Fix Our Forests Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. WESTERMAN. 471.

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support of H.R. 471, the Fix Our Forests Act, a bipartisan bill I am leading with my good friend from California (Mr. Peters), along with 16 other Democrats and 37 additional Republican cosponsors.

Our prayers are with the people of California as they are enduring horrendous wildfires and experiencing loss of life and property. We have a unique opportunity today to put feet to those prayers and prevent those tragedies from happening again in the future.

There are two reasons why we can't afford to wait any longer to reform forest management policies in this country. Number one, the stakes are too high, and number two, what we are doing is not working.

First, let's talk about the stakes. The Los Angeles wildfires have caused unimaginable damage and will likely become the costliest in American history, with early estimates suggesting upward of $250 billion in damages.

More than 16,000 structures--homes, schools, grocery stores, entire neighborhoods, and communities--have burned. Sadly, at least 28 people have tragically lost their lives.

We all know that such figures can tell only part of the story. No price tag can be placed on the loss of a beloved family member or friend. No property valuation can register the pain a family feels after losing a home where cherished memories were made. No bookkeeping accounts for the lost dreams of a small business owner whose lifework has gone up in smoke. These are the true costs, the human costs, of catastrophic wildfire.

Losing 16,000 structures is nearly unfathomable. Local officials reported that it looked like a bomb was dropped on these communities after the smoke had cleared.

What is truly startling is that there are 44 million homes in the wildland-urban interface nationwide. There are more than 70,000 communities just like Pacific Palisades at risk of being wiped out by catastrophic fire.

This brings me to my second point. What we have been doing is not working. This bill passed the House last September with a strong bipartisan vote. Unfortunately, the Senate failed to move it. In the interim, more than 1.5 million acres burned across the country.

The Fix Our Forests Act offers a broad set of commonsense solutions that must be enacted. This legislation creates a needed framework for prioritizing treatments in our highest risk areas. To identify these areas, FOFA utilizes state-of-the-art technology to determine the most vulnerable firesheds across the country. Then, it incentivizes the use of emergency actions to prevent wildfires.

Many of these actions, like clearing brush and creating fuel breaks, are exactly what local authorities hastily undertook as they scrambled to save threatened neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The key difference, however, is that this bill ensures that such measures take place well before the fires start, not in the heat of an approaching blaze.

Without these tools, completing a single forest management project takes an average of 3 to 5 years. Under FOFA, land managers can act immediately to protect communities.

FOFA also expands existing categorical exclusions up to 10,000 acres so that prevention measures can meet the scale of the crisis. Under the status quo, if land managers want to reduce hazardous fuels in an area roughly the size of the Palisades fire, they would need eight separate categorical exclusions. Under FOFA, they need only two.

This change is based on proven results, like the 10,000-acre CE in the Lake Tahoe Basin. That was a bipartisan effort by Representative McClintock and the late Senator Dianne Feinstein. These efforts saved South Lake Tahoe from certain destruction during the Caldor fire.

FOFA also protects communities by creating a community wildfire risk reduction program and clearing hazardous trees from utility rights-of- way to prevent fires like the ones that destroyed Lahaina in Maui and Paradise in California.

FOFA supports wildland firefighters by creating a new casualty assistance program for firefighters killed or injured in the line of duty, ensuring access to the latest technology so they can detect and put out fires faster and standardizing repayment timelines with local fire departments so non-Federal partners aren't waiting years to get the money they are owed.

I have only briefly described some of the important bipartisan pieces in FOFA, but it involves much more to make forests more resilient, healthier, and safer, from sea to shining sea.

All of these tools available in this bill echo a similar theme: We must restore common sense to our approach to forest management. This comprehensive package is a result of years of hard work and bipartisan collaboration formulated through hearings, site visits, and Member feedback.

Fixing our forests should not be a partisan issue, and today, it is not.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, if throwing money at a problem would fix it, then we wouldn't be having fires today. Over the past few years, our Federal land managers have been showered with $12 billion to battle wildland fires and to make our forests more resilient. The result of that is that Forest Service estimates they are going to treat less acreage than they treated before.

It is not a money problem. It is a policy problem and Fix Our Forests will help solve that problem.

Mr. Chair, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, as a forester, I can say that the only clear-cuts that are happening on Federal lands right now are wildfires. That is nature's way of clear-cutting.

When we see these devastating wildfires that burn everything off of the landscape, that is a clear-cut. What Mr. LaMalfa was talking about was uneven-age forest management and thinning, which we know works.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Bentz).

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Crank).

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to report that Republicans have an appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior that has firefighter pay increases in that appropriations bill, and I hope that we can all work to pass that as we move forward.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Valadao).

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, I had the opportunity just last October to visit Orange County and to fly over the Airport fire with Representative Kim and also to attend the local townhall meeting where I saw residents who were traumatized by these fires, but also residents who had concerns because they either couldn't find homeowners insurance to buy or they couldn't afford it if they could find it.

These fires are devastating. What we are doing is not working. There are provisions in the Fix our Forests Act that will allow us to create these defensible zones around communities in the wildland urban interface.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Kim).

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Kiley).

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Fong).

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from California.

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, I include in the Record 102 supporting organizations. These stakeholders include Tribal and local governments, grazing and forest management organizations, and a diverse coalition of hunters, conservationists, natural resource managers, outdoor recreationists, educators, and scientists.

Mr. Chair, 47 of those organizations also provided support letters. Each letter expresses strong urgency for passing H.R. 471 to ensure improved forest management on Federal land.

The groups that wrote support letters included: American Sportfishing Association, Boone and Crockett Club, Citizens' Climate Lobby, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Federal Forest Resource Coalition, Public Lands Council, American Sheep Industry Association, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Forest Resource Council, Association of California Water Agencies, California Farm Bureau Federation, Family Farm Alliance, National Association of Counties, San Bernardino County, and many others. List of Organizations Supporting the Fix Our Forests Act

Agricultural Retailers Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Forest and Paper Association, American Forest Foundation, American Forest Resource Council, American Forests, American Loggers Council, American Property and Casualty Insurance Association, American Seed Trade Association, American Sheep Industry Association, American Sportfishing Association, American Wood Council, American Woodcock Society, Archery Trade Association, Arkansas Forestry Association, Associated Oregon Loggers, Association of California Water Agencies, Association of Firetech Innovation, Bipartisan Policy Center Action, Boone and Crockett Club, California State Association of Counties, Camp Fire Club of America, Catch A Dream Foundation, Citizens For Responsible Energy Solutions, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, Conservation Force, Dallas Safari Club, Delta Waterfowl, Edison Electric Institute, Evangelical Environmental Network, Family Farm Alliance, Family Water Alliance, Federal Forest Resource Coalition, Federation of American Scientists, Forest Landowners Association, Forest Resources Association, Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, Hardwood Federation, Houston Safari Club, Idaho Forest Group, Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, Inc, Intermountain Forest Association, International Inbound Travel Association, Inter-Tribal Timber Council, Kittitas Reclamation District, Masters of Foxhounds Association, Metzler Forest Products, Minnesota Timber Producers Association, Mississippi River Trust, Mule Deer Foundation, National Alliance of Forest Owners, National Association of Conservation Districts, National Association of Counties, National Association of Forest Service Retirees, National Association of Home Builders, National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, National Association of State Foresters, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Congress of American Indians, National Deer Association, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, National Shooting Sports Foundation, National Special Districts Association, National Wild Turkey Federation, North American Falconers Association, North American Grouse Partnership, Orion: The Hunter's Institute, PG&E, Pheasants Forever, Placer County Water Agency, Pope and Young Club, PotlatchDeltic, Professional Outfitters and Guides of America, Property and Environment Research Center, Public Lands Council, Public Lands Foundation, Quail Forever, Reinsurance Association of America, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Ruffed Grouse Society, Safari Club International, Salt River Project, San Bernadino County, San Bernardino County Professional Firefighters Local 935, Sierra Pacific Industries, Sportsmen's Alliance, The Wildlife Society, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, U.S. Biochar Coalition, Utah Farm Bureau Federation, Western Fire Chiefs Association, Weyerhaeuser Company, White Oak Initiative, Whitetails Unlimited, Wild Sheep Foundation, Wildlife Forever, Wildlife Management Institute, Xcel Energy, and XR Association.

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I will state again that Republicans have a firefighter funding fix in the appropriations bill that, when it came to the floor, was not supported by my friends across the aisle. We want to provide more funding to our firefighters. This is an authorization bill. It is not an appropriation bill.

It is regrettable that we are having to bring this bill up again already because we passed it last year with large bipartisan support. We had 55 of our friends across the aisle vote with every Republican to pass this bill, but unfortunately, it went nowhere in the Senate.

We are bringing it back again because this is bipartisan legislation. I hope this is an example of how this Congress will go because I don't know that I have worked on a more bipartisan piece of legislation during my time in Congress.

I thank my colleague, Representative Peters, for all of his time and effort in bringing this bill to the floor once again.

I will say that the time to fix our forests is now.

Actually, now is not the real time to fix our forests. The time to have fixed our forests was yesterday. It was last year. It was 10 years ago. It was 30 years ago.

The condition our forests are in now is as a result of bad management decisions over a long period of time. It is like the saying about planting a tree. The best time to have done it was when you were a child. The next best time is today. If not today, we need to do it tomorrow.

Regardless of where and when catastrophic wildfires occur, they offer a grim lesson: The costs of thoughtful prevention would have been far less than those inflicted by merciless flames. The old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is never more true than when it comes to managing our forests.

We spend billions of dollars fighting fires every year. Our forests should be an income stream to our Federal Government, not a cost. People manage forests all over the country, and they actually produce great products that go into homes and sustainable buildings and that become a carbon sink because wood is 50 percent by weight carbon. This table was atmospheric carbon that was stored in this wood at some point in history. It is still in this wood.

Instead of burning these forests up and spewing more carbon into our atmosphere, we should be looking at innovative ways to use our forests, to keep them healthy and resilient. Forests provide clean air, clean water, and wildlife habitat, but they don't do that when they are burned to the ground.

These fires oftentimes are so hot that they burn the organic material out of the soil, so it is hard to get trees to grow back. We have seen this in the Angora fire. I visited it several years ago, 12 years after the fire. It had been replanted six times, and the trees still wouldn't grow on it because the soil had been so damaged by these intense wildfires.

The argument has been made that these fires are the result of climate change. If that is the case, the question still remains, what are we going to do about it?

We have unhealthy forests. They are way overstocked with way more trees per acre than we have ever seen. Small trees are competing with other trees for light, water, and nutrients. They get weakened and die. Insects and disease come in. This isn't just in California. It is all across our country.

We know what to do. The question is, will we do it? The Fix Our Forests Act will give us the opportunity to do what we know needs to be done.

I have talked to many of our Federal land managers across the country. They wanted to commit their life to working in an area to make a difference, and it is disheartening to them to have gone to forestry school or whatever educational experience they had and then to see these resources they are charged with taking care of going up in flames. Instead of being land managers and forest managers, they are firefighters. That is really what most of the budget for our Federal agencies goes to anymore, to fight fires. It doesn't have to be that way.

This is something that should be bipartisan. It is going to be bipartisan today. It is something the Senate should take up in a bipartisan manner and get to President Trump's desk as soon as possible.

Again, I encourage everyone to support the Fix Our Forests Act, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of Representative Perry's amendment, which would remove certain references from section 301 of the bill.

I wholeheartedly support section 301 of the bill, which provides an opportunity to have a new market for this overgrown material that needs to come off of the land and into biochar.

Biochar can be thought of as a soil amendment that improves soil fertility. It allows more water and nutrients to be stored in the soil. It almost seems like the perfect thing to have in these Western forests where we have water issues and overgrown forests. We can actually make a product that is very beneficial to the whole system out there.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's support, and I support his amendment.

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of the amendment offered by Representative Carbajal, which would enable the Forest Service to approve the removal of hazardous trees near power lines on Federal land without being required to do a formal timber sale.

This would help address a very serious wildfire threat. Downed hazard trees within utility rights-of-way remain one of the biggest ignition threats and have sparked some of the most significant and deadly fires in the country's history.

For example, the largest single wildfire in California's State history, the Dixie fire, ignited when a hazard tree fell onto electric lines. Similarly, the Camp fire, the deadliest wildfire in California's history, was caused by a faulty electrical transmission line. The Camp fire killed 85 people and destroyed the communities of Paradise and Concow.

In recent years, catastrophic fires in Maui and Texas have also been linked to downed utility lines, and early reports suggest this may have been the cause of the Eaton fire near Pasadena and Altadena, California.

To mitigate these threats, utility companies try to maintain clear rights-of-way by removing hazard trees within their utility corridors. This is done under a special use permit.

However, to dispose of the felled timber, utility companies are required to go through a lengthy timber sale process. This frequently leads to wood waste stacking up in piles, which further increases wildfire risk.

It is an unnecessary burden that is preventing active management in some of the highest risk areas in our national forests. This amendment will allow the Forest Service to permit utility companies to fully remove hazard trees and other vegetation within the vicinity of distribution or transmission lines without going through a separate timber sale.

If utilities eventually sell the material, this amendment requires the proceeds to be returned to the Forest Service. This amendment was a bipartisan effort during the 118th Congress and a similar stand-alone bill was passed unanimously out of the House Committee on Natural Resources.

This is a good amendment. It is a commonsense amendment that will empower expedited wildfire mitigation efforts near at-risk communities, and it is a great example of why we need to take action to change bureaucratic policies that have gotten in the way of commonsense forest management.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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