Bruce Westerman

There's a bipartisan bill that's making its way through called the Fix Our Forest Act, and it's being built around expanded thinning and logging as a wildfire mitigation tool as well.

Uh, this is something that was introduced by a Republican, Bruce Westerman, but also has support of even California Democrats like Alex Padilla.

Um, and they're calling it a critical piece of legislation aimed at addressing the escalating threat of catastrophic wildfires.

Critics on the House Natural Resources Committee call it a logging bill, which has been cynically masquerading as a community wildfire protection measure.

I'd love to hear him read Shakespeare.

Yeah, Bruce Westerman.

Yeah, Westerman was the other guy.

Yeah.

Yeah, and just to share a few more details on the House side.

So Congressman Westerman is the Republican bill lead on the House side, and Congressman Huffman is the Dem lead.

And They've just been very committed, as are Senator Daines and King, to a very bipartisan approach, and they've negotiated these bills.

The bills have passed both their respective committees in the House and the Senate.

You've been a great Interior Secretary.

We appreciate you being here, Doug, along with Representatives Addison, McDowell, August Pflueger, and Bruce Westerman.

Stand up, fellas.

You guys have been fantastic.

You can view the full list of those agency reforms in our show notes, which span vessel speed rules to the removal of monument-based fishing regulations.

Finally, last week, the House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman, a Republican from Arkansas, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman Paul Gosar, a Republican from Arizona, and 15 committee members launched an investigation, quote, conducting oversight related to the outsized influence preservationist environmental nonprofit organizations wield over the federal government law and natural resources policy, end quote.

The committee is particularly concerned with what they are calling, quote, the organization's coordinated capitalization on misleading and emotive messaging to build powerful and profitable litigation machines funded by taxpayer dollars through the exploitation of statutory fee shifting provisions, end quote.

What is fee shifting? Well, it's the common, long-standing practice of having attorney's fees reimbursed after successfully litigating, in these cases, one of the numerous infractions by this administration of natural resource laws, like the Endangered Species Act or the National Environmental Policy Act.