-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to sound the alarm on a crisis that is a freight train speeding toward the Western United States in the form of what could be one of the worst wildfire seasons in modern history.

I was home in Oregon this month where I received a fire briefing from officials in Southern Oregon. What I heard that day was just jaw- dropping. Snowpack is at historic lows at home. Some parts of the State have less than 10 percent of their normal snowpack. Our beloved Crater Lake received its lowest snowpack in 100 years.

At the time when snowpack should usually be peaking, it is completely gone less than a month into spring. Western States, including Oregon, were already suffering from horrendous drought, and now this year's record low snowfall is going to make it worse.

Simply put, there is no water, and come summertime, Oregon is going to be like a tinderbox waiting to go up in flames. This is a recipe for disaster, but it has been made even worse by Donald Trump's failed leadership when it comes to preparing us to deal with wildfires. Last year, for example, DOGE took a sledgehammer to Federal wildfire programs.

Between funding cuts that bullied Federal employees into taking early retirement and pressure campaigns to leave public service, it was a tough time. Mr. President, 1,400 qualified firefighters left the Forest Service in the first year of the Trump Presidency.

These are known as red card holders. They might work in other areas of the Forest Service as technical support. They might work in administrative roles, but they are trained, qualified firefighters who can be called up in particularly bad years. That is this one.

And to make matters worse, firefighting personnel were caught in the crosshairs of Trump and Vance's immigration agenda of chaos and cruelty. While immigrants put their lives on the line to battle fires, Trump's immigration enforcement officers were actually arresting them and removing them from the fire line. Let me repeat that so there is no confusion: arresting firefighters in the middle of fighting fires--the safety of our communities be damned as long as Donald Trump gets a FOX News segment. These are immigrants who chose to put their lives on the line to defend all of us. And how were they repaid? Donald Trump repaid them by arresting them on the frontlines and throwing them in detention centers while the fires were actually still raging.

Locking up firefighters isn't an immigration agenda that makes us safer. It is so self-sabotaging, it makes your head spin.

The fact is, Donald Trump has actually kneecapped the ability to reduce fire risks altogether. Thinning and prescribed fire are proven, science-backed tools to reduce the risk in the woods. Each year, during the colder months, hazardous fuel treatment is conducted to reduce the build up of fuels in our forests that act as kindling for fires during the summer.

Last year, I asked the Trump administration for an update on how much treatment they had actually done in the woods. The Forest Service Chief confirmed to me in September that the administration's treatment levels were roughly a million acres below previous years.

Just a few weeks later, Donald Trump plunged us into the longest government shutdown in the country's history. That put hazardous fuel treatment on hold and set treatment levels back even more.

Now, last week, I got another letter from the Chief confirming the current treatment levels remain significantly behind their levels at the end of 2024.

So the administration wants to call this a win, saying they almost met their treatment goals. Here is some breaking news for Donald Trump: It is easy to do a victory lap about your achievements when you set the bar on the floor.

So here is the current lay of the land: Hazardous fuel treatment levels are down millions of acres. The Forest Service is still down 1,400 firefighters and countless other employees. Budget cuts have yet to be restored. Oregon and the rest of the West have massive fuels buildup in our forests and no water.

So what are Donald Trump and his assistants doing? It sure isn't staffing up the Forest Service with qualified firefighters.

It is not making sure States have enough money to prepare for the blazes to come.

It is not keeping up our forests to reduce fire risks.

It sure as hell isn't funding FEMA, the Agency that plays a critical role in helping our communities recover from wildfires and remains mostly shut down under the failed leadership of Donald Trump. In fact, Donald Trump has so slashed staffing at FEMA, cutting the Agency's ability to respond to emergencies, that we are concerned about the days ahead after watching what happened with the floods in Texas Hill Country last summer.

Donald Trump is play-acting as a dictator, starting illegal wars in the Middle East. And now he wants Congress to give him $200 billion so that he can keep bombing Iran.

I am going to wrap up by saying it this way: Let's use that $200 billion here at home. Let's use it to manage the forests.

You should know that the picture that I have painted of my State also looks like it is going to affect something like two-thirds of the West, and I know my colleague is interested in following that.

We should be reducing the risk of fires that burn down homes and livelihoods. Let's use the money that Donald Trump wants to put into the war to hire and pay the courageous firefighters that put their lives on the line every year, lives that we always care about, especially because they are protecting our communities.

True to form, Donald Trump always finds a way to make things worse. Just last week, in the midst of the brewing catastrophe I have described, Donald Trump announced he is going to dismantle the U.S. Forest Service. At my 11 townhall meetings across the State here over the break, I heard about this recently.

The Agency is the one that is in charge of preparing for and fighting wildfires, and Donald Trump is doing away with existing experts and authorities from the region to, no doubt, be replaced with people who will do his own bidding.

So Donald Trump defunded 57 research stations dedicated to researching the impact of drought and forest management on wildfire risk. The administration called it a harmless reorganization.

Anybody with a pulse can see this for what it really is: an intentional stunt to kneecap firefighting capabilities and leave Oregonians literally in the line of fire.

Come summertime when these blazes are strong, the Forest Service will be in complete upheaval, too busy rearranging offices and desk chairs to fight fires. I guess that is what Donald Trump intended in the first place.

This is like needing open-heart surgery, and a few weeks before your operation, learning that the hospital has replaced your heart surgeon with Hannibal Lecter.

It is another casualty of the Trump crusade to sell off our forests and public lands to billionaires and corporations.

The bottom line, Mr. President--and you and I have talked about this--public lands are just that, they are public. Once you sell them off, you can't get them back.

Donald Trump doesn't care as long as his billionaire buddies and the Epstein class get to build their own personal resorts.

I will close with this. Donald Trump campaigned on cheaper eggs and lower gas prices. Instead, aided and abetted by Republicans in the Congress, he is doing everything to drive up costs and, as I am pointing out with respect to the West, making Americans less safe. Winners under the Trump Presidency are the people at the very top, the corporations and the Epstein class. He sure as hell isn't looking out for the working people who feel like they are getting pushed off an economic tightrope.

When our communities are ablaze this summer, there is going to be no time to waste, no time to wait for the training of new firefighters because Donald Trump fired everybody who was qualified, no time to do fire risk reduction work. Donald Trump has set Western States up for failure this fire season, and I very, very much fear the outcome in the West will be catastrophic.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source