Press Releases

Today the United States House of Representatives passed H.R. 1526, the Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act, to renew the federal government’s commitment to manage federal forests for the benefit of rural schools and counties and to improve forest health. Included in this bill was an amendment offered on the floor by Congressman Jason Smith (MO-08) to stop the prescribed burning of harvestable timber in the Mark Twain National Forest.

“One of the issues I constantly deal with in Washington D.C. is rogue, unaccountable federal agencies. Whether it is the Department of the Interior trying to take away our property rights through a White River National Blueway, the National Park Service trying to tell us that we can’t baptize people in the river, or now the Forest Service burning whole swaths of the Mark Twain National Forest at great cost to our forest products industry, these bureaucrats just seem to think that they can get away with anything,” said Smith.

Mr. Smith’s amendment came on the heels of a letter he co-authored with the other Republican Members from the Missouri Congressional delegation asking that the National Forest Service review its policies with regard to the prescribed burning in the Mark Twain National Forest. That letter remains unanswered.

Click HERE to read the letter from Smith and other members of the Missouri delegation.

“It’s a shame that the Obama administration’s Forest Service continues to stonewall legitimate requests for oversight,” said Smith. “If six members of Missouri’s Congressional Delegation are not worth the small amount of time it takes to respond to a letter and review some forest management policies, how are my constituents supposed to get answers?”

In addition to containing Mr. Smith’s Amendment, HR 1526 also would open up federal forestlands, including those in Missouri, for additional timber harvests. 50 million board feet of timber, with an estimated value of $4.75 million, dies every year in the Mark Twain National Forest. Instead of being harvested for valuable forest products like barrels, flooring, or charcoal, and creating jobs, this timber is wasted and becomes a fire hazard.

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