Fire Improvement and Reforming Exceptional Events Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. EVANS of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I personally thank the chairman for his leadership and partnership on this legislation and Congress' broader efforts to modernize the Clean Air Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of my bill, the bipartisan Fire Improvement and Reforming Exceptional Events Act, or FIRE Act for short. This commonsense bill ensures that States like Colorado are not punished for smoke and emissions that they cannot control while still maintaining strong environmental protections and incentivizing good forest management practices to prevent wildfires.

The Front Range of Colorado has consistently struggled to meet ozone attainment levels set by the Federal Clean Air Act, despite the fact that data and science show that more than 70 percent of emissions originate from sources outside of Colorado.

My mission when I came to Congress was to find a streamlined, nonpartisan solution to this problem, to cut red tape, and to help lower costs and protect the economy for my constituents.

My proposal simply clarifies how emissions from wildfires, prescribed burns, and other exceptional events are treated in Federal air quality reviews. It maintains environmental protections that benefit Americans while allowing States the flexibility that they need to comply with the Clean Air Act without needlessly enacting punitive regulations on the economy, job creators, and consumers.

Mr. Speaker, I have heard some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle argue that this bill is unnecessary because there is already enough flexibility under the Clean Air Act for exceptional events and prescribed burns. Allow me to address that.

Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago this week, four Western State Governors, two Republicans and two Democrats, including my Governor, Jared Polis, and the Democratic Governor from Arizona, sent a letter to President Biden highlighting challenges that Western States face in complying with the Clean Air Act and asking for greater flexibility.

I have the letter. Their number one request was for the Biden EPA to ``identify how the exceptional events framework can more appropriately be implemented given increased wildfire activity and provide more consideration for the emissions benefits of wildfire mitigation strategies in reducing air pollution in the West and nationally.''

Mr. Speaker, two Republican and two Democratic Governors agree that good wildfire mitigation reduces air pollution.

The FIRE Act does exactly this, and I am proud that it has been endorsed by the Western Governors' Association, whose members range from Greg Abbott to Gavin Newsom.

Additionally, 3 years ago, 25 Democratic Members from California, including both current Senators, wrote to the EPA under President Biden, claiming that the Clean Air Act, as written, jeopardizes their State's ability to deploy prescribed burns and comply with the Clean Air Act.

Part of the letter reads: ``While we appreciate the possibility that our concerns could be addressed through the use of EPA's exceptional events rule, the reality is that this process is unworkable for the scale of prescribed fire that will be necessary to protect our communities from increasingly catastrophic wildfires. The exceptional events rule is specifically designed for `unusual or naturally occurring events that can affect air quality but are not reasonably controllable.' This simply does not describe prescribed fires.''

Mr. Speaker, legislation like the FIRE Act has been asked for time and again by Members of both parties, and it is why I am so proud to lead this bill alongside my good colleague, Adam Gray, a California Democrat.

Mr. Speaker, while I have heard that some claim that the bill is unnecessary and accomplishes nothing, I have heard others say that the bill would do too much and fill our air with pollution. This also could not be further from the truth. As the father of a son who struggles with asthma, no one wants clean air more than I do. I want a healthy environment for all Coloradans and all Americans.

That is why this bill is narrowly tailored to maintain strong environmental protections. It actually reduces negative health outcomes that result from catastrophic wildfire smoke by encouraging more mitigation practices that reduce emissions through better wildfire prevention.

I will illustrate this point. A 2024 report compiled by fire experts and Tribal leaders asserts that the severe health and economic harms of wildfire smoke are ``largely neglected, if not inadvertently caused by Clean Air Act regulations themselves.''

I would also add that, under current law, working families are penalized for emissions that they are not responsible for, which leads to unemployment and higher costs--in a word, poverty. Poverty also worsens health outcomes.

The FIRE Act is a commonsense, bipartisan solution to existing air quality regulations, and it is sorely needed. That is why the bill has been endorsed by more than 25 different national, State, and local organizations that transcend industries, interests, and partisan divides. It protects the environment and promotes clean air by cutting red tape and allowing us to do a better job of reducing fuel loads and reducing damaging emissions from wildfire smoke.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Representative Gray, for his support and leadership, as well as the chairmen of the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations for all of their work advancing this bill. I encourage my colleagues to vote in favor of the FIRE Act.

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Mr. EVANS of Colorado. Madam Speaker, I want to briefly respond.

One exceptional event waiver has been approved, clearly not workable. As was just discussed, bipartisan Governors--two Democrats from Colorado and Arizona, and two Republicans from Utah and Wyoming--wrote a letter in 2024 saying that this exceptional event process, as it is currently written under the Clean Air Act, is not workable.

Madam Speaker, while I greatly appreciate references to a 2016 letter, this is a problem that was still impacting folks in 2024, prompting a bipartisan outcry from Western Governors on both sides of the aisle to modernize the exceptional events waiver--the same thing from members of the delegation from California.

In a letter in June 2023, 25 Members signed a letter saying that the exceptional events waiver is not workable, asking for these updates and for modernization. That is borne out by the data and by the science, which say that we have only had one exceptional events waiver approved.

The science is clear. The data is clear. The environment is crying out for reducing emissions through better forest management and wildfire prevention, which, as we have heard, reduces emissions anywhere on a scale from 1 to 6 to 1 to 10. If you do the controlled burns and the mitigation now, you have fewer emissions from damaging wildfires in the future.

Madam Speaker, I urge an ``aye'' vote.

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