[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 128 (Tuesday, September 9, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H7356-H7357]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           REDUCING THE RISK OF FIRES IN OUR NATIONAL FORESTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mullin). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Garamendi) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I think we just heard a 1-hour audition 
for FOX News, but we did not hear a solution to what is a very real 
problem. We didn't hear a call for a vote, which we are going to have 
to take if we are to carry out our constitutional obligations, and that 
is going to be before us.
  I don't want to carry on the discussion about the very serious 
problem of ISIL or ISIS. We have heard a lot of that already. We will 
have to come to grips with that by October 6 or 7, when the 60-day 
clock on the War Powers Act runs out and our constitutional obligation 
takes place.
  There are many, many problems facing this Nation, and certainly, the 
international scene is one of them, but there is also a problem in our 
communities. I represent a large portion of California, the national 
forests on the Sierra side and the national forests on the coastal side 
of the Sacramento Valley. A lot of that is in the U.S. Forest Service, 
as well as in the Bureau of Land Management.
  Over the last several years, those two agencies have been struggling 
to put out the fires that have raged in the Western United States and, 
indeed, in the Southeast of the United States. The way in which we have 
set up the budgeting and the appropriation for fighting fires has 
created an ongoing cycle of increasing the likelihood of new fires.
  We need to change that. We need to get ahead of the century of fire 
repression and put in place policies and programs that will reduce the 
risks of fires. We need to manage our forests in such a way that the 
fire risk is reduced, the forests are thinned, trees appropriately 
harvested, the undergrowth reduced and eliminated, firebreaks put in 
place, and protect our communities by the proper management of the 
forest, reducing the fuel, reducing the load of fuel that these forests 
have.
  We have been unable to do that, principally because we have seen an 
enormous increase in the number of fires, and the Federal budget to 
fight these fires is a 10-year rolling average that has not been able 
to keep up with the increase each year in the megafires, California 
most recently facing the rim fire in the Yosemite area.
  That fire gobbled up not only the forest, but gobbled up the money 
that was set aside to prevent fires to manage the forest. Instead of 
having that fund available to do that kind of work, the money was 
transferred from those programs into the firefighting.
  Now, this is an ongoing problem. My colleague from California, Scott 
Peters, has addressed this problem with a motion to bring to the floor 
legislation that would set up a new mechanism for appropriating funds 
for fighting fires. I will let him discuss that and why he has this 
before us.
  Mr. Peters, if you would join us.
  Mr. PETERS of California. Thank you, Congressman Garamendi, for 
helping to raise awareness about the pressing need to change the way 
the Federal Government deals with funding wildfire response and 
prevention.
  As you well know, the devastating effect of wildfires in 2003 and 
2007--we had massive, massive loss of property and dislocations in 
Scripps Ranch, Tierrasanta, Rancho Bernardo, and Poway.
  Right now, as I am speaking--and you mentioned this as well--
firefighters in Yosemite National Park continue to battle a wildfire 
that has burned more than 2,600 acres and required 120 firefighters and 
11 aircraft to combat.
  It is no secret, in addition, that California is facing a prolonged 
drought that places us at increased risk for wildfires. So we are in 
the midst of what is expected to be one of the longest and hardest 
wildfire seasons in recent memory, certainly in any of our memories.
  Wildfires are extremely expensive for States and localities to fight. 
There is an urgent need for Congress to pass a solution that funds 
firefighting without stealing from prevention, which is a crazy thing 
to do. I think we all acknowledge that.
  Earlier this summer, as you mentioned, I led the discharge petition 
with 196 signers to demand a vote on the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act 
of 2014. That bill has real bipartisan support in both the House and 
the Senate--71 Democrats and 60 Republicans have cosponsored in the 
House--and that is very unusual around here. It was also included by 
the President in his budget request.
  So you have both parties in the House and the President of the United 
States all on the same page on this issue. It seems like an area where 
we ought be able to make some progress, and we ought to have a vote.
  The bill allows firefighting agencies to access funds from the 
natural disaster contingency fund while fighting catastrophic fires, 
not take money from prevention because, of course, what that does is it 
makes the following year's fires even more severe and even more costly 
and dangerous.

                              {time}  1945

  So it is fiscally responsible to treat wildfires like the natural 
disasters that they are, like an earthquake, flood, or hurricane. 
Instead of stealing funds from prevention efforts to pay for immediate 
responses, we should be adequately funding both.
  I join my colleagues here tonight to call on the Speaker to bring 
this truly bipartisan bill to a vote immediately so that fire-prone 
regions like the two we are dealing with in California--mine in San 
Diego--don't suffer from Washington's dysfunction.
  Ladies and gentlemen, we started this fire season this year in May. 
We are used to having fire seasons. It is natural to have fire seasons 
in September or October, but the fact that we started in May just 
underscores what we are up against. We do not want to leave for our 
October election activities without having dealt with that and exposing 
these communities to risk.
  I thank my colleague, Mr. Garamendi, for helping to raise awareness 
about this. Thank you for your continued commitment and leadership on 
the issue. We look forward to bringing it home.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you, Mr. Peters, for your leadership in bringing 
to the attention of the entire Nation, and certainly to the 435 Members 
of this House, that there is a way to manage our forests and to deal 
with the fires that have plagued us so extensively over these many 
years.
  I think all of us have seen this before. It is Smokey the Bear. 
``Only you can prevent forest fires.'' We need to add to it, ``But 
Congress can help.'' And Smokey turns to us and says: How can you help? 
Well, we can help by changing the way in which we budget for the 
fighting of fires. Instead of a rolling 10-year average and putting 
that money up every year and in 9 of the last 12 years blowing through 
that budget and then reaching back and taking the forest management 
funds that would allow us to reduce the risk of fires in our forests 
and in your public lands, instead of doing that, we would have a 
different system, as Mr. Peters just described. It is H.R. 3992.
  H.R. 3992 is a bipartisan bill, Democrats and Republicans. Democrat 
Mr. Schrader from Oregon and Republican Mr. Simpson from Idaho, the 
authors of the bill, say there is a better way of doing it. Set aside a 
special reserve, just like we do for tornadoes, earthquakes, 
hurricanes, floods; a special reserve that could be tapped when we 
exceed the average and blow through that 10-year average with a 
megafire or a series of fires.
  We expect more than 38,000 fires this year in the United States. We 
are going to blow through that budget. Just this last month in August, 
the chief forester of the U.S. Forest Service sent a letter out to 
every part of the U.S. Forest Service saying: Hold on. No more 
contracts. Save the money. We are going to need to transfer some of 
your maintenance money. Your fire prevention money, the money that you 
are using to thin the forests to reduce the fuel load, the money that 
you are using to carry out logging practices, hold that. We are going 
to need to hold that

[[Page H7357]]

because we anticipate once again blowing through that fire budget and 
having to reach back for the prevention budget.
  So Smokey is right. We can prevent forest fires if Congress acts on 
H.R. 3992. A discharge petition that Mr. Peters has brought to the 
floor is before us. It has 196 Members of Congress that have signed on. 
When we get to 218, that bill will automatically be brought to the 
floor for a vote.
  Democrats and Republicans already support it, so bring it to the 
floor for a vote. Let us put in place a sensible, commonsense way of 
appropriating money to fight fires and to manage our forests. Let's get 
ahead of next year's fire. Let's get to prevention not just by not 
throwing out cigarettes and leaving campfires unattended, but by making 
sure that our forests are healthy so that they are able to sustain 
small fires that burn slowly along the floor of the forest, which is 
the natural ecological way in which forests have for a millennium been 
able to deal with fire. We are in a different situation now. We have 
allowed the forests to grow and to be in a position where a fire 
becomes huge. It is no longer along the floor but gets up into the 
crown of the trees and destroys the forests.
  So we can get back to where we were by properly managing the forests, 
but we can't do it without money. The Forest Service needs to have that 
money. The Bureau of Land Management and the National Parks all need to 
have a different way of appropriating and budgeting. And that is what 
this bill does.
  By the way, it doesn't cost any more. It simply rearranges how that 
money is going to be spent. That reserve fund would only be available 
when you have the megafires and you blow through the 10-year rolling 
average of how much we spend on fighting fires.
  It is sensible. It makes a lot of sense. The administration wants it, 
and, therefore, I suppose my Republican colleagues are opposed to it 
simply because the administration has proposed a better way of dealing 
with this budgeting for fires.
  So our plea tonight is simple. Just for a few moments, like 12\1/2\ 
minutes thus far, it is to allow us to take up H.R. 3992 and help 
Smokey prevent forest fires. We only need a few more Members of this 
House to sign on. More than 50 members of the Republican Party are 
already coauthors, but none have yet signed the discharge petition. So 
let's do it. Let's get on with it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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