Re-focusing on healthy forest management

For the last four years, I’ve had the privilege to represent Central Washington and the Pacific Northwest’s interests as Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, which oversees a wide range of issues involving public lands and many of the related environmental laws.

What happens on our public forests – particularly in the Pacific Northwest – has lasting impacts on the forestry industry as a whole. To have a robust forest policy with a supply certainty, the public lands need to do their part to contribute to that supply certainty.

Here in the West, where the federal government owns so...