[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 135 (Thursday, October 2, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1918]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        PRESCRIBED BURN PROGRAMS

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                          HON. JAMES E. ROGAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, October 1, 1997

  Mr. ROGAN. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing H.R.  . The intent of 
this legislation is to slightly amend the Clean Air Act so that 
appropriate Federal, State, and local entities may conduct prescribed 
burn programs in nonattainment areas for a test period of 10 years.
  Prescribed burns under limited conditions are essential to the life 
and health of our forests, to clean air, to the protection and 
propagation of species, and to increased water yields.
  A carefully managed burn program will also lead to reduced floods and 
mudslides, and to the reduction of overall firefighting costs. These 
savings would then be made available for a wide variety of highly 
beneficial activities contained in forest management programs.
  With more than 100 years of fire suppression history behind us, we 
know the current strategy is not working. Wildfires in these older fuel 
beds occur more frequently. These infernos burn several hundred degrees 
hotter. They burn larger areas and result in greater damage and costs.
  Two decades ago, we spent an average of $100,000 per year to put out 
wildfires; today we spend $1 billion.
  We experience multimillion dollar wildfires in the Angeles National 
Forest almost every year with the tragic and often unnecessary loss of 
homes, wildlife, trees, and watershed.
  We cannot afford to let wildfires in the Angeles National Forest, and 
other U.S. forests that abut urban areas burn hotter, bigger, and 
faster. These types of tragedies grow even more lethal, destructive and 
expensive to fight.
  Prescribed burns, when used wisely, have been effective in reducing 
the size of wildfires. But we cannot currently use them in our area to 
the extent necessary because smoke from a prescribed burn is charged 
against air standards within the framework of the Clean Air Act by 
Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], the California Air Resources 
Board [CARB], and the South Coast Air Qualify Management District 
[SCAQMD]. As such, prescribed burns are rarely and inadequately 
approved by the EPA.
  The irony in this situation is that the EPA, while regulating all 
planned, open agricultural burning, forgives, naturally enough, 
wildfires, which produce 10 to 15 times the emissions and particulates 
when compared to prescribed forest burns.
  We ask that a program of limited prescribed burns in wildland setting 
be allowed by the EPA for a period of 10 years, with the Forest Service 
monitoring the results in terms of air pollution, forest survival and 
health, species diversification, and suppression cost reduction.
  Michael Rogers, forest supervisor of the Angeles National Forest, has 
given his support for limited prescribed burns in an unequivocal and 
straightforward manner. He said: ``In Southern California we live with 
a fire-adaptive ecosystem. All our plants and animals have adapted to a 
high frequency of fires. We can either manage this situation through 
the proactive use of prescribed fire, or be held hostage by damaging 
wildfires that result in loss of life, property, natural resources with 
astronomic costs attributed to both the wildfires and the floods that 
follow wildfires.''
  It is time to use the restorative and productive use of fire to fight 
fires and to make our forest and living environs safer, cleaner, 
healthier, and more attractive.

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