Butch Blazer, New Mexico State Forester, gave testimony on the western impacts of the 2007 Energy Bill, with particular focus on woody bioenergy opportunities and failings with the new Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS). Copies of the testimony can be found at http://www.wflcweb.org/infomaterials/testimonies.php

A New West editorial finds hope in the House passage of the FLAME Act, though the author notes the State Foresters' call for a critical fix to the legislation currently under consideration by the Senate.

Press release - House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-WV) announced that at his request, the House of Representatives will consider on Wednesday, July 9, under suspension of the rules, the "Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act" (FLAME Act) (HR. 5541). Consideration of the much-needed legislation comes just weeks into the unprecedented forest fires that have scorched Big Sur, Santa Barbara County, and other communities up and down the coast of California, and have ravaged public lands throughout the Nation in past years.

Reuters: Congress on Wednesday overturned President George W. Bush's second veto of the $289 billion U.S. farm law, enacting 35 pages omitted from the original bill in the third veto override of Bush's tenure. The rest of the farm bill became law on May 22, when the first override was passed. A clerical error deleted farm-export and food aid programs which now are part of the law.

In his remarks on the Senate floor, Craig said: "So if you are going to create a new world, a greener world, a cleaner world, one that has less carbon in it, you have to have a forest policy that begins to revitalize our forests, to thin them, to clean them, to change the kind of ecosystem in them that doesn’t tolerate 180 million acres of dead and dying trees that will release hundreds of millions of tons of carbon into the environment..."