[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 173 (Thursday, October 26, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6833-S6834]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Wildfire Funding

  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, in recent months, Americans have been hit 
by a string of natural disasters--from devastating hurricanes in Puerto 
Rico, Florida, and Texas, to catastrophic wildfires in Oregon, Montana, 
and California. Earlier this week, the Senate voted to provide urgent 
relief to our communities in need.
  Although Colorado was fortunate this year--we could have easily had 
fires, but we were very fortunate, unlike Montana, this year--we know 
the devastation of wildfires all too well. In 2012, the Waldo Canyon 
fire raged for 16 days, incinerating 18,000 acres, destroying over 300 
homes, and forcing the evacuation of more than 32,000 Coloradans. Years 
later, our communities are still recovering from the damage.
  Out West, wildfires can be catastrophic events. Yet Washington 
continues to fund them differently than other major disasters, such as 
hurricanes, tornadoes, or floods. When those disasters strike, we pay 
for emergency response from an entirely separate account. When a 
wildfire catches, that cost falls entirely on the U.S. Forest Service. 
If it is a catastrophic fire, as we see now in Montana and Northern 
California, those costs can easily exceed the Forest Service budget for 
fire suppression. That forces the Forest Service to borrow funds from 
other accounts to make up the difference. That is something no one has 
to do for any other disaster in America. This is often at the expense 
of efforts to prevent the next catastrophic fire.
  It stands to reason that if we spend less and less on fire 
prevention, which is what the Forest Service is doing every year 
because of the way the Congress has set this up, we are going to spend 
more and more on fire suppression, fighting fires, and that is what is 
happening. That is exactly what has happened.
  In 1995, the Forest Service spent around 16 percent of its budget on 
fire suppression--16 percent. Last year, it spent over half of its 
budget. For the first time in the Forest Service's history, they spent 
over half their budget fighting fires. You might as well call it the 
fire-fighting agency, not the Forest Service agency. In fact, the 
number was closer to 60 percent. The Forest Service had to borrow over 
half a billion dollars from other accounts in the agency--accounts that 
are important to Colorado, Wyoming, and Alaska.
  While we replenished those accounts in disaster aid packages earlier 
this year, we once again failed to address why they were depleted in 
the first place. Until we do, we are going to find ourselves in the 
same position every year. This is no way to run a government. It makes 
no sense from a fiscal perspective, and it makes no sense from a public 
welfare perspective. This is not how we should manage our taxpayer 
dollars. Undercutting fire prevention is the definition of being penny 
wise and pound foolish. Every dollar we

[[Page S6834]]

spend on disaster prevention leads to $5 of savings down the road.
  We need to reinvest in fire prevention and in forest mitigation. In 
Colorado, our forests are in terrible shape. And it is not just 
Colorado citizens who need to care about that; anybody who lives 
downstream of our rivers, which are States all across America, needs to 
care about the condition of those headwaters. Those headwaters that are 
owned by the public, entrusted in the Forest Service, are in terrible 
shape because of this Congress's inability to deal with this.
  We have over 800 million dead standing trees in the State of Colorado 
alone. Our communities, our watersheds, and our infrastructure are at 
risk. The Forest Service knows how to do this. They know how to 
mitigate that--by thinning timber and managing prescribed burns. But 
right now, all of those projects are on hold because the Forest Service 
anticipates having to fight more catastrophic fires next season. This 
is ridiculous. This is an affront to the people of Colorado and the 
people of the West.
  We have a solution. It is a simple solution. Let's pay for fire 
suppression the same way we pay for other disasters. Our bill, the 
Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, would do just that. It is backed by 
seven Democrats and, I am very proud to say, by four Republicans. 
Unlike a lot of issues in Washington, both parties actually agree on 
the solution.
  I know the administration is eager to fix this problem. Secretary 
Perdue knows that the current system makes no sense. He said as much at 
his confirmation hearing and again when he invited--and I so much 
appreciated this; we didn't ask--a bipartisan group of Senators to the 
Forest Service in September to discuss this. He knows that important 
wildfire mitigation projects are not getting done. He wants to fix the 
problem, and we should. It is far past time. This makes no sense from a 
fiscal point of view.
  I know some colleagues in this Chamber would prefer to couple our 
proposal with broader forest management reforms. I have been part of 
forest management discussions in the past, and I want to continue those 
discussions. In fact, in the last farm bill, we worked across the aisle 
to improve forest management.
  Let's be clear. For years now, efforts to link broad forest 
management reform with a funding fix have failed. They will not pass 
the Senate. Each year we do nothing, we continue to shortchange fire 
prevention, the good people who work for the Forest Service all across 
the country in our States, and we needlessly expose our communities to 
greater risks.
  We have to act--Colorado and the West cannot wait another year--and 
we will have a chance when Congress votes on another disaster package 
over the next few months. We should use that opportunity to finally fix 
this problem and put the Forest Service in a stronger position to 
prevent the next catastrophic fire.
  I thank my colleague from Wyoming for his patience and for his 
leadership on the Budget Committee.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, while I am disappointed that we didn't 
continue the tradition of alternating speakers, I am glad that I got to 
hear both of the previous speakers.
  I used to work with the Senators from Colorado to make sure that 
there were pictures taken annually from the same spots to show the way 
the trees are dying. There was an infestation that was causing this. 
The only reason we don't still take those pictures is all the trees are 
dead. You can't show that it is spreading when they are all dead. They 
need to be cleaned up, and I am glad there is work being done on forest 
management.
  On healthcare, there is some effort being made between Senator 
Alexander and Senator Murray to get a bipartisan bill, but what we need 
to do around here is get some of the appointments finished up so that 
the President can have the people in place to solve these problems. We 
are having to spend 30 hours on the cloture of a district judge. I have 
never heard of that. I have been here 21 years now, and I have never 
heard of that. We have to get the appointments through. That is one of 
our prime jobs--to provide advice and consent for the President--and it 
is not happening on a timely basis.
  We have had to do 44 cloture motions on different people for the 
administration. At this point in President Obama's first term, that had 
only happened five times. With the previous President, it hadn't 
happened at all, and the previous one, it had only happened once. 
Already 44 times this year, it has taken us around 30 hours to get 
somebody through the process, and we have hundreds waiting to get 
through the process. That is one of our primary jobs. If we can't get 
those through the process, it is pretty hard for us to do the 
legislation we need to do.