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The Hunting Bayou and Greens Bayou watersheds have experienced major flooding over the years and are crying out for investment to protect the hundreds of thousands of residents and businesses in those areas.

I think the federal government really should be supporting Louisiana and ensuring that every person from that area has an opportunity to vote on what will occur in the area.

I'm excited and encouraged to see people getting involved with their public lands and forests. We really need the public's help to repair these heavily used recreation sites.

I needed to explain that Louisiana's coast accepts the drainage from two-thirds of the United States and, while the necessary levees constructed upstream have prevented floods, they have also contributed to problems downstream.

With today's mass media obsession, it's good to be able to raise awareness about our environment.

The environmental movement's focus on the Keystone XL pipeline issue really used to baffle me.

We don't think much about climate change and rising sea levels here in the U.S. Beyond a few gardeners, birders and hikers who notice the changes in our own ecosystem, we live on, blissfully unaware of our changing Earth. Our storms - Katrina, Sandy - are dismissed as once-in-a-century events.

I had in mind a message, although I hope it doesn't intrude too badly, persuading Americans, and especially Southerners, of the critical importance of land and our vanishing natural environment and wildlife.

What happened after Katrina is that people were stirred to action; there were an enormous number of contributions by people trying to make a difference. But then we forget. We've forgotten Katrina victims, we've forgotten the face of poverty.

As one of the voices of rural New Yorkers in Congress, I am committed to supporting efforts such as these that will make a real impact in people's lives.