Noxious weeds are a serious problem on both public and private lands across the nation.
They are particularly troublesome here in the West where much of our land is intrusted to the management of the federal government. The spread of noxious weeds have been compared to a slow burning wildfire, that takes land out of production, forces native species off the land, and interrupts the commerce and activities of all those who rely on the land for their livelihoods especially farmers, ranchers, and recreationists. Because of these problems, in January I introduced the Plant Protection Act which will focus the efforts of the federal government to better fight this wildfire. This bill generated a lot of discussion and several suggestions for improvement. Last week I introduced S. 910, the Noxious Weed Coordination and Plant Protection Act.