[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 116 (Wednesday, July 11, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H6067-H6069]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1445
CROOKED RIVER RANCH FIRE PROTECTION ACT
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 2075) to adjust the eastern boundary of the Deschutes
Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Area in the State of Oregon to
facilitate fire prevention and response activities in order to protect
adjacent private property, and for other purposes, as amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 2075
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Crooked River Ranch Fire
Protection Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) The Crooked River Ranch is an unincorporated community
with a population of 5,000 residents.
(2) The current lands located adjacent to Crooked River
Ranch are managed by the Bureau of Land Management and are
classified as a Wilderness Study Area.
(3) There is currently only one entrance/exit to the
Crooked River Ranch.
(4) Jefferson County and Crooked River Ranch have
determined that the Wilderness Study Area lands are in the
highest risk category for exposure to devastating wildfire
due to overstocked juniper stands under the federally
mandated and locally promulgated Jefferson County Community
Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP).
(5) The current Wilderness Study Area classification
prevents mechanical fire prevention activities within the
overstocked juniper stands.
(6) Advancing this proposed legislation will greatly
enhance the life and safety of people and property by
reducing the extreme fire threat to these lands.
[[Page H6068]]
SEC. 3. BOUNDARY ADJUSTMENT, DESCHUTES CANYON-STEELHEAD FALLS
AND DESCHUTES CANYON WILDERNESS STUDY AREAS,
OREGON.
(a) Boundary Adjustment Required.--The Secretary of the
Interior shall adjust the eastern boundary of the Deschutes
Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Area and the
Deschutes Canyon Wilderness Study Area in the State of Oregon
to exclude approximately 832 acres, as depicted on the map
entitled ``Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study
Area'' and dated April 6, 2017, in order to facilitate fire
prevention and response activities on the excluded public
lands and adjacent private property.
(b) Effect of Exclusion.--Effective on the date of the
enactment of this Act, the public lands to be excluded from
the Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Area
and the Deschutes Canyon Wilderness Study Area pursuant to
subsection (a) are no longer subject to section 603(c) of the
Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C.
1782(c)).
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
California (Mr. McClintock) and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr.
Grijalva) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California.
General Leave
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include
extraneous materials on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, Crooked River Ranch is a residential community that is
home to approximately 5,500 people. It is located between the Deschutes
and Crooked Rivers in Jefferson County, Oregon. Because of this
geography, there is only one all-weather road in and out of Crooked
River Ranch.
Now, right next to this community, along the Deschutes River, is a
roughly 3,200-acre Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study
Area, which is managed--or, more accurately, is mismanaged--by the
Bureau of Land Management. This BLM property is thick with vegetation,
which poses a very real risk for catastrophic wildfires, in large part
because the wilderness study area regulations greatly restrict
essential measures for both fire mitigation and firefighting.
For example, in a wilderness or wilderness study area, you can't use
mechanized or motorized equipment or transport. This includes chainsaws
as well as electrical generators, trucks, and larger equipment
essential to fuels management. You can't even use this equipment to cut
fire breaks. You can't build fire roads. You can't do mechanical
thinning of vegetation. Even the hand thinning that is allowed in such
areas is very limited.
Absent a waiver from the Secretary of the Interior, firefighters
can't drop fire retardant or use bulldozers to cut fire breaks in the
wilderness study area during a fire. Tragically, the benign neglect
mandated by these requirements has made all wilderness areas firetraps
just waiting for a lighting flash or a careless match.
H.R. 2075, authored by Congressman Greg Walden, with the support of
the local community, would slightly modify the eastern boundary of the
Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Area, making it
possible to manage the land properly to reduce fuel loads that threaten
the neighborhoods in Crooked River Ranch.
The boundary change will reduce the WSA by about 830 acres, but this
small change will promote public safety, allow for more efficient fuels
treatments on the lands immediately adjacent to Crooked River Ranch,
and give critically important flexibility to local firefighters should
fire break out in that area.
This is an issue of public safety, and this bill will clearly help
protect the lives and property of the thousands of Crooked River Ranch
residents from wildfire.
I commend Congressman Walden for his work to provide a commonsense
solution to a very real public safety concern. I urge adoption of the
measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, the Crooked River Ranch Fire Protection Act removes 830
acres from the wilderness study area in central Oregon. The land is
adjacent to a rural subdivision, and its removal from WSA will arguably
make it easier for the local community and the BLM to plan wildfire
mitigation projects.
While we take issue with the point that the WSA designation limits
mechanical thinning and other necessary forest treatments, the area is
not suitable for wilderness designation, and the release from the WSA
makes sense.
However, we still have concerns with this bill, because it ignores
the collaborative process that was trying to develop a comprehensive
plan for the entire area. That plan would have led to lasting
conservation gains by designating wilderness and would have done even
more to protect the community from wildfire by creating special
management areas adjacent to Crooked River Ranch. Unfortunately, the
collaborative group stalled out after this legislation was introduced.
Only Congress can permanently change the status of a wilderness study
area. Whenever we choose to make a permanent change, we have a
responsibility to consider the whole picture and listen to all
stakeholders.
While it is disappointing that we are unable to fulfill that
commitment with this legislation, we understand the need to prioritize
safety of the Crooked River Ranch residents.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to
the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), the author of this legislation
and the elected representative of this threatened community.
Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman McClintock and my
friend from Arizona for their work on this, especially Chairman Bishop
as well. The Natural Resources Committee has been terrific to work with
on this measure over a period of time.
The bill is really an important public safety measure. This is a
life-and-death measure. There are more than 5,000 people who live in
Crooked River Ranch. This is an unincorporated community in central
Oregon. It is wedged between two river systems, river canyons.
You can see it here on this map. I want to point out the two rivers
here. It is actually on a peninsula. It sits up. These are deep
canyons. To the west over here is where the wilderness study area is
that we are talking about. It is juniper. It is cheatgrass. It is
sagebrush. These are the most volatile fuels you can have.
Unlike here on the East Coast, where in the summer you get
thunderstorms and heavy rain with it, out in Oregon, we have humidity.
We call it rain that stays in the ground. But in the summer, we don't
get that. What we get is dry lightning and very little rain. When
lightning strikes occur in that kind of vegetation, it explodes.
I have talked to the firefighters, and I will show you what happens
when this happens. This the terrain. The overstocked juniper, you can
see it over here. This is very volatile terrain. That is grasslands. As
I say, there are all kinds of other volatile fuels in there.
This is at the highest risk category for exposure to catastrophic
wildfire. The wildfire planning community protection plan calls it that
in Jefferson County.
Fire season is already underway in central Oregon. In fact, wildfires
have already burned 120,000 acres so far this year. It has just gotten
started. By the way, that is the equivalent of burning about 2\1/2\
times the entire size of Washington, D.C.
So what does that look like? When fire gets into these junipers, they
basically explode. It is very volatile. Jefferson County Sheriff Jim
Adkins took this picture out of his rig of the Graham fire. This fire
nearby--not right at Crooked River Ranch, but in the same county--
burned a few weeks ago. It burned two homes. Altogether, it burned
about 2,000 acres--2,000 acres--and a couple of homes before they could
get in and get it out.
So what we are doing here with this legislation is removing 832
acres. That is it. Three-thousandths of 1 percent of all the WSAs in
Oregon, three-thousandths of 1 percent of the acreage, 832 acres, we
are saying that we are just going to take it back to the rim of the
canyon, and, on that flat land, you can go in and thin out these
junipers and get it back to where you can do fire management.
[[Page H6069]]
Now, when I have talked to the fire chiefs and crews there, they have
told me: Look, in this community of 5,000, there is one road in and
out.
If you have a fire that blows up like this out on the peninsula, out
on the end, the fire chiefs basically said: If the conditions are wrong
and there is wind, I am not going to put my firefighters' lives at
risk, so we will probably not go in and fight that fire. We will just
try and get people out.
Can you imagine, on a two-lane road, trying to evacuate more than
5,000 people with a monster fire breathing down your back? That is what
we are trying to avoid here.
This WSA was determined in 1992 by the Bureau of Land Management and
the Forest Service to not be suitable for inclusion as wilderness. They
said: No, it doesn't meet the criteria. It should not be included.
But the way the Federal law works, once the agency decides to study
one of these areas, all the restrictions come on the land. As you have
heard from both sides of the aisle--well, at least our side of the
aisle--that means that you can't go in and do mechanical thinning. You
can't do the kind of work we need to do.
By the way, if there is a fire, it takes all kinds of permission to
drop the retardant or to get in there with mechanical means.
All we are saying is, let's back that up 832 acres along the rim
line, send people in, thin this back to where it is in balance and will
not cause devastating wildfire to consume Crooked River Ranch. Let's
look at what happens when that does occur.
You will remember this tragedy from my friend's home State in Santa
Rosa, California. You don't think fires are monsters and killers and
deadly? Look at what happened to this community, the homes and lives
that were lost.
This is what we are trying to prevent from happening at Crooked River
Ranch. With bipartisan support, the House is going to show its will
today, and I think overwhelmingly, to say this is a measured,
thoughtful piece of legislation with enormous support in the community
and the county that will prevent a Santa Rosa from occurring at Crooked
River Ranch.
Remember, there is one way in and one way out, and 5,500 people who
live in this area.
I thank the gentleman from Alaska for his leadership on this. He and
his staff have been terrific.
I thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. I know we have
some differences about adding other things in. That can be dealt with,
discussed at another time, but we have a serious and deadly threat
staring us down every summer. We have fires already burning in the
area.
If we want to save lives and prevent deadly fires, this is the bill
to do it. This is the time to do it. Let's get it done.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the more than 5,000
residents of the Crooked River Ranch and in the name of common sense, I
ask for passage of this vital public safety measure, and I yield back
the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock) that the House suspend the
rules and pass the bill, H.R. 2075, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
The title of the bill was amended so as to read: ``A bill to adjust
the eastern boundary of the Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls and
Deschutes Canyon Wilderness Study Areas in the State of Oregon to
facilitate fire prevention and response activities to protect private
property, and for other purposes.''.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________