McClintock for Congress Blog

Sen. McClintock spoke on the floor of the State Senate in opposition to the Democrats’ unbalanced version of the state budget which included a 1 cent sales tax increase, August 29, 2008.

Mr. President:

Last year, when some in this chamber assured us that the budget was not only balanced, but included the biggest budget reserve in the state’s history, others of us issued an urgent warning that the budget was dangerously unbalanced and that we were fast running out of the time needed to implement reforms.

The State Controller reports that during last year we received $96 billion in revenues – a new record — but spent $107 billion.  And now we’re running out of money.

I am concerned that conventional budget reductions alone will no longer bridge the fiscal gap without severely impacting delivery of vital services.

We have centralized and unionized and bureaucratized our service delivery systems to the point they can no longer adequately perform the basic tasks for which they were designed.

Simply stated, we have created a bureaucracy we cannot afford.

We cannot afford spending 1/3 of a million dollars per classroom when only a fraction of that actually trickles into the classroom to educate our kids.

We cannot afford spending $42,000 to house a prisoner when Florida does it for $18,000 and the federal government for $26,000.

We are going to have to clear away the massive bureaucracy in our public schools that does nothing to educate our children and instead put teachers back in charge of their classrooms, put principals back in charge of their teachers – including the authority to hire and fire — and put parents back in charge of their principals through their local school boards.

We are going to have to rescind the sweetheart labor contracts in our prisons, restoring management authority to the wardens and contracting out at least 50,000 prison beds.

We are going to have to replace the massive bureaucracy in our health system with a simple prepaid refundable tax credit to bring within the reach of every family a basic health plan of their selection.

This is the only way we are going to be able to maintain vital services without bankrupting the state.  But if the consensus does not exist to enact conventional budget reductions, it certainly doesn’t exist to enact a fundamental restructuring.

During my 22 years in this legislature, I and others have laid out all these proposals, but they have fallen on deaf ears.  There is some bitter irony in the fact that those who have voted against these proposals year after year accuse Republicans of not offering alternatives when that is all we have done year after year.  But at some point very soon, these reforms, or others like them, will have to be enacted.

Senator Ducheny tells us that the budget before us is a baseline budget; that it merely continues business as usual.  The problem is that business as usual produced $11 billion of red ink and we cannot afford to do so again.

Nor can I agree that the path to fiscal recovery is through taking the highest sales tax in the nation and raising it still higher with the second biggest tax increase in the state’s history.  In that respect, I agree with Barak Obama who last night said: “In an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.”  And yet that’s the first thing this budget does.

I was here in 1991, and I warn you that raising the sales tax did not improve our finances – it made them worse.

The census bureau reports that in the last two years, a half million more people have moved out of California than have moved in.  The historic migration FROM Oklahoma and Arkansas TO California in the 1930’s has now reversed itself in an historic outmigration of Californians TO those states with lower taxes and vastly less burdensome regulations (including Oklahoma and Arkansas).  The difference is that the dust-bowl migration was caused by an act of God – the new migration is caused by acts of government – OUR government.

Those acts are fully within our power to reverse – but that will mean reversing the policies that have wrecked the once Golden State of California.

I would conclude with an observation on process.  It is good that for the first time since the budget deadline we finally have a formal budget proposal on the Senate floor to begin deliberations.  But it is unfortunate that this did not arrive on our floor in May.  And it should have stayed on this floor day after day until it cleared the 27 votes needed to send it to a conference committee.

So I would ask those of you who voted to send an empty budget bill directly to the conference committee earlier this year to contemplate the damage that was done by bypassing the entire legislative process.  And I would express the hope that the next session of the Senate finally return to the traditions and procedures that served this state so well for many, many decades and that produced relatively balanced and relatively punctual state budgets.

McClintock Campaign Distributes First Comparison District Mailer

Sen. Tom McClintock’s is out the door with a major endorsement.  Former Congressman Doug Ose, McClintock’s GOP primary opponent, has endorsed McClintock in a mail piece that is arriving in the mailboxes of district residents.  Labor Day traditionally marks the start of fall campaigns and voters will soon receive the comparison piece that highlights just how liberal Charlie Brown actually is.

Democrats have spent the week trying to spin unity in Denver.  When it comes to the 4th congressional seat, the GOP is united.  McClintock’s campaign reported that Ose called McClintock the day after the election to congratulate and endorse his opponent.   Ose was gracious.  Now, McClintock is highlighting the Ose endorsement in the first of many direct mail pieces that voters will receive.

“When it comes to the issues that matter to us, there’s simply no comparison between our candidates for Congress. That’s why I support Tom McClintock,” states Doug Ose.  The mailer is a two-sided comparison piece that highlights the positions and issues of McClintock and Democrat Charlie Brown.  The issues highlighted are energy, taxes and spending, illegal immigration and gay marriage.

McClintock spokesman Stan Devereux said, “Congressman Doug Ose is a fierce competitor and we appreciate having his support as we work together to defeat Charlie Brown. This mailer is the first comparison piece highlighting the positions of Tom McClintock and Charlie Brown.   It’s crystal clear that Charlie Brown is liberal and very partisan.”

As evidence, Devereux listed the issues highlighted in the mailer.

McClintock signed the “No New Taxes” pledge and insists that Congress pass a real balanced budget where we live within our means.  McClintock challenged Brown to outline his opposition to raising taxes.  Brown called on California lawmakers to approve a state budget that includes tax increases.

“The no tax pledge is so important.  And that’s why Charlie Brown’s insistence on passing a budget with the second biggest tax increase in the history of California is so appalling – and why it’s important to understand what it would do to our economy,” said McClintock.

On energy, McClintock recently challenged Brown to join him in a bipartisan approach and ask Speaker Nancy Pelosi to end her vacation and reconvene Congress for a vote on an energy plan.  Brown has refused to buck Nancy Pelosi given that his first vote in Congress would be to elect her House speaker.  McClintock wants to end the moratorium on tapping America’s vast oil reserves offshore and in Alaska.  Taking a strong partisan position, Charlie Brown opposes drilling for new oil remaining

On immigration, McClintock supports completing the border wall and deploying our armed forces along the US-Mexico border to stop the flow of illegal aliens into our nation.  McClintock also opposes amnesty and opposes giving illegal aliens benefits like social security, in-state college tuition and driver’s licenses.  Charlie Brown supports amnesty for illegal aliens.

On social issues, McClintock strongly supports Proposition 8, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Charlie Brown supports Gay Marriage and opposes Proposition 8.

Devereux said, “The McClintock campaign believes that Charlie Brown is a Nancy Pelosi tax and spend liberal.  Charlie Brown is unable to take one position and stick to it.  He is trying to be all things to all people.  The Voters of the 4th congressional district need want to know how Charlie Brown would vote if he was elected to Congress.”

“You can’t support liberal positions on issues and raise money with the help of liberals like Brad Sherman and Barbara Lee and then call yourself a conservative Democrat,” Devereux said. “What’s the old saying about if it walks like a duck…?”

Click here to  see a copy of the mailer.

Sen. McClintock delivered this speech to the Nevada County Republican Central Committee Barbecue in Grass Valley, California, August 23, 2008

A funny thing is happening on the way to the Obama coronation. Americans are waking up and asking some basic questions, like:

Does anyone seriously believe our health care is going to be improved by handing it over to the same people who run the DMV and the Post Office?

Does anyone seriously believe that a House leadership that places William Jefferson on the Homeland Security Committee after he was caught with $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer has the best interests of our nation at heart?

Does anyone seriously believe that socialism will work any better in America than it did in the Soviet Union?

Nobody here does – and fewer and fewer people across the country do either as they begin taking a closer look.

And once they began asking those questions, the political tide began turning in our favor.  Just since the energy debate began in Washington last month, the Rasmussen poll has tracked a five point shift toward Congressional Republicans.  Last week, John McCain pulled even with Obama for the first time in the Gallup poll.

Another thing is happening: Americans are awakening to the fact that the Luddite Left of the Democratic Party has been blocking development of America’s vast energy resources and we’ve had enough.

Last month, my friend Charlie Brown announced that he was marching in lock step with Nancy Pelosi by opposing opening the 97 percent of our offshore and 94 percent of our onshore land that is currently off-limits to American oil production.  At a time when our families are struggling to afford a tank of gas, we have more than 800 billion barrels of American oil under American land that is off-limits to American production.  That’s three time the known petroleum in Saudi Arabia and enough oil to meet American needs for the next century.

But that’s just part of the damage they’ve done to American energy independence.  We Californians are already paying the highest electricity rates in the continental United States – and the utilities have just filed for another rate increase.

The cleanest and cheapest possible way to produce electricity is from our dams.  Hydroelectricity costs about 1 1/2 cents per kilowatt-hour (compared to 28-cents for solar energy).  At 1 ½ cents per kilowatt-hour, your average household electricity bill should come to about $90 – per year.

Meanwhile, water rationing now threatens our region although we have the most abundant water resources in the nation.

And yet, a short distance from here is the site of the Auburn Dam.  The footing was carved for that dam more than 30 years ago, but it was suspended because of opposition from people like Charlie Brown.

The Auburn Dam would generate 800 megawatts of the cleanest and cheapest electricity on the planet – enough for nearly a million families.  And it would conserve 2.3 million acre feet of water – enough for more than two million families.  And all this at a time when we can’t guarantee enough electricity to keep your air conditioner running or enough water to keep your lawn green.

And yet Charlie Brown has vowed to block the development of this vital local resource that promises both cheap electricity and abundant water for the people of this region.

Ronald Reagan was right: Government is not the solution to these problems – government has been the cause of these problems.

And this week Charlie Brown sent out an e-mail to supporters demanding that I vote for the state budget.  Ladies and gentlemen, that state budget contains the second biggest tax increase in the history of California.  It will cost an average family some $550 of additional taxes at a time when they’re struggling to pay their electricity bill, their gasoline bill and a tax burden that is already one of the highest in the nation.

That shouldn’t surprise us.  Charlie has already proposed an $18 billion tax increase on oil companies.  There’s only one problem with that.  Oil companies don’t pay oil company taxes.  WE CONSUMERS pay oil company taxes as they pass them along to us as higher prices.

An $18 billion tax increase at the federal level is nearly $200 of additional taxes an average family will pay at the pump.

So it should also come as no surprise that Charlie refuses to take the “No Tax Pledge” to protect the people of the 4th Congressional District from the massive tax increases that the Pelosi Congress is already preparing to unleash.

They have refused to make the Bush tax cuts permanent – and they have refused to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax.  And it is important to understand that their refusal to do so makes those tax increases automatic.  If they just sit there and do nothing those tax increases will take effect.  They are already set in motion.

That’s why the election is so important.  That’s why the no tax pledge is so important.  And that’s why Charlie Brown’s insistence on passing a budget with the second biggest tax increase in the history of California is so appalling – and why it’s important to understand what it would do to our economy.

The current state budget proposal that he demands be passed includes more than $5 billion of new taxes that will boost California’s sales tax to nearly 10 percent.

The last time we did this was in 1991, when Pete Wilson increased the California sales tax to almost 9 percent.

The first thing that happened is that retail sales in California fell faster in the next quarter than they had fallen in the previous thirty years.  Remember that 2/3 of economic growth depends on consumer spending – and a sales tax strikes at the heart of our economy.

And that’s exactly the next thing that happened.  The tax increases of 1991 sent California into an economic nose-dive.  The new taxes produced only a fraction of the new revenue that had been promised, and then produced two consecutive years of billion-dollar-a-year declines in state revenues as our economy imploded.

And that was at a time when the rest of the country was heading into an economic boom – imagine the damage that will be done to our economy at a time when the nation’s economy is faltering and our own unemployment rate is running frighteningly ahead of the national unemployment rate!

At least people can escape bad energy and tax policy in Sacramento by moving out of California.  Where can we go to escape bad energy and tax policy in Washington D.C.?

So here is my response to Charlie Brown:  Sorry, Charlie, I will not raise taxes.  I will not raise taxes in California. I will not raise taxes in Washington D.C.  I will not raise taxes, period.  And that is something the people of this district can take to the bank.

A year ago, Sam Aanestad and I and several other Senate Republicans warned that the state budget was dangerously out of balance and that we were running out of time to fix it.  We offered billions of dollars of spending reductions that would have prevented this fiscal meltdown.  Where was Charlie Brown then?  I know where his fellow Democrats were: they were crisscrossing the state assuring everyone that the budget was not only balanced but included the biggest budget reserve in the state’s history!

Here’s the good news: Americans are paying attention and they understand what’s at stake.  And I’m not just talking about Republicans.  Our voter ID calls in this Congressional race now indicate that we’re bringing in one in five Democrats who reject the Pelosi-Brown obstructionism on energy and who don’t share their exuberance for higher taxes.

I am confident that this district is now poised to send a clear and powerful message to Nancy Pelosi and her minions just 73 days from now: We want our country back.  We want our Constitution back.  We want our freedom back.  We want our energy independence back.  We have had it with your high taxes, your bloated bureaucracies, your empty promises and your endless obstruction of every attempt by American enterprise to restore American abundance and prosperity.

Ladies and gentlemen, what has happened to our country has happened on our generation’s watch, and it is our generation’s responsibility – and our generation’s destiny — to set things right.

And when history looks back upon this period, I believe it will record that just when it looked like our American rights might be consumed by the bureaucratic state, this generation of Americans rose to the defense of our liberties and when we were done, we had produced a new era of American freedom, prosperity and energy independence and abundance for generations to come.

Brown Refuses to Respond to Bipartisan Appeal by McClintock

State Senator Tom McClintock Friday again called on his Democratic opponent Charlie Brown to join him in a bi-partisan call for Nancy Pelosi to bring Congress back from vacation for a straight up or down vote on off-shore drilling.

“Charlie Brown really opposes offshore drilling and can’t muster the courage to tell the voters of the Fourth District his true position,” McClintock said.  “Brown is unable to explain his wildly inconsistent statements he has made on offshore drilling.  The fact is Charlie Brown opposes offshore drilling.”

Brown attended a fundraiser Wednesday night at an exclusive Beverly Hills fundraiser hosted by liberal Congressman Brad Sherman.  Sherman is one of the most vocal opponents of offshore drilling.

“Brown is raising money from the very people who are blocking this nation’s ability to become energy independent,” McClintock said.

On July 22, Brown announced his opposition to opening new American territory for offshore oil development.  Then, as recently as last Friday, the Brown campaign said the candidate favors both the Republican and Democratic proposals on energy.   The Republican plan, which McClintock endorses, calls for opening new offshore territory to oil exploration.

“You can’t be all things to all people, Charlie.  Take one position and stick with it,” McClintock said.

This speech was given by Senator McClintock on the floor of the State Senate opposing AB 2386 - Nunez. The measure passed with no Republican support.

The simple question I would pose to the supporters of this measure is, “What is it about the right to a secret ballot that bothers you?”

That’s exactly what this issue comes down to: the right of every worker to hear both sides of a question and then – in the privacy of a voting booth free from coercion, intimidation or recrimination – the worker is free to cast his or her ballot according to his or her own conscience and best judgment.

This right assures that whatever the pressure – whether from the employer, the union, from the supervisor, the shop steward, even from the spouse – that worker, in the private sanctity of the voting booth, can cast his or her own free decision – without worrying how it will  affect employment, or friendships, or working relationships.

This is the absolute, fundamental pre-condition for ANY democracy – NOBODY can look over your shoulder while you cast your vote.  NOBODY.

This measure utterly guts this fundamental principle upon which all free societies are based.  It provides that one side can cajole, pressure, threaten, plead, demand that a worker cast his or her vote while surrounded by other like-minded individuals.

This measure rips down the secret ballot as a bulwark of freedom … for farmworkers today – for others, no doubt just down the road.

An election in which somebody is looking over your shoulder as you cast your vote is no election at all.  It is a sham.

So I leave off as I began, with this simple question: “What is it about the right to a secret ballot that bothers you?”

Sen. McClintock delivered this speech to the Butte County Republican Party and the Chico/Oroville Republican Women Federated, “Mainstream America” BBQ, August 16, 2008

Thank you all for being here today; thank you for your hard work on behalf of our candidates and on behalf of our cause.

A funny thing is happening on the way to the Obama coronation. Americans are waking up and asking some basic questions, like:

Does anyone seriously believe our health care is going to be improved by handing it over to the same people who run the DMV and the Post Office?

Does anyone seriously believe that a House leadership that places William Jefferson on the Homeland Security Committee after he was caught with $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer has the best interests of our nation at heart?

Does anyone seriously believe that socialism will work any better in America than it did in the Soviet Union?

Nobody here does – and fewer and fewer people across the country do either as they begin taking a closer look.

And when they began asking those questions, the political tide began to turn in our favor.  Just since the energy debate began in Washington last month, the Rasmussen poll has tracked a FIVE POINT shift toward Congressional Republicans.  Yesterday, John McCain pulled even with Obama for the first time in the Gallup poll.

You need look no farther than the corner gas station to see what is at stake with this election.  And as people begin to do that, we are watching them rally to our cause.

Americans are finally awakening to the damage that the Luddite Left has done to our country, our economy and our lives by the governmental moratoriums and restrictions on energy development that liberals like Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Brown obstinately cling to.

According to the Bureau of Land Management, there are 38 billion barrels of oil under American soil (19 billion barrels onshore and another 19 billion offshore – that we KNOW is there) that Congress forbids developing.  But that’s just the beginning of known American oil reserves.  The Rand Institute reports that the Green River shale formation (covering portions of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming) holds a proven recoverable reserve of roughly 800 billion barrels of oil – that’s three times the petroleum reserves of Saudi Arabia.  And yet, an American Congress forbids us from developing this American oil and declaring our energy independence.

Put together, there is enough American oil under American land to provide for American needs for the next century at current rates of consumption.

And this doesn’t include additional fields that are yet to be discovered.  Brazil opened its offshore waters to oil exploration, and in January a new discovery increased its known reserves by 40 percent.  But in America, it’s illegal even to look for oil on 97 percent of our offshore land and 94 percent of our on-shore land.

Meanwhile, the vast oil fields off the coast of Florida that American law prevents Americans from developing are now being leased out by the Cuban government to Chinese, Indian, Canadian, Spanish, Norwegian and Malaysian companies in Cuban territory.

And still Nancy Pelosi and her supporters in Congress continue to block the development of these vast American oil reserves.  At least until today, when a small crack has appeared in her resolve.  Everett Dirksen was right, “When they feel the heat, they see the light.”

Not so my friend Charlie Brown.

He’s been saying he’s all for drilling – but only on the existing acreage which he assures us is sufficient to meet our oil needs.  Memo to Charlie: most of that land has already been explored and found to be dry and the little that can be developed IS being developed.

The Democrats’ energy policy reminds me of what Tolstoy once wrote about the Russian bureaucracy.  He said: “I sit on a man’s back choking him and making him carry me, and all the while I assure him and anyone who will listen that I am very sympathetic to his plight and I’m willing to do everything I can to help him – except by getting off his back.”

There’s an old saying – you hunt where the ducks are.  Sorry Charlie, but we need to drill where the OIL IS – and not where IT’S NOT.  There’s 19 BILLION barrels of known oil off our coasts – that remains off limits because of YOUR discredited policies and we need to drill there and drill there NOW.  There’s another 19 BILLION barrels of known oil under our own soil – 10 BILLION barrels of it in the desolate Arctic tundra – that remains off limits because of YOUR discredited policies and we need to drill there and drill there now.

And there’s 800 BILLION barrels of recoverable shale oil in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming – three times the oil resources of Saudi Arabia – that’s off limits because of your discredited policies and we need to drill there and drill there now.

Their excuses against opening American land for American production would be laughable if they weren’t destroying our economy, our independence and our quality of life in the process.

Out of one side of his mouth, Charlie argues that America’s oil reserves are only 2 – 6 percent of world energy supplies and won’t make a dent in prices.  Yet he then turns around and says that releasing a tiny fraction of that amount from the strategic reserve would bring a dramatic price reduction.  Go figure.

But the main point is he simply ignores our shale oil supply that makes Saudi Arabia look like a petroleum pigmy.

He also says that it will take years to develop these fields so it won’t have any impact on current prices.  (Of course, that’s the same argument we’ve heard from the liberals for many years as an excuse for crippling our oil production).  But the fact is, they were wrong then and they’re wrong NOW.  And if we had rejected them THEN we wouldn’t be in this mess NOW.

But the point is, current prices reflect future expectations – that’s how speculators drive up prices by betting on continued scarcity.

When President Bush announced the largely symbolic act of removing the executive ban on exploration, world oil prices tumbled that very day.   And since Nancy Pelosi turned out the lights, turned off the microphones and cameras and adjourned for a 5-week vacation, 100 Republican House members have been waging a daily debate on the house floor that has captured the attention of the world.

And let me ask you this. Since that debate has begun – since the mere prospect of opening up America’s vast oil resources has been raised – what have you seen happen to the price of gasoline?

Pelosi and Charlie want to create a massive new bureaucracy funded by taxes on oil companies.

I’ve got news for Charlie.  Oil companies don’t pay taxes.  Oil company taxes are paid by us as consumers through higher prices.

And the real tragedy is this: Our oil is owned by the people of the United States.  The profits of selling that oil go directly to the people of the United States.  According to one estimate, our off-limits offshore oil alone would produce a TRILLION dollars of new revenue for our nation WITHOUT increasing taxes. In fact, it would make it possible for a trillion dollar tax cut.

That’s not to say that petroleum is a permanent solution to our energy needs – far from it.  But the development of America’s oil resources would buy us the time to transition to hydrogen as the replacement for fossil fuels.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe – we have entire oceans filled with the stuff – but it takes vast amounts of electricity to separate it.  In order to produce cheap hydrogen, we must first generate cheap electricity.  And once again, Charlie Brown and the Luddite Left would stand in our way.

The cleanest and cheapest possible way to produce electricity is from our dams.  Hydroelectricity costs about 1 1/2 cents per kilowatt-hour (compared to 28-cents for solar energy).  At 1 ½ cents per kilowatt-hour, your monthly electricity bill should come to about $90 – per year.

A short distance from here is the site of the Auburn Dam.  The footing was carved for that dam more than 30 years ago, but it was suspended because of the Luddite Left.

The Auburn Dam would generate 800 Megawatts of the cleanest and cheapest electricity on the planet – enough for nearly a million families.  And it would conserve 2.3 million acre feet of water – enough for more than 2 million families. All this at a time when we can’t guarantee enough electricity to keep your air conditioning going or enough water to keep your lawn green this summer.

And yet Charlie Brown has vowed to block the development of this vital local resource that promises both cheap electricity and abundant water for the people of this region.

Ronald Reagan was right: Government is not the solution to these problems – government has been the cause of these problems.

And to change these foolish policies, we have GOT to change this Congress – and that’s what this election is all about.

Eighty days from now, the people of the Fourth Congressional District will send a clear and powerful message to Nancy Pelosi and her minions: We want our country back.  We want our freedom back.  We want our energy independence back.  We have had it with your high taxes, your bloated bureaucracies, your empty promises and your endless obstruction of every attempt by American enterprise to restore American abundance and prosperity.

I can say that with some confidence.  In the recall election in 2003, more than half of my votes came from NON-REPUBLICANS.  When people are paying attention and actually listening to the candidates, legions of voters who have never thought of themselves as Republicans rally to our cause.

We used to call them the Reagan Coalition – and they’re still out there.

In 2006, I received 36,000 more votes running for Lt. Governor IN THE FOURTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT than Charlie Brown received running for Congress.

Ladies and gentlemen, what has happened to our country has happened on our generation’s watch, and it is our generation’s responsibility – and our generation’s destiny — to set things right.

And when history looks back upon this period, I believe it will record that just when it looked like our American rights might be consumed by the bureaucratic state, this generation of Americans rose to the defense of our liberties and when we were done, we had produced a new era of American freedom, prosperity and energy independence and abundance for generations to come.

Speech by Sen. McClintock to the California Wildfire Prevention Summit

A generation ago, we recognized the importance of proper wild lands management.  We recognized that nothing is more devastating to the ecology of a forest than a forest fire.  And we recognized that public lands should be managed for the benefit of the public.  We recognized that in any living community – including forests – dense over-population is unhealthy.

And so we carefully groomed our public lands, removing excessive vegetation and giving timber the room it needs to grow.  Surplus timber and undergrowth were sold for the benefit of our communities.  Our forests prospered and our economy prospered.  And forest fires were far less numerous and far less intense than we see today.

But that was before a radical ideology was introduced into public policy – that we should abandon our public lands to overpopulation, overgrowth, and in essence, benign neglect.

We are now living with the result of that ideology.  Forest fires, fueled by decades of pent up overgrowth are now increasing in their frequency and intensity and destruction.

The first victim of this wrong-headed policy is the environment itself.  Recent forest fires in this region made a mockery of all of our clean-air regulations.  Anyone who has seen a forest after one of these fires knows that the environmental devastation could not possibly be more complete.

But the cost of these policies doesn’t end there.  Timber is a renewable resource – if properly managed it is literally an inexhaustible source of prosperity.  And yet, a region blessed with the most bountiful renewable resource in the state has been rendered economically prostrate.  A region that once prospered from its surplus timber now is ravaged by fires that are fueled by that surplus timber.

This is not environmentalism – true environmentalists recognize the damage done by overgrowth and overpopulation and recognize the role of sound forest management practices in maintaining healthy forests.

We are beginning to recognize the damage done by this Luddite ideology to our energy independence and the horrific fires are bringing into sharp focus the damage that it has done to the safety, prosperity, and environmental health of our forests.

I want to commend the organizers of today’s hearing as we begin restoring the role of common sense and modern forestry management to our public lands.

Sen. McClintock’s Speech At the Summit