1/5 Last week President Trump came to CA to be briefed on the horrific fires raging in CA. Instead he got a lecture from Gov. Newsom & his staff on climate change. Beginning in the 1970s we imposed environmental laws that have made the management of our lands all but impossible.

2/5 Draconian restrictions on logging, grazing, prescribed burns & herbicide use on public lands have made modern land management endlessly time consuming & ultimately cost prohibitive. A single tree thinning plan typically takes four years & more than 800 pages of analysis.

3/5 We have been trying for years to reform these laws, resume active forest management & restore our forests to health. Yet the environmental leftists have blocked us every year. Instead, politicians use the excuse of climate change.

4/5 Really? These environmental laws generally apply only to public lands. Today, you can easily tell the boundaries between private & public lands solely by the condition of the forests. How clever of the climate only to decimate the public lands.

5/5 These laws were passed with the promise they would improve the forests. After more than four decades, I think we are entitled to ask, how are the forests doing?

Read Congressman McClintock's full House Floor remarks here: https://mcclintock.house.gov/newsroom/speeches/our-forests-tragedy