Good morning and welcome.

Noxious weeds are a serious problem on both public and private lands across the nation. They are particularly troublesome here in the West where much of our land is intrusted to the management of the federal government.  The spread of noxious weeds have been compared to a slow burning wildfire, that takes land out of production, forces native species off the land, and interrupts the commerce and activities of all those who rely on the land for their livelihoods  – especially farmers, ranchers, and recreationists.

Because of these problems, in January I introduced the Plant Protection Act which will focus the efforts of the federal government to better fight this wildfire.  It organizes and expands the function of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and appoints it as the lead government agency in this fight.

This bill generated a lot of discussion and several suggestions for improvement.  Last week I introduced S. 910, the “Noxious Weed Coordination and Plant Protection Act.” that incorporates some of the suggestions, including improving the Presidents Executive Order by providing more state representation in the development of an Invasive Species Management Plan and shortening the deadline for an action plan by nine months.

Federal land’s should be good neighbors and right now they are not.  Noxious weeds are estimated to spread at the rate of 4,600 acres per day on federal lands in the Western United States.  Noxious weeds do not recognize property boundaries, so if we want to win this war on weeds, we need to be fighting at the federal, State and local levels.

With the passage of this legislation, I hope to provide the authority the federal land managers need to take part in this fight.  I am also working to increase federal appropriations for both research and weed fighting.  With the coordination of federal, state, local, university, and private resources into one unified effort, we can win this war on weeds.

I welcome the panel’s here today and thank you for taking time out of your weekend to discuss noxious weeds and plant pests.  I would like to remind the panels that their entire testimony will be submitted for the record and ask that they summerize their statements to no more than 5 minutes so we have time hear from everyone today.