Natural Resources
In the last decade, more than 68 million acres of land in the United States have been destroyed by wildfires. Last month, as we toured Utah's 1st Congressional District together, we witnessed firsthand the aftermath of several recent wildfires ranging from the high Uintas to Parleys Canyon.
More than 75 million acres across America have burned in the last decade. The California cities of Paradise and Concow were both destroyed in 2018, and tragically, 349 wildfire-related fatalities have occurred in the past 20 years.
Last weekend I had the opportunity to lead a trip to McCallen, Texas, with several other Congress members to see for ourselves the results of the immigration crisis at our southern border. What we witnessed was shocking.
This year, we celebrate the 245th birthday of the United States. Independence Day is a great day to picnic with friends, spend time outside, and enjoy a fireworks show, but it is also much more than that. It is our duty to honor the men and women who, for the past two and a half centuries, have kept our county free.
Could growing a trillion trees be the key to addressing climate change? Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., Congress' only forester, says yes.
For too long, those on the Left have pushed the false narrative that only they care about our environment, attempting to dominate the environmental policy conversation. This could not be further from the truth. Conservation is a core tenant of Conservatism. Republican President Teddy Roosevelt, widely considered the father of conservation, established the National Park System.
WASHINGTON – Today, Representatives Bruce Westerman (R-AR), Rick Crawford (R-AR), French Hill (R-AR), and Steve Womack (R-AR), along with Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and John Boozman (R-AR) sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Regan and Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Pinkham condemning the decision by the EPA and the U.S.
When COVID-19 kept millions of Americans home, many of us spent our free time checking off home improvement projects that had been on our lists for years. Updated shelves, a new garden shed, maybe even an addition to the kitchen – there was more time than ever to do it yourself. It wasn't just homeowners, either, as many restaurants constructed covered outdoor dining areas.
The two main benchmarks of environmental health are clean air and clean water. Healthy forests are critical for both. Unfortunately, years of catastrophic wildfires across the western United States have decimated many of our forests, turning critical wildlife habitats into ash and making it more difficult for trees to regenerate naturally.
Anyone who lives in the Natural State knows that Arkansas is one of the nation's greatest forest regions, and one of the country's leading producers of timber, harvesting more than 24 million tons per year, worth an estimated $445 million to landowners.