mr. heinrich: i would ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. heinrich: i would ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to legislative session and income a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. heinrich: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 11:00 a.m. wednesday, january 5, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. that upon the conclusion of morning business, the senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the witkowsky nomination. further, that if any nominations are confirmed during wednesday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action.

mr. chairman. >> senator heinrich. >> thank you, chairman. this to french, in your you said that recreation on national forest system lands sustains more private sector jobs than any other forest service program and provides the single largest economic stimulus for many local communities adjacent or within national forest lands. i want to ask you to dig in a little deeper in debt and give us a sense of scale. so there are number of economic activities on forest service land. >> we got the timber program, the grazing program. how do these things stack up against each other? what portion of economic activity that occurs on forest lands today is a result of the outdoor recreation economy? and how does it compare to other sectors? >> it doris other sectors. here's what i'll do is i can give to you senator daschle dwarfs -- the break and we do every year on those financial impact. also get into the early question because at every five years on every single national forest and what they produce. but i by far when you look att as a comparison, the o

you may recall just last week when he was asked by howard jackie heinrich about the threat of a possible russian invasion up ukraine, mr. biden was asked if he was waiting on putin. he said but a question. you can add that that his shouting at phil at the old news conference and now today muttering this about peter ducey after he asked this. >> you see this as up liability of the midterm works. >> what a son of a. >> there you have it. for his part, he actually called peter ducey tonight and told him it was nothing personal. peter told sean hannity with the world and the brink and all the stuff going on, he said he appreciated the fact that the president took couple minutes to give them a call and clear the air, but he said i don't need anybody to apologize to me. to be fair president trump did call politicos the same in office after leaving office but the difference is the press recoiled in pro clutching back there and today not so much. shannon. >> well, it's gotten a little heated in these briefings every few years. very classy to make the phone call even though peter set said it wasn't necessary. kevin, thank you v

mr. barrasso. we'll have some of our senators speak about their bills. i'll turn to senator heinrich. >> thank you, chairman. i want to thank both you and ranking member barrasso for holding this hearing. i want to speak real briefly about the s.o.r.e. act, this is about permit reform. before i had this job i used to do this kind of thing for a living. i took people into the back country for backpacking, for rafting trips, for educational trips. and i can speak from experience, how difficult the permitting process is, how burdensome, how byzantine. and usually not -- in many cases, not with a better outcome for the lands that are used in all of this. this legislation really seeks to streamline that process, to make it more user friendly, to make it more flexible, especially in the face of some of the challenges we have with, you know, you can lose a whole season to a wildfire under current circumstances. and oftentimes the old system was just not built to flexibly respond to some of those huge events. so i look forward to discussing it more with my colleagues. i want to thank senator