Accurately Counting Risk Elimination Solutions Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. TIFFANY. Madam Speaker, in spite of what was just said on the other side of the aisle, I want to invite the gentleman from California to Wisconsin. He can get some good fishing in in northern Minnesota, good musky fishing, but if the gentleman wants the best, then come to northern Wisconsin. I have an invitation for my friend.
This bill will bring transparency, Mr. Speaker, to the misleading and inaccurate way hazardous fuels treatments are reported.
Decades of mismanagement of our Federal lands have left our forests overstocked with trees and created tinderbox conditions, and we have long known the reported pace and scale of forest management has been insufficient to truly address our catastrophic forest health crisis.
There is a better way to actively manage our public lands, and that starts with holding our Federal land management agencies accountable by requiring accurate reporting on the effectiveness of their work in fuel reduction.
According to troubling reports, the situation is even worse than we have been led to believe, as agencies have been overstating their treatments by over 20 percent. Accurate reporting is necessary to broadly track the progress made on our larger wildfire mitigation targets as well as individual projects.
The ACRES Act is a simple solution to hold our Federal agencies accountable to see the actual work they are doing to reduce the enormous risks of wildfire. American taxpayers deserve to know they are getting what they paid for. This bill will help ensure that happens.
Mr. Speaker, this is a small step in what needs to be a number of steps to get back to active forest management to protect the life and health of our forests and the people who live around them in the United States of America. I hope this incoming administration and this Congress are active in getting us back to active forest management here in America.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''
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