Thanks to Congressman Jim Leach for his vote against this bill.

From American Lands:
Yesterday the U.S. House passed the "Healthy Forests Restoration Act of
2003." This misguided piece of wildfire legislation does virtually nothing
to help protect rural homeowners from wildfire. Instead, the bill severely
limits citizen participation, undermines key environmental laws and
authorizes an additional $125 million in taxpayer subsidies to log tens of
millions of acres of federal public lands.

The very premise of the "Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003" - and the
Bush administration's "Healthy Forest Initiative" - were seriously
undermined by last week's General Accounting Office report which found that
95% of the 762 Forest Service fuels reduction projects it reviewed were
ready for implementation within the standard 90 day review period.

Andrew George, campaign coordinator with the National Forest Protection
Alliance - a national network of over 130 grassroots conservation groups -
explained "This bill and the Bush administration's so-called 'Healthy Forest
Initiative' endangers rural homeowners, endangers the health of our National
Forests and endangers the right of every American citizen to participate in
the management of our public lands.

      BILL TITLE:  Healthy Forests Restoration Act

                             AYES NOES Not Voting
REPUBLICAN     214         12           2
DEMOCRATIC     42         157         6
INDEPENDENT                   1
TOTALS               256        170         8

Votes of interest

--- AYES     256 ---
King
Latham
Nussle

--- NOES    170 ---
Kucinich
Leach

--- NOT VOTING   ---
Boswell
Gephardt

You can find the final vote at:
http://clerkweb.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.exe?year=2003&rollnumber=200

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