For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 3, 2003

Statement by the Press Secretary

Today the President signed the following bill into law:

H.R. 1904, the "Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003," to improve the capacity of the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior to conduct hazardous fuels reduction projects on National Forest System lands and Bureau of Land Management lands aimed at protecting communities, watersheds, and certain other at-risk lands from catastrophic wildfire, and to enhance efforts to protect watersheds and address threats to forest and rangeland health, including catastrophic wildfire, across the landscape.

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