For Immediate Release – September 22nd, 2020 Contact: Savannah Glasgow – (202) 525-8538
(Washington, DC) – Congressman Doug LaMalfa issued the following statement after he, Senator Daines (R-MT), and other members of the Western Caucus sent a letter to congressional leadership urging for the immediate consideration of H.R. 7978, the Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act. H.R. 7978 would streamline forest management projects in the West, train a new generation of forestry professionals and firefighters, increase projects to clear California’s 150 million dead and dying trees, incentivize biomass collection, expedite permitting for the installation of wildfire detection equipment, expand the use of satellite data to assist wildfire response, and expand existing grants to allow for the retrofitting homes and buildings with wildfire resilient materials.
LaMalfa said: “The West is on fire and our firefighting capabilities are overextended. There have been 26 fatalities and over 3.1 million acres burned in California just this year. This urgent situation is the product of neglected forests and decades of bad forestry policy. Senator Daines and I are urging congressional leadership to take up legislation that we are leading that will serve as a long-term solution to our forestry problem and prevent wildfires from ravaging the West in the future. This fire season is a prime example of how badly this legislation is needed, and leadership in the House and Senate need to consider it immediately.”
You can find a copy of the letter here or below.
September 22, 2020
Dear Leader McConnell, Leader Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, and Leader McCarthy,
This wildfire season is far from over and already wildland fires have ravaged over six million acres of land across the West costing lives and property, compromising our air and water quality, decimating wildlife habitat, and destroying otherwise productive timberland. Hundreds of thousands of families have been forced to flee their homes, proliferating the impacts of the current health and economic crisis we face.
While Congress has enacted meaningful forestry provisions in recent years, it is clear we must do more or our communities will continue pay the price. Wildfires have no physical boundaries, and neither should they have political ones. When a fire is ignited, federal, state, and local entities come together as one, regardless of political affiliation, to coordinate emergency response and protect communities. That same spirit of collaboration is possible in Congress as we seek sound solutions to improve our forests. We urge you to build on the bipartisan reforms enacted in 2014 and 2018 and take action to protect at-risk communities by accelerating bold, broad, bipartisan forest management reform before the end of the year.
Fuel, weather, and topography comprise the three legs of the Wildland Fire Behavior Triangle. Of those components, fuel is the only factor we have the ability to manage. Yet year after year fuels accumulate in our forests as management projects go neglected, delayed or obstructed. There is a clear correlation between the decline in timber harvests experienced on our National Forests and the increase in intensity and size of wildfires over the past three decades—both of which have had lasting impacts on the economic vitality of Western, rural communities. While our forests burn, our economic, recreational, and aesthetic capital burns with it.
While we recognize the ecological role wildfires can play in ecosystems, the severity and intensity of wildfires supersede that which should be occurring. Bureaucratic processes, burdensome regulations, external pressure, and judicial activism hamstrings our federal agencies from completing work on the ground in a timely manner. We must arm our federal land agencies with the tools they require to sustain the health and productivity of our nation’s forests. Doing so is compatible with efforts to reduce emissions, as well-managed forests and the buildings constructed by the sustainable wood products that come from them have the potential to sequester carbon.
It is clear that we are past the point of merely discussing forest policies—we need bold forest management reform now. Over the course of the last two years, Western Caucus Members have introduced several legislative proposals that would improve the health and resiliency of our forests and promote active management surrounding at-risk communities. The bicameral and bipartisan Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act is one such proposal that contains comprehensive forestry reforms and is supported by a strong coalition of stakeholders. We believe this offers the best starting point for broad forest management reform.
Wildfires don’t heed political lines, they impact all Americans the same. During these hyperpartisan times, there aren’t many issues that unite both Republicans and Democrats, but managing our forests to protect our communities can be one of them. Thank you for considering this request, and we look forward to partnering with you to enact forest management reform this year.
Sincerely,
Rep. Doug LaMalfa
Sen. Steve Daines
Sen. James E. Risch
Sen. Kevin Cramer
Sen. Mike Crapo
Sen. Martha McSally
Rep. Paul Gosar
Rep. Don Young
Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers
Rep. John R. Curtis
Rep. Louie Gohmert
Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson
Rep. Russ Fulcher
Rep. Ken Calvert
Rep. Greg Gianforte
Rep. Ken Buck
Rep. Debbie Lesko
Rep. Pete Stauber
Rep. Paul Cook
Rep. Larry Bucshon, M.D.
Rep. David Schweikert
Rep. Mike Simpson
Rep. Tom McClintock
Rep. Mark E. Amodei
Rep. Jeff Duncan
Rep. Rick Crawford
Rep. Dusty Johnson
Congressman Doug LaMalfa is a lifelong farmer representing California’s First Congressional District, including Butte, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou and Tehama Counties.
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