Date: 2010-12-07
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. as one of its cosponsors. I rise in support of House Resolution 1540. This draws much needed attention to a problem as suggested by my friend. the gentleman from Virginia. which is the cultivation of marijuana on our Federal lands. There is no doubt that. oh. 15 years ago. when I was Attorney General of California. we saw that Mexican cartels had basically taken over this trade in our State and that they were largely operating on Federal lands. on nonprivate lands. Of course. in the State of California. I believe the Federal Government owns about 49 percent of our Statea lot of that forest lands and wilderness areas. These are the areas that these cartels are converting into farms for illegal marijuana crops. They are damaging our protected ecosystems there. and they are threatening the safety of visitors and employees. In fact. the DEA calls marijuana the "cash crop" that finances drug cartels drug trafficking operations. Marijuana is grown in remote areas of public lands. where there is a limited law enforcement presence. The two primary regions for these marijuana sites are the Western Region. comprised of California. Hawaii. Oregon. and Washington. and the Appalachian Region. including Kentucky. Tennessee and West Virginia. This year. when I was visiting one of my counties. the smallest population county in the State of California. Alpine County. which has parts of several U.S. forests and a couple of wilderness areas. the under sheriff told me of some of the largest finds that they had made in those areas. They were finds that were unexpected and finds that were difficult to discover precisely because there are so few people who live in these areas. Of course. we designate them as wilderness areas and as forest lands. In many cases. they are not that often visited by citizens of the United States. The people who recreate these areas do so. enjoying the environment. These pristine lands of our National Forest system are therefore particularly enticing to these drug trafficking organizations as the dense. expansive forests that we find in these areas provide optimum marijuanagrowing conditions with very little risk of detection. Americas National Forest system. managed by the U.S. Forest Service. is comprised of 193 million acres of land with 153.000 miles of trails and nearly 18.000 recreation sites. but we only have a little under 200 sworn officers and detectives who patrol this vast. expansive land. including 36 million acres of wilderness area. The members of these cartels hike deep into the forests. fell trees. and clear away brush to plant their marijuana crops. They construct rudimentary irrigation systems. and divert water from local creeks or streams. They use these to water the plants. They use MiracleGro or other fertilizers. and they even lace the area with animalkilling chemicals. Its obvious they dont file for EPA permits or anything like that. They are destroying much of the beautiful natural resources that we have in these areas. We have discovered that the cartel members set up camp nearby and patrol the areas for intruders. and sometimes. when innocent American citizens are traveling through these areas. they are encountered by these individuals. More and more. we see that these members of the cartels have lethal weapons with them. even automatic weapons. The Justice Department reports that these cartels. particularly in the States of Washington and California. are becoming increasingly aggressive in protecting the marijuana fields. We have found assault rifles. and we have found them engaging in standoffs with law enforcement officers. I would say. in my most rural counties. we do not have the largest law enforcement departments. That. combined with the very few people we have from the Federal Governments law enforcement. make it a prime area for these drug cartels to take over and make it dangerous. as I say. for lawabiding citizens. who want nothing but to recreate in these areas. to utilize these facilities. I will say. late this summer/early this fall. we got tremendous support from the Forest Service and from other elements of the Federal Government in support of our effort to try and clean out these areas and also to protect our local law enforcement officers as they were working on it. In 2010. more than 3 million marijuana plants were seized from Forest Service lands in practically every region of the country. Now. this is a dramatic increase from 2004 when fewer than 750.000 plants were seized. Once their illegal crops are harvested. the growers then abandon the sites. and they leave their garbage and their destruction behind. These fields are easy to plant. easy to harvest. but difficult to eradicate. Law enforcement officers must patrol the thick forest canopy from the sky. hoping to glimpse a marijuana grow site. They must then fly or hike into the site. hoping that they wont be confronted by armed guards or boobytraps. These marijuana sites not only pose a danger to law enforcement officials. park employees. and visitors. but as I say. to the very natural resources the forest designation is intended to protect. Marijuana fields utilized by these illegal cartels cause extensive longterm damage to the forest ecosystems and deplete the drinking water supplies for neighboring communities. Just last month. the Forest Service removed more than 10 cubic yards of garbage from six abandoned marijuana grow sites in northern California. The Forest Service reports that it cost approximately $30.000 to remove the marijuana and restore the ecosystem of each of the 622 marijuana sites discovered in the national forest system for fiscal year 2010. That is a cost of over $18 million in taxpayer dollars to rid our forests of these illegal marijuana grows. It is imperative that Congress and the administration make a commitment to put an end to the marijuana sites on Federal land and protect our precious natural resources from any further destruction. I commend my colleague from California for his tireless efforts to address this growing problem and as I say. I was proud to join him in this case as an original cosponsor of H. Res. 1540. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. Mr. Speaker. I yield 5 minutes to the author of the bill. the gentleman from California .