00:00Without objection the gentleman is recognized for one minute. Thank you
00:05Mr. Speaker. There's a fund called the Secure Rural Schools. It was enacted by
00:11Congress decades ago to replace the timber receipts used to have we had a
00:16strong forest industry especially in the West. It's been run out by a lot of
00:20environmental policy and turned out to be erroneous. See the spotted owl. So we've
00:25had to in Congress put forward this Secure Rural Schools funding in order
00:32to backlog backfill excuse me what local counties local school districts used to
00:37have from timber receipts. So good news is that this piece is in the House
00:42Agriculture Reconciliation Bill. So that's good news for these rural counties that
00:47have been waiting for a long time since it's already expired back in March. It
00:52is a lifeline for many areas in rural rural America. Federal government
00:56controls so much land. Some states it's somewhere between 40 and 80 percent of
01:00the land that counties can't collect property taxes on when the timber
01:04harvest isn't happening anymore like it used to. And for some reason the United
01:07States is the number one importer of wood and wood products. Instead we burn
01:11millions of acres every year in the West. So SRS was created as a promise. If
01:16Washington is going to tie up these lands and needs to help fund the basic
01:19services that these counties need. I yield back. For what purpose does the
01:25gentleman from Indiana seek recognition? Mr. Speaker I ask Indiana's consent to address
01:30this.
