11 



Mr. DeFazio. Yes. Environmental infrastructure. Forest infra- 

 structure. 



Mr. Vento. Mr. Smith has a question or a comment. 



Mr. DeFazio. If I may, Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to make one 

 statement, and I would be happy to yield to the gentleman. 



I just want to say that what we have here, and what I stumbled 

 on in trying to look at the forest health issue, is that when you 

 stick your neck out a little bit on these issues you find that the 

 timber industry and the environmental community and many other 

 interests are very willing to talk about this and come to the table 

 and try and resolve this. Obviously our colleague has been able to 

 bridge that gap already with his legislation in the State of Oregon 

 and in the Northwest. I am still working on that to perfect it in 

 terms of my bill getting the support of the environmental commu- 

 nity plus the timber industry. But this I think is a message for the 

 Congress to continue working in this area, because we have these 

 pent-up demands on the forests, and I think we are going to hear 

 from the Chief on that- because he has written to me about where 

 they can start these projects immediately. The benefits to the for- 

 ests and to our Nation are documented. 



So I think it is incumbent upon us in these committees and the 

 Members of Congress to continue to work to see if we can pass leg- 

 islation and work in this area. I commend the gentleman for bring- 

 ing us his proposal. 



I would yield to the gentleman. 



Mr. Smith. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just wanted to 

 make a point to my friend. He mentioned the Congressional Re- 

 search Service. Frankly, I don't have much respect nor depend 

 much on their thoughts. Everybody aroimd here knows the major- 

 ity party runs the Congressional Research Service, and it is kind 

 of like playing Jeopardy. When the majority party wants an answer 

 they send it down to the Congressional Research Service and then 

 CRS fills in the question. [Laughter.] 



Mr. Wyden. I would only say to my friend, besides expressing 

 the fact that I always respect what he has to say, the gentleman 

 who did the work on this particular CRS study used to work for 

 the National Forest Products Association, and I do not know of any 

 criticisms that have been made with respect to his reforestation ef- 

 forts. There have been other issues that have been more debatable, 

 but I think the fact that our friend Wally Herger is on this legisla- 

 tion, and my colleague has been on many of my bills over the 

 years, attests to the fact that we want to go about this in a biparti- 

 san way. 



And I think that the work that CRS has done on this particular 

 issue with respect to reforestation is not open to some of the debate 

 that has been held on other issues. 



I theink my friend. 



Mr. DeFazio. If the gentleman would yield further, have got to 

 say that I didn't know that rule prevailed. I once got an answer 

 that I didn't want from the American Law Division. So either thev 

 just didn't know that I was a Democrat, or perhaps I should ask 

 for an investigation of how they came to that conclusion, if that is 

 the way it is supposed to work. 



