We need to be encouraging policies that allow local management, not adding another strand of barbwire to the existing fence created by regulations that eliminate the ability to manage our natural resources. I have talked of some of the economic impacts, but time limitations restrict my comments on the social implications. Wealth can only be generated from natural resources, i.e. timber, mining, and agriculture. Just imagine, committee members, what would you tell your spouse and your children when you come home with the news that you don t have a job and their way of life is in imminent danger. Low paying service jobs are not the answer.
Recreation is only a partial answer.
We are losing our rural and natural resource heritage. I would also like to comment on what I understood our NEPA process guaranteed for us. The Interior Columbia Region Basin Project has taken in excess of 6 years for the NEPA process and a Record of Decision is yet to be made, and this is a project for just one watershed area in the West. Now we are expected to have a decision made on the Roadless Initiative that involves over one-third of our National Forests nationwide, almost every local county in the United States is affected, and this process took only one year and three months. I submit to you, that the Nation has not been given a good process.