[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 116 (Wednesday, July 23, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H6664-H6665]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE CRISIS IN FOREST FIRE FUNDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, we have a crisis in firefighting funds 
here in the United States of America, and what has this Congress done 
about it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Zero. Nada. It hasn't even held 
a hearing.
  Right now there are 11 major fires burning in Oregon, five in 
Washington--one the largest in the history of the State--two in Utah, 
two in Idaho, one in California, and one in Arizona. There are 
forecasts for a substantial amount of new lightning storms moving 
through, and that means more fires. Our resources are about at their 
maximum, and the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service are 
about to run out of funds. Now, this was predictable.
  The budget set by the Republicans and Paul Ryan was totally 
inadequate. There was a proposal, which is the rarest of things in this 
town, a bipartisan--Republicans and Democrats--bicameral--Senate and 
House--proposal supported by the President of the United States, and 
that was to look at what has happened over the last 10 years of the 
dramatic increase in the severity and the occurrence of fires, 
particularly in the Western United States, on public lands and to give 
the Forest Service a budget adequate to fight those fires year in and 
year out. And also, for those extraordinary fires, the ones that are 
pretty much unprecedented in history because of mismanagement, climate 
change, and a number of other things, to fight those with emergency 
funds just like we deal with tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes.
  That money should not come out of the budget of the Forest Service 
and the Department of the Interior, because what do they have to do? 
Starting later this month, they are going to devastate the remainder of 
their budget. That means, instead of going out and reducing fuels on 
fires through contracts, using private contractors and mitigating the 
future risk of fire, they are going to have to cancel those contracts 
for this year because they are going to have to spend the money to 
fight the fires.
  Then, it is not only firefighting contracts they have to cancel, they 
have to devastate all across their budget, including recreation 
programs and their timber sale programs, things that bring in revenue 
to the Federal Government. Any State that has Federal lands 
administered by the Department of the Interior or the Forest Service--
most of the States in the Union, much more of an impact in certain 
States than others--will see a detrimental impact because the Forest 
Service and the Department of the Interior are going to have to rob 
their budgets to pay for the costs of these fires.
  It also means that we didn't have as many people pre-deployed; we 
didn't have as much equipment pre-deployed; and we didn't have all the 
resources we needed ready. We also need a whole new firefighting fleet. 
We are using World War II aircraft. They are kind of at the end of 
their useful life. And we are now pressing into service planes that are 
not particularly efficient at fighting fires because we don't have a 
fleet of planes, a modern fleet of planes, to assist our firefighters 
to help save their lives on the ground and help save the lives of 
people in the communities that are affected.

[[Page H6665]]

  And what has this House of Representatives done? Nothing. Not even a 
hearing. Now, we can blather on forever about all sorts of things. We 
can have 50 investigations of this or that day in and day out. But can 
we take an action on something that is staring us in the face, which is 
the forest fire crisis in the Western United States right now?
  Come on. Wake up and smell the smoke before it is too late. Take 
action. Pass this bicameral, bipartisan reform supported by the 
President of the United States. Give us the resources we need to fight 
these fires and to prevent future fires so we won't have more years 
like this.

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