Tom McClintock

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, in the last four national elections, Americans made it clear that we won't accept the economic stagnation that we have suffered during this past decade. Mr. Obama's policies of higher taxes and regulatory burdens suppressed economic growth to a dismal 1\1/2\ percent annual average. That is about half of the post-war growth rate of 3 percent. President Reagan averaged 3\1/2\ percent annual growth by reducing the tax and regulatory burdens crushing the economy. The result was one of the greatest economic expansions in American history. The Trump administration has made significant progress on regulatory relief, as attested by rising wages, employment opportunities, and growing consumer confidence. But tax relief is vital to finish the job. The imperative should be clear. The American corporate tax rate of 35 percent is the highest in the industrialized world. I know there are lots of special interest loopholes that go to politically connected companies that bring the effective rate down to 18.6 percent. But that is precisely the problem. Many companies that haven't gotten these breaks have simply fled the country, taking trillions of dollars and possibly millions of American jobs overseas. By closing the loopholes and lowering the rate to an internationally competitive 20 percent, economists tell us that we can add $5 trillion to the American economy over the next decade. That averages about $40,000 per family. Those who dismiss this as tax cuts for wealthy corporations don't understand the dirty little secret of corporate taxation: corporations do not pay corporate taxes. They only collect them. There are only three possible sources from which they can collect them. The only people who pay corporate taxes are consumers, through higher prices; employees, through lower wages; and investors, through lower earnings. That is your pension and 401(k). Lowering the corporate tax rate not only means restoring America's global competitiveness, but it invariably translates into lower prices, higher wages, and greater returns on savings and investments. The personal income tax side is also important, and this is where I become concerned that we are getting wrapped around the axle. We have had several unpleasant surprises this past week: the 46 percent bubble bracket and now the Joint Committee on Taxation report that, over time, many in the middle class may end up paying higher income taxes. Yes, the average taxpayer will pay less, but this raises the mystery of the 6-foot man who drowned in a pond whose average depth was 5 feet. It is now clear that some--perhaps many--families will see tax increases now, and more over time. As desirable as tax simplification is, I wonder if it is a bridge too far, given the timetable we are on, the hyper-partisan political environment we are in, and the complexities of the Tax Code that are certain to continue to yield unpleasant and unintended consequences. I urge our leadership and our Ways and Means Committee to consider leaving the personal income tax structure intact, but using the budget authority instead to provide a permanent, uniform, across-the-board reduction in the rates for all tax brackets. Our back-of-the-envelope estimate is that, using the current framework, we can reduce tax brackets by a full 1 percent, averaging about $600 of tax savings for joint filers. If we included the repeal of the individual mandate in ObamaCare, we could reduce all tax brackets by 1.35 percent, averaging about $800 of lower taxes for joint filers. I think there are four principal advantages to this approach: First, it leaves no taxpayer behind. Whatever your circumstances, whatever the deductions you claim, you can be sure that your overall tax bill will go down. Second, by reducing all marginal rates, it will increase the economic growth potential of the reform. Productivity depends on how much your next dollar is taxed. That is the marginal rate. We can bring down the top marginal rate under this reform; whereas, under the current proposal, it not only stays where it is, but in the bubble bracket, it increases to 46 percent. Third, these reforms can be communicated easily to the American people. Fourth, it will remove a vast portion of the opposition that we are seeing among various business groups that imperils the entire bill. Madam Speaker, the tax reform bill that emerges from these deliberations will ultimately be judged by the prosperity that it produces and the relief that it brings to all American families. If it is done right, the tax reform bill now taking shape in Congress can deliver us to that day. But if it is done wrong, we will have squandered the most important chance the American people have given us to materially improve their lives. I remember the Reagan era. Wages rose, opportunities for better jobs abounded, and everywhere you could sense the optimism that comes with prosperity and abundance. I want my kids to know what it is like when morning dawns again in the American economy. It is up to us in this Chamber to make it happen, so we must. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, 45 years ago, Congress enacted laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act, that promised to improve the health of our forests. They imposed what have become endlessly time-consuming and, ultimately, cost-prohibitive restrictions on our ability to properly manage our national forests so that we can match the tree density with the ability of the land to support it. I think after 45 years of experience with these laws, we are entitled to ask: How are our forests doing? The answer is damning. Our forests are now catastrophically overgrown, often carrying four times the number of trees that the land can support. In this stressed and weakened condition, our forests are easy prey for drought, disease, pestilence, and fire. There is an old adage that excess timber comes out of the forest one way or the other--it is either carried out or it burns out. When we carried it out, we had resilient, healthy forests and a thriving economy, as excess timber was sold and harvested before it could choke our forests to death. In the years since then, we have seen an 80 percent decline in timber sales from our Federal lands and a concomitant increase in acreage destroyed by forest fire. I would remind my friend from Oregon that timber sales used to generate us money, not cost us money. The direct revenues and spin-off commerce generated by these sales provided a stream of revenues that we could then use to improve our national forests and share with the local communities affected. The Resilient Federal Forests Act begins to move us back towards sound and scientific forest management practices. It requires forest managers to consider the cost of no action alternatives; it streamlines fire and disease prevention programs and ensures that fire-killed timber can be quickly removed to create both revenues and room to restore fire-damaged lands; it ends the practice of raiding prevention funds to fight fires; it streamlines onerous environmental review processes without sacrificing environmental protection; and it provides our forest managers with alternatives to resolve frivolous lawsuits. Provisions that streamline the environmental reviews were already signed into law last year for the Tahoe Basin, and the Forest Service regional manager told me that is going to take their revenue processes from 800 pages down to 40 pages and allow them to get their forest there back to a sustainable level. We made some very big mistakes 45 years ago, and our forests have paid the price. This bill starts the long process of correcting those mistakes and recovering our national forests, and I urge its adoption. Mr. Chairman, I include in the Record two letters, one from the South Tahoe Public Utility District, and the second from the Public Lands Council and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, in support of H.R. 2936. June 22, 2017. Hon. Rob Bishop, Chairman, House Committee on Natural Resources, Washington,

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, unsustainable government spending drives both taxes and debt. The budget resolution sets the spending architecture for the fiscal year. The House version provided for $200 billion of enforceable mandatory spending reductions over 10 years and balanced within the decade. The Senate amendments gut these provisions, squandering the one opportunity Congress has each year to bring mandatory spending under control, taking us another year closer to a sovereign debt crisis. This is tragic, and I condemn it in the strongest terms. The Senate, though, has retained just one key provision from the House budget. It makes tax reform possible this year. Tax reform is essential to economic growth, and economic growth is essential to confront our debt. Many are alarmed that it provides for $1.5 trillion of additional debt, but this is due solely to the Senate's rules that require tax cuts to be scored only as revenue losses without taking into account economic expansion. During the Obama years, our economy grew at an average of 1\1/2\ percent, annually. That is about half the average rate since World War II. Reagan averaged 3\1/2\ percent. Reagan did this by reducing the tax burdens that were crushing our economy. He slashed the top income tax rate from 70 percent down to 28 percent, and income tax receipts nearly doubled because of the economic expansion he unleashed. Taxes driven by spending are the greatest threat to our economy today, and debt driven by spending is the greatest threat to our future. Controlling spending is currently impossible in the Senate. So it is obvious that we can't balance the budget and reduce our debt without significantly increasing economic growth; we can't increase economic growth without tax relief; and we can't get tax relief without the provisions in the Senate budget. Arthur Laffer, the architect of the Reagan tax policy, forecasts that the corporate tax reform alone will increase GDP growth at a rate that should generate a temporary bump of 5 percent, settling down to an average of 2.6 percent over the decade. This will add $5 trillion to the American economy and directly increase revenues to all levels of government between $1.8 trillion and $2 trillion. We have tried a static approach to tax policy during the Obama years. The economy stagnated and the debt doubled. I remember what it was like in the Reagan era. Wages were rising and opportunities for better jobs were everywhere. There was a sense of optimism that comes with prosperity and abundance. When we abandoned these policies, we lost that prosperity to a decade of despair. I want my kids to know what that sense of relief and optimism was like, what it feels like when morning dawns again on the American economy. This resolution starts that transformation, and I urge its adoption.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Palmer).

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, Just a few steps from this Hall, Thomas Jefferson addressed his first inaugural address. After listing all of the blessings that our country enjoys, he asked what more do we need to maintain a happy and prosperous society. He said: ``Still one thing more, fellow citizens. A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. . . .'' We have it within our power to restore that wise and frugal government and the prosperity and happiness that free societies always produce the moment we summon the political will to do so. The Republican Study Committee seeks that shining city on a hill and today offers this map to get us there. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I include in the Record letters of support of the Republican Study Committee budget from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, FreedomWorks, and Heritage Action for America. Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, September 8, 2017. Hon. Mark Walker, Washington, DC. Dear Representative Walker: I am writing you to express our appreciation for the fiscally responsible budget released by the Republican Study Committee. Your budget would make important progress by putting debt on a downward path as a share of GDP, reducing it from 77 percent today to 56 percent by 2027--instead of letting it rise to 89 percent as under current law. By calling for spending cuts and entitlement reforms, your budget helps to keep the national debt on a sustainable path. We applaud the Republican Study Committee for your serious contribution to the ongoing budget debate. Sincerely, Maya MacGuineas, President, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), the Speaker of the House.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Walker), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to present the Republican Study Committee's 2018 budget, Securing America's Future Economy. This proposal combines savings that have been proposed by the Congressional Budget Office, many RSC members, and public policy think tanks, including The Heritage Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste, and the National Taxpayers Union. It is based on a simple principle that government should spend its money as carefully as families spend what they have left after they have paid their taxes. By restraining the growth of spending and refocusing resources on core government responsibilities, adopting commonsense reforms, and placing Medicare and Social Security back on sound financial footing, we believe there is still time to save this country from financial and economic ruin. But time is running out. On our current course, the Congressional Budget Office warns that, within 4 years, our deficits will balloon to $1 trillion annually, adding about $8,000 a year to an average family's debt that they will have to pay off in future taxes. Two years after that, interest on the national debt will reach $654 billion. That is more than we currently spend for the entire defense establishment. Let me repeat that so it sinks in. Six years from now, we will spend more than our current defense budget accomplishing nothing but renting the money that we have already borrowed and spent. Three years later, Medicare will collapse. Six years after that--if we get that far-- Social Security runs out of money. This approaching crisis can be described with just three numbers: 26, 35, and 49. Once you understand those three numbers--26, 35, and 49-- you can plainly see the root of our problems. Twenty-six percent is the combined population and inflation growth over the past 10 years. Thirty-five percent is the growth in Federal revenues. Clearly, this is not a revenue problem. The problem is that third number. Forty-nine percent is the growth in spending--nearly twice the rate of inflation and population combined. We are about to hear about the draconian cuts from the opposition. Let me emphasize, the RSC budget continues to grow the Federal Government every year. I repeat, the RSC budget spends more every year. Over the decade, we have provided for more than $1 trillion of government growth. Only in Washington can that be described as a cut. The RSC budget merely restrains the growth of spending over the next decade to give families the time and room to catch up. By doing so, we can arrest the ruinous spiral of debt and interest costs that now threaten the very solvency of our Nation. This budget gores a lot of sacred cows, because we want to point out the wide range of savings available to achieve. But I would ask the opponents of this budget to consider one thing as we race toward the looming fiscal crisis just 4 years down the road: you cannot provide for the common defense or general welfare or do all of the other things our government is called upon to do if you cannot pay for them. Our mountainous debt, driven by out-of-control spending, now threatens our ability to do so. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would remind my friend from Kentucky that Ronald Reagan reduced the Federal income tax rate from 70 percent down to 28 percent, and income tax revenues doubled. He is correct that we expect things from our government. We have seen a 49 percent increase in spending in the last decade. Have we seen a 49 percent increase in the quality of education or a 49 percent increase in our infrastructure or our defense capability? What we have seen is a 49 percent increase in bureaucracy and government. I would remind the gentleman that when we squander the people's money, we rob them of the means to meet the disasters and unforeseen circumstances that confront our country. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Flores), my friend and former chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, have my friends on the left learned absolutely nothing over these past 8 years? If massive government spending, higher and higher taxes, and deeper and deeper debt produced economic growth, the Obama years should have been the golden age of our economy. Instead, we suffered prolonged stagnation. We averaged 1.5 percent annual growth, only half the average economic growth that our Nation has enjoyed in the postwar era. The Progressive and Democratic budgets promise more of the same. We choose a different path, the Reagan path that produced an average of 3.5 percent growth year after year, higher wages, better jobs. Not just a Republican policy, John F. Kennedy did the same thing. He reminded us that a rising tide lifts all boats. These are the policies that create prosperity. The government cannot create jobs because it cannot create wealth, but what it can do is create the conditions where jobs multiply and prosper or where they stagnate and disappear. That it can do very well. We have very consistent experience with the policies that create these conditions. If you increase the burdens on the economy as the Democrats again propose, the economy contracts. If you lighten the burdens on the economy, it grows and prospers. No nation has ever taxed and spent its way to prosperity, but many nations have taxed and spent their way to economic ruin and bankruptcy. We know what works and we know what doesn't work because we have tried both paths many times before. The House Budget Committee's budget follows principles that have, time and again, consistently and rapidly produced economic expansion and prosperity. The House Democrats' budget and the Progressive budget before us now double down on policies that have impoverished and bankrupted nations wherever they have been employed down through history. That is the choice before us today. Let us choose wisely. Our future depends on it. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman), my friend and colleague.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Alabama.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Palmer), a former director of the State Policy Network.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, my friend reminds me of a story when Ronald Reagan was pushing his tax reductions a generation ago that produced the biggest expansion in our Nation's history. He was approached one day by a working class fellow on a stop that the President was making, and the man looks at him and says: Mr. President, the Democrats say that you Republicans want to cut taxes on the rich. Is that right? Reagan says: Well, that is what they say. And the man says: Well, you go ahead and do that, Mr. President, because a poor person never gave me a job. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall).

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close when the gentleman from Arizona is finished, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, even though I disagree heartily with the budgets advanced by the Progressive Caucus, they do us an invaluable service in the budget debate by bringing into sharp relief the two very different visions of governance advanced by the two parties. The Progressive budget is a sincere and bold document. Unfortunately, it is also wrong. It would hike taxes by $10.1 trillion over the next 10 years relative to the Republican budget. Now, think of every trillion dollars that we throw around here as $8,000 from an average family, because that is what it comes to. So $10.1 trillion in new taxes ultimately translates as $81,000 from an average family over the next decade taken either as direct taxes or as tax-driven price increases or as lower wages or as lower earnings as businesses pass on their burdens to consumers or employers or investors. Remember, investors are largely your 401(k) or your pension plan. It also runs up $2.6 trillion more in debt than the Republican budget over the next 10 years. That means another $21,000 of debt added to that family's obligations that they will have to pay as future taxes just as surely as if it appeared on their credit card statement this month. And they have got to pay that back before they pay back their credit card statement. The IRS can get very insistent that they do. And don't believe for a moment that only the rich will pay these taxes. It turns out that the so-called rich people aren't rich and they aren't even people. Many are struggling small businesses filing under subchapter S, small businesses that create two-thirds of the jobs in our economy. We are told: ``Don't worry. We are using that money to create wealth and jobs.'' Well, the problem is government does not create jobs because it cannot create wealth. Government cannot inject a dollar into the economy until it has first taken that dollar out of the same economy. As Bastiat warned, we see the job that government creates when it puts the dollar back in the economy. What we don't see as clearly is the job that is lost when government first takes that dollar out of the economy. We see those lost jobs as stagnating wages and workers giving up and leaving the job market, or as it is also known, the Obama economy. Here is what government can do and what the Progressive and Democratic budgets propose. It can transfer jobs from the private sector to the public sector by taxing one and expanding the other. It can transfer jobs from one sector of the private market to another by taxing one and subsidizing the other. That is precisely the difference between Apple Computer and Solyndra. It is the difference between FedEx and the post office. It is the difference between the Reagan recovery and the Obama recovery. Reagan, like Coolidge and Kennedy before him, reduced the tax and regulatory burdens on the economy and produced one of the longest economic expansions in our country's history. It truly felt like morning again in America. That is the Republican approach, and it works. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and I thank her for her leadership on this important issue. Mr. Chairman, for the first time in many years, this budget uses reconciliation for the purpose it was intended: to bring mandatory spending under control. The appropriations that dominate so much of the debate comprise less than one-third of our total spending, and that is called discretionary spending. The budget sets a level; the appropriations process spends to that level. That is everything from general government to defense. We have actually been able to bring that under control, but the other two-thirds of spending is called mandatory spending. It is beyond the annual control of Congress. It continues automatically until and unless the statutes that call for it are actually changed. It is the mandatory spending that is eating our country alive. Mandatory spending is supposed to be controlled by reconciliation. Instructions are sent to the various authorizing committees to make whatever changes are necessary in current law to stay within our means. But this powerful fiscal tool has been ignored or squandered in past budgets, and this neglect is undermining the solvency of our country. For the first time in many years, the House budget finally restrains mandatory spending by instructing our committees to find at least $200 billion in savings over the next decade. That means this budget will get us back to balance within the decade, and this is why it is so important. If the Democrats had their way and we maintain our current path, the Congressional Budget Office warns that in just 4 years, in 2022, our deficits will surpass $1 trillion a year. That is where economists warn we run the risk of damage or even loss of our access to credit, a sovereign debt crisis. If you want to know what that looks like, Venezuela is going through it right now, and within our own territory, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico--pension systems implode, basic services falter, the economy collapses. Two years after that, in 2024, 6 years from now, the CBO warns that the annual interest cost on our debt will reach $654 billion. That is more than we currently spend on defense. I would remind my friends on the left that you cannot provide for the common defense or promote the general welfare if you can't pay for it, and the ability of our country to do so is being undermined by our spending trajectory. At the same time, we charge the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world, sending trillions of dollars of capital and hundreds of thousands of jobs to other countries. In the last 8 years, we have averaged only half of our postwar economic growth. I remind my friends that corporations do not pay corporate taxes. Corporate taxes can only be paid in one of three ways: by consumers through higher prices, by employees through lower wages, by investors through lower earning. Cutting corporate taxes means lower prices for consumers, higher wages for employees, and higher earnings for investors. Tax relief is absolutely vital to reviving the economy, but experience does warn us that revenue growth only partially offsets revenue lost to tax reductions. Indeed, when we are told that the choice is between taxes and debt, those are two sides of the same coin. Taxes and debt are the only two possible ways to pay for spending. Once we have spent a dollar, we have already decided to tax it. We either tax it now, or we borrow it now and tax it later. Either way, it is entirely driven by spending. By restraining spending, this budget makes possible the tax relief that our economy desperately needs to grow. Frankly, we could do much more if we summon the political will, and I will be presenting such a budget tomorrow on behalf of the Republican Study Committee. But this budget moves us a long way in the right direction. It sets in motion the policies that Presidents from Calvin Coolidge to John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan have all used to revive and expand our economy. It brings us closer to that day when families will awaken to a new and prosperous morning for America.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Gosar of the Western Caucus for arranging this Special Order tonight and especially for his exemplary leadership as chairman of the Western Caucus. The wildfire crisis facing our forests across the West comes down to a very simple adage. Excess timber comes out of the forest one way or the other. It is either carried out or it burns out, but it comes out. When we carried out our excess timber, we had healthy resilient forests and we had thriving, prosperous communities. Excess timber sales from Federal lands not only generated revenues for our mountain communities, but created thousands of job. But in the 1970s, we adopted laws like the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act that have resulted in endlessly time-consuming and cost-prohibitive restrictions and requirements that have made the scientific management of our forests virtually impossible. Timber sales from our Federal lands has dropped 80 percent in the intervening years, with a concomitant increase in forest fires. In California alone, the number of saw mills has dropped from 149 in 1981 to just 27 today. Timber that once had room to grow healthy and strong now fights for its life against other trees trying to occupy the same ground. Average tree density in the Sierra Nevada is three to four times the density that the land can actually support. In this weakened condition, trees lose their natural defenses to drought and disease and pestilence, and they ultimately succumb to catastrophic wildfire. Three years ago, an estimated 25 million trees in the Sierra fell victim to these stressors. Two years ago, that number doubled to 50 million trees. Last year, more than 100 million dead trees are now waiting to burn in the Sierra. Well, after 45 years of experience with these environmental laws--all passed with the promise that they would improve our forest environment--I think we are entitled to ask: How's the forest environment doing? All around us the answer is damning. These laws have not only failed to improve our forest environment, but they are literally killing our forests. The same politicians responsible for these failed laws have recently conjured up two new excuses. One is climate change. The other is that we are putting out too many fires. Putting out too many fires? That invites an important question: Exactly which fires did they propose that we allow to burn? Perhaps the King fire that almost wiped out the towns of Georgetown and Foresthill on its way to Lake Tahoe in 2014? Or perhaps the Detwiler fire this year that almost wiped out the town of Mariposa on its way to the Yosemite Valley? Or any one of the more than 1,000 fires in the Sierra that CAL FIRE has put out this year, any one of which could have grown into a megafire but for the vigilance and competence of our fire agencies? Which of these fires would they allow to burn into a conflagration? True, controlled burns play an important role in clearing out underbrush, but as firefighters bitterly complained to me at the command center at the Detwiler fire this year, these same laws make it virtually impossible to get permits to do the controlled burns. The other reason that we hear is climate change. Well, let's put that to the smell test. Throughout our vast forests, it is often very easy to visually identify the property lines between well-managed private forests and the neglected Federal lands. Now, I have seen it myself on aerial inspections. The private managed forests are green, healthy, and thriving. The neglected Federal forests are densely overcrowded and often scarred by fire because we can't even salvage the fire-killed timber while it still has value. You can literally tell from the condition of the forest where the property line is. How clever of our climate to know exactly what is the boundary line between private and government lands. And if carbon dioxide is the problem, doesn't it make sense to mill fully grown trees to sequester the carbon and replace them with young, growing trees that absorb much higher levels of carbon? But, again, these same laws prevent this. This is not complicated. Our forests are catastrophically overgrown. Drought is a catalyst. It is not the cause. In overgrown forests, much snow evaporates in dense canopies and cannot reach the ground. The transpiration volume in an overgrown forest is a big problem in a normal rain year; in a drought, it becomes lethal. Pestilence is a catalyst; it is not a cause. Healthy trees can naturally resist bark beetles; stressed trees cannot. A properly managed forest matches the tree density to the ability of the land to support it, but we cannot properly manage our forests because of the laws now in place. Mr. Westerman's Resilient Federal Forests Act and other measures will restore proper scientific management of our national forests, but we are running out of time to enact them, because we are running out of forests to save. Mr. Speaker, I again thank the gentleman for yielding today, I thank him for his leadership, and I thank him for arranging this hour tonight.