is a renewable resource, would you not . Definitely. Would you oppose the idea that we should not treat wood as a renewable resource like we do corn . Would you oppose the idea that some are raising that we should not use wood for Renewable Energy or other resources . Yes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. I appreciate that planting trees helps reduce carbon, but it hardly offsets the coal plant next door that is putting out tens of thousands of tons of Carbon Dioxide. The 50 worst plants in the country put out more carbon than korea. Korea is an industrialized country. We are seeing effects in new england. Senator sessions was pleased to bring up that there is additional rain falling in the northeast. Not only is there additional rain, just as the climate projections expect, but it is falling in more powerful bursts, just as the experts predicted. Those bursts are causing damaging flooding. We have had year after year of hundred year floods in rhode island. It just keeps coming. We are an ocean state. We are seeing dramatic changes in our oceans. People can quibble at the fringes of the scientific debate. How about fishermen . We had a nice guy, chris brown, head of the fishing association. He is a fisherman. This is his life. He said, i fish on a different ocean today than when i started fishing with my grandfather as a boy in the mid1960s. Not that long ago. When i started, catching haddock was commonplace. Last year, i caught only two. Regularly caught are the species of croaker, grouper, and others. My grandfather never saw a single one of these in his entire life as a fisherman. As another fisherman said to me, is getting weird out there. It is not just rhode island. I have traveled to the south atlantic over the break. They told me off charleston, they are catching snook. That is a fish you used to go down to Fort Lauderdale to catch. It is working its way up. Redfish are caught as north as cape cod. In case the warming oceans and moving around of the fisheries is not enough, against the shores of rhode island, the oceans are 10 inches higher than the 1930s. Sooner or later, another hurricane is going to come and give us a punch. I ask my colleagues, if you are genuinely interested, spend 10 minutes on google looking at the images of what happened to my state in the hurricane of 1938. Imagine what happens when those 10 inches of additional sea level get stacked up further and thrown against our shores. It is a potential catastrophe. The idea that i am supposed to overlook this is preposterous. The idea that my side of the ledger does not count and the only side that does is jobs in the coal industry or jobs in the oil and gas industry is equally preposterous. The science out there has become spectacularly clear. Even though there remains fringe. It is not a fringe that any rational person would put a bet on in their real lives in any other circumstance. I want to conclude by thanking the senator for this program. I want to thank witness cohen for his testimony. We are way past the debate on whether this is real. This is happening in peoples lives now in ways that are unprecedented. We have to get responsible about doing something about it. I thank the chairman. Thank you very much, senator whitehouse. Thanks to our witnesses. First of all, i am sorry i came too late for the first panel. When he was last before the committee, i asked him some questions regarding the consultation under the endangered species act with regard to epas new proposals regarding existing power plants. His job is about endangered and threatened species. Understanding impacts on that. I asked if he was consulting because of that. He has not followed up. I sent a letter to him and administrator mccarthy regarding this mandated consultation. I have gotten no response. I will continue following up. But that is his job. This is a major set of regulations. We do expect answers about their responsibility for observation. Consultation. In terms of questions, dr. South, i share your concern that every weather item in the news is held up as the newest example of the impact of time and Climate Change, with no real Science Behind that assertion. This is also true of wildfires. Just recently, the democratic majority leader, harry reid, claimed Global Warming was the cause of increased wildfires. What do you think the historical record lays out in terms of trends over time regarding wildfires . And what do you think are the leading causes of any trends that do exist . First of all, those who claim co2 causes additional wildfires are not making scientific sense. Statements. They are being easily fooled by journalists. Wildfires have been associated with droughts and forest conditions that are that make wildfires more probable. The chart that i showed, showing a lot of wildfires in the 1930s before we started having active wildfire fighting forces, gives you an idea of how cyclic it can be. The downward trend you see is caused by humans. Our activity is trying to fight the fires. The urban sprawl that has caused people resulted in people building houses in the forest has, in my view, taken manpower away from fighting fires and into protecting homes. This can increase the size of the wildfire that they happen to be working on. Spending more time on fighting, or preventing houses from catching fire. Taking the time away from attacking the front. This causes the size of the fire to be larger. Also, in this area, what are your thoughts about current management of our forests . And that factor regarding wildfires . The general view to the public we are starting to let the public manage our forests instead of letting forresters. When the public causes litigation delays, we have a build up of fuels. In increased risk of wildfires. By enacting policies that lock up wilderness areas, decreasing harvesting rates we used to harvest about 12 billion board feet per year off of National Forests. That has dropped down to nothing. The natural forests National Forests the National Forests are getting bigger and that is causing more catastrophic wildfires. Thank you very much. Senator wicker . Thank you, mr. Chairman. I have to say this. I have not today, or ever, in a committee hearing, insulted the integrity of witnesses on the other side of an issue. We have come perilously close to that in this committee today