[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 47 (Monday, March 19, 2018)]
[House]
[Page H1659]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           FOREST FIRE RELIEF

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge House leadership to 
include some very important forestry priorities in the upcoming omnibus 
funding bill.
  We all agree that fire borrowing must be fixed. Raiding funds is no 
way to run a business. But we need much more than that. We need active 
forest management reforms in order to prevent another devastating 
wildfire year like we just witnessed in California, as we seem to do 
every year in the West.
  There are over 100 million dead trees right now in just California 
alone, and they will only turn into tinderboxes if we cannot remove 
them as we should.
  For example, my bill, the Electricity Reliability and Forest 
Protection Act, would allow utility companies to clear a tree in danger 
of falling on a power line in these rights-of-way without months of 
paperwork and the liability relief they need in case the government 
doesn't give them the permission to do it timely.
  But congressional leadership on the other side of the aisle refuses 
to budge when it comes to meaningful forestry management reforms to 
remove these hazardous dead trees, which is even worse for forest 
health when we continue to have these fires for no good reason.
  I urge them to come to California, come to the north State, come 
breathe the dirty air each summer when we see firsthand the damage 
these wildfires cause. Listen to the people who are impacted, who are 
endangered, and who have to breathe that bad air each year because of 
these forest fires that are allowed to happen because the government 
will not manage its land.
  Why do we continue to allow this to happen?
  I don't know.

                          ____________________