[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 171 (Thursday, October 1, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H5634-H5636]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               FIRE FACTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. 
Westerman) until 10 p.m. as the designee of the minority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their 
remarks and include extraneous material on the topic of this Special 
Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Arkansas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, fires are ravaging the West. I want to 
talk a little bit about what is going on with the fires, and I want to 
talk about what is not going on here in Congress.
  To start with, I just want to take a quick look at the science of 
fire.
  This fire triangle shows that three things are required to have a 
fire. You have to have fuel, heat, and oxygen.
  There is a lot of talk about the role climate change is playing in 
these fires. Climate increasing temperatures can draw fuel. If it gets 
windy, you can have more oxygen. Lightning can be one of the things to 
ignite fires, but a lot of fires obviously are ignited by man-made 
ways.
  When we talk about putting out fire, the first thing we do is try to 
get the fuel out of the way, or we use water to cool the fire and 
remove the oxygen. But we have to spend way too much time working on 
extinguishing fires when we can take the actions to reduce the fuel to 
reduce the fires.
  Any time I talk about forest management, I get accused of wanting to 
clear-cut the national forests, and I can promise you the last thing I 
want to do is clear-cut the national forests. I want to use good 
management on the national forests. That is what we should be doing. 
But I often wonder if those people who talk about clear-cutting even 
have any idea of what a clear-cut is.
  I have put this chart together that shows a comparison between a 
clear-cut and a catastrophic wildfire, and I will go on the record and 
say that catastrophic wildfires are worse than clear-cuts.
  Look at the data.
  During a clear-cut, the trees are killed. During a catastrophic 
wildfire, the trees are killed.
  During a clear-cut, the trees are removed. During a catastrophic 
wildfire, you are left with dead snags that can be fuel for additional 
wildfires. All vegetation is killed. That is what happens in a 
catastrophic wildfire. At least in a clear-cut you leave the residual 
grasses and the shrubs.

                              {time}  2145

  Stream zones are protected when a clear-cut is done. You leave 
vegetation around the stream. Catastrophic wildfire burns to the edge 
of the water.
  Soil and organic materials are all burned up in a catastrophic 
wildfire. Special care is taken to protect the soil in a clear-cut.
  When a clear-cut is planned, a plan for reforestation is also in 
place. Often on catastrophic wildfire, there is no reforestation.
  As far as planting goes, it is extensive with a clear-cut. It is 
unplanned and uncontrolled in a catastrophic wildfire.
  The size of a clear-cut, in California, it is less than 20 acres. 
Wildfires are huge, burning millions of acres. We have almost burned 8 
million acres to date in the wildfire season this year in the U.S.
  We can continue going down the list, but you can see, even talking 
about carbon, at least with a clear-cut, you are putting the wood into 
material that stores carbon. With a wildfire, you are releasing the 
carbon into the air. And these dead snags eventually rot. And they are 
not just releasing carbon dioxide like the fire does; they are 
releasing methane, which is a worse greenhouse gas.
  Clear-cutting is not something that we want to do in a national 
forest, but people who are not allowing good forest management--and 
that is Congress with the rules that we have--are doing something much 
more devastating than clear-cutting by allowing these catastrophic 
wildfires to continue unabated.
  Just as an example, this is the Angora fire. That is a natural clear-
cut. That is a stand replacing fire.
  This is 12 years later, where you have no regrowth on the site.
  On top of that, according to the USGS, in 2018, the carbon emissions 
from wildfires released the same amount of carbon as the emissions that 
would be produced by generating enough electricity to power California 
for a whole year.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to take action. It is not that the Forest 
Service doesn't know how to manage the land, it is that we have tied 
their hands and we have allowed activists and lawyers to manage the 
forests rather than the professionals in the Forest Service.
  If we don't want to see the same things repeating over and over, with 
loss of life, loss of property, loss of a resource that actually pulls 
carbon dioxide out of the air and could be used to reduce the effects 
of climate change, we should do something proactive and actually start 
managing these forests.
  It is time to act, and unfortunately, Congress has sat on their hands 
while we continue to watch the West burn.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar).
  Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I thank the gentleman from 
Arkansas (Mr. Westerman), my friend, for organizing this Special Order 
and for his leadership and expertise on forestry issues.
  The events of the last month and the last decade plus show how poorly 
our current forest management policies are and that they are broken and 
in drastic need of reform.
  Nearly every corner of the West has been touched by catastrophic 
wildfire. My district has been home to several major fires this year, 
including the Bush fire that burned over 193,000 acres. 700,000 acres 
of land has been burned across my State.
  Even before this year's fire season, the evidence of our forest 
management practices being broken are clear. In the last 10 years 
alone, wildfires have burned over 74 million acres of land in the West, 
and our Federal Government's reaction to this has been extremely 
lacking.
  These catastrophic fires have devastating impacts on the environment 
and human health. For example, one large wildfire is roughly the 
equivalent of a major volcanic eruption, releasing large amounts of 
dangerous particles into the air. This increase of air pollution 
exacerbates respiratory illnesses, such as COVID-19.
  Because of this, earlier this year, I wrote a letter to Agriculture 
Secretary Perdue and Interior Secretary Bernhardt. This letter urged 
them to act quickly to secure contracts with private businesses to 
ensure that firefighters could be properly protected from COVID-19 and 
that the aerial support they needed to adequately fight catastrophic 
fires was there.
  Recent studies conducted at George Mason University showed that on 
average, a fire stands a higher probability of being contained within 
24 hours if air tankers are deployed on that fire within the first few 
hours. Fires that do not receive air tanker support for a period of 13 
hours or more are likely to take days or weeks to achieve containment.
  I also wrote a letter to Attorney General Barr that urged him to 
ensure that the Justice Department's Natural Resources Division was 
adequately resourced to fight frivolous lawsuits from radical leftwing 
environmental organizations.
  Lawsuits from radical environmentalists are nothing new. We have seen 
this already in Arizona with the disastrous WildEarth Guardians lawsuit 
regarding the Mexican Spotted Owl. In that case, a U.S. District Court 
judge in Tucson issued a ruling based on bad and debunked science that 
stopped active forest management activities in six national forests, 
including the Tonto National Forest in Arizona, which was the home of 
the Bush fire.
  This decision was a massive setback, and it is directly contributing 
to the enhanced fire risk that threatens our communities that we are 
seeing across the West.
  A devastating wildfire season is not inevitable. It isn't something 
that we must just accept. There are steps that can be taken now to 
ensure that our communities are protected.

[[Page H5635]]

  I will continue to urge the Federal agencies tasked with managing our 
forests and fighting catastrophic fires that bold action is necessary. 
Lives depend on it.
  Just last year, as chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, I 
had the opportunity to visit the district of my friend from California, 
Mr. McClintock, where aggressive forest management practices in the 
Lake Tahoe Basin have prevented catastrophic fire. This active 
management was made possible by getting unnecessary red tape out of the 
way and putting what is most important first: protecting our 
communities from the destruction of wildfire.

  Just in the last 2 years, this administration has taken steps to 
manage vegetation inside utility corridors, build additional 
firebreaks, and reform the NEPA process within the Forest Service. 
However, after so many years of inaction, there is a long road to hoe 
to where we have to get, which is why I am so pleased we are here 
tonight calling for serious action by this House.
  There are a few pieces of legislation that have been introduced. Just 
to name a few: H.R. 7978, a bipartisan, comprehensive forestry reform 
bill led by the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa), as well as 
H.R. 2607, the Resilient Federal Forests Act, by Mr. Westerman, both of 
which I am proud to support.
  The Democratic leadership in this House has been transparent about 
the fact that they do not view forest management to prevent wildfires 
as a legislative priority, and that has deadly consequences.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Arkansas for holding this 
Special Order and for his leadership and expertise on this issue.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Gosar) for being here tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Newhouse).
  Mr. NEWHOUSE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. 
Westerman), my good friend, for yielding.
  As we all know, the West has been on fire.
  In my home State of Washington, over 700,000 acres have burned, 
causing thousands of families to evacuate, leaving their homes, their 
businesses, and their farms behind. Whole towns have essentially been 
wiped off the map.
  Smoke blanketed central Washington, with fires raging up and down the 
West Coast. The air quality of our cities and our rural areas ranked 
the worst in the world.
  As the people of central Washington and many of my colleagues in 
Congress understand, healthy, resilient forests are the key to wildfire 
prevention. We have made significant progress, but there is still much 
work to be done.
  Without our leadership in Congress, families will continue to lose 
their homes and their businesses, and jobs will continue to be lost, 
and our public health will continue to be threatened.
  While a loss of homes and livelihoods is heartbreaking, there is 
nothing more tragic than the loss of life.
  Today, I join the people of central Washington in mourning the loss 
of 1-year-old Baby Hyland, whose life was tragically cut short as his 
parents fled to escape the Cold Springs fire that was raging across 
Okanogan County. The Hyland family has suffered immeasurable loss with 
the deaths of both their toddler as well as the death of their unborn 
child. My heart aches and my prayers go out for the Hylands as they 
recover from their own wounds in this unimaginable heartbreak.
  These tragic circumstances fall on us, Mr. Speaker. We are 
responsible, as the Federal Government, for failing to deliver a 
management strategy that enables us to prevent these catastrophic 
events.
  We cannot continue to sit idly by.
  We have to responsibly log our forests and graze our lands, or we 
will watch them burn.
  These wildfires and this year have truly tested our resilience, but 
of this I am certain: in the face of catastrophe, central Washington 
will recover.
  Now it is the Federal Government's responsibility to do everything in 
its power to prevent another disaster like this again.
  For years, extreme environmentalist groups have insisted that we 
leave our forests and natural lands alone, leaving them in their quote 
``natural state.'' But as we witness, year-after-year, that strategy 
simply does not work.
  Many point to climate change as a contributing factor; I am not here 
to refute that. At the end of the day though, the facts remain: our 
land management--or lack thereof--is a serious problem.
  Decades of mismanagement, misguided environmental policies, and 
lackluster forestry and grazing practices have led to forests and 
grasslands that act as tinder for wildfires, just waiting to be set 
ablaze each summer.
  We cannot continue to sit idly by. We have to responsibly log our 
forests and graze our lands, or we will watch them burn.
  As I have stated all along throughout the many challenges this year 
has presented: Central Washington's communities are resilient.
  Wildfire recovery is no easy feat, but I have seen firsthand how 
citizens, volunteers, local organizations, and government entities work 
together to revive our communities, rebuild our fallen structures, and 
actively work to prevent future devastation.
  I have heard stories of students and volunteers jumping into action, 
working to clear burnt areas, making way for new structures. 
Fairgrounds and community groups opened to help house and treat 
evacuated or injured livestock and animals. Donations continue to pour 
in from across the state, region, and country to families and 
firefighters in need.
  I am working closely with FEMA and USDA to ensure our communities 
receive the federal assistance they need, and I stand ready to help the 
people of our district in any way I can.
  These wildfires--and this year--have tested our resilience, but of 
this I am certain: In the face of catastrophe, Central Washington will 
recover. Now it is the federal government's responsibility to do 
everything in its power to prevent another disaster like this again.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington 
(Mr. Newhouse) for his comments tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Palmer).
  Mr. PALMER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. 
Westerman) for holding this discussion about forest management.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today because ``California's forests suffer from 
neglect and mismanagement, resulting in overcrowding that leaves them 
susceptible to disease, insects and wildfire.'' These are not my words. 
They are the words of the Little Hoover Commission, an independent 
State oversight agency in California.
  In their 2018 report entitled ``Fire on the Mountain,'' the Little 
Hoover Commission called for a transformational change in California 
forest management practices after ``A century of mismanaging Sierra 
Nevada forests has bought an unprecedented environmental catastrophe 
that impacts all Californians.'' That is a direct quote from the 
report.
  California's own Legislative Analyst's Office agreed and found that 
limitations on timber harvests and emphasis on fire suppression and an 
increasing number of environmental permitting requirements have led to 
unhealthily dense forests.
  Thankfully, both groups recognize that commonsense forest management 
practices could not only help prevent wildfires, but also reduce carbon 
emissions. Properly managed and healthy forests are more resilient and 
sequester more carbon than overgrown forests.
  Simple recommendations like shifting from fire suppression to using 
fire as a tool and setting up long-term forest management strategies 
are just a couple of the low-cost solutions that can help us achieve 
healthier forests.
  Unlike policies such as the Green New Deal, these practices would 
actually help address wildfires and would not cost trillions of dollars 
to implement. Furthermore, these actions can all be taken today, and 
they fall in line with some of the things that my Republican colleagues 
and I have been suggesting on the Select Committee on the Climate 
Crisis: that if we take action to mitigate and adapt to the climate 
change that we know is going to occur, we could avoid some of the 
catastrophes that we are seeing play out in California right now and in 
other places in the West.
  If you care about protecting our citizens from wildfires and reducing 
carbon emissions, then you should support responsible forest 
management. Instead of wasting time on unrealistic solutions, we should 
take serious action to prevent unnecessary wildfires and

[[Page H5636]]

improve the carbon sequestration potential of our forests.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. 
Palmer) for his comments.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Thompson).
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Arkansas (Mr. Westerman) for hosting this Special Order on wildfire.
  Mr. Speaker, over the past decade, there has been an average of 
64,100 wildfires and 6.8 million acres burned every year.
  With over 10 million acres burned, we saw the highest number of 
Federal acres burned in 2015--and nearly that amount in 2017.
  But this year, it has been even worse. 2020 has been an extremely 
difficult wildfire year for our firefighters, our responders, and many 
rural communities in and near the forests.
  As of today, October 1, over 44,000 wildfires have burned nearly 7.7 
million acres this year alone.
  In addition to the destruction of these forests, homes, and property, 
we sadly continue to see lost lives.
  Over the past 25 years, active management has plummeted across the 
national forest system; consequently, it is no coincidence that the 
larger, more intense fires are happening on Federal lands, where there 
is less management, versus State and private lands.
  More individual fires occur in the East, but the wildfires in the 
West are larger and burn more acres. Wildfires also have significant 
impacts on eastern forests because of the budgetary effects on the 
Forest Service's ability to manage and personnel.
  We must be encouraging more active forest management across the 
National Forest system. This includes thinning, prescribed fires, and 
hazardous fuels reduction, especially in the roughly 19 million acres 
of Federal lands that are already known to be at high risk.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Mr. Westerman, for his great work 
during the last farm bill and his leadership with the Resilient Federal 
Forests Act and the Trillion Trees Act.
  Through the next farm bill, I am hopeful that we can continue to 
build on those commonsense reforms, and we will provide more 
authorities to help the Forest Service better manage and encourage more 
partnerships.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Thompson) for being here tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to illustrate here that this isn't 
difficult. It is not rocket science.
  This is a control in the first picture. You see all the underbrush, 
the ladder fuels. This is on Federal land as well.
  You see the forest management in the middle where you thin it out, 
you do controlled burns. You do those every few years, and you get a 
resilient forest that looks like this.
  California and Oregon and Arizona and Washington State, Nevada, they 
could have forests that look like this. Now, it would be those species 
that are out there, and the management would be done accordingly, but 
there is no reason we can't do this.
  It is Speaker Pelosi's State that is on fire. It is Chairman 
Grijalva's State that is on fire. It is Chairman DeFazio's State that 
is on fire.
  I wish that Democrats would take time to do what is right, to address 
these fires, to quit playing politics with relief bills that are going 
nowhere and do something that could really help the people and their 
States.
  We want to help, but we can't do it on our own. We are in the 
minority.
  We will work together and offer suggestions, but it is going to take 
a bipartisan effort to change these rules so that management can take 
place.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor our firefighters who put 
their lives on the line to keep our communities safe every day. As new 
wildfires start every week, these brave men and women selflessly join 
the fight to protect life and property, while their families must live 
with the uncertainty of the threats they face on the frontlines. I 
commend these individuals, and Congress must provide all the support 
necessary to ensure our firefighters can return safely to their 
families.
  I also commend the heroes joining the fight from across the country. 
California's firefighting resources are strained by the sheer number 
and size of the fires we face, and it is a testament to our nation's 
highest ideals that firefighters from across the West have come to our 
aid as these historic fires rage in every corner of our state.
  Riverside County has already faced four distinct fires this wildfire 
season, burning over 60,000 acres in and around my district. In these 
fires alone, 17 individuals have been injured, and one firefighter lost 
his life trying to put out the El Dorado fire. Charlie Morton was a 14-
year veteran of the Forest Service, and I send my deepest condolences 
to Charlie's family for their terrible loss.
  Nearly every year California seems to break some record during the 
fire season.
  It doesn't have to be this way.
  For years, top congressional Democrats have rejected bipartisan 
proposals to reform our nation's forest management practices. Many 
Democrats have outright rejected the idea that how we manage our 
National Forests has anything to do with the increasing frequency and 
intensity of wildfires in the West.
  Well, here are some of the facts:
  Since 2010, approximately 150 million trees have died across federal, 
state, and private lands in California.
  It is estimated that over 2 million properties are at extreme risk of 
wildfire due to high fuel loads nearby.
  Between 60 and 80 million acres of national forest are at high- to 
very-high risk of catastrophic wildfire, but the Forest Service treats 
between just 1 and 2 percent of high risk acres each year.
  In January, a study in Nature found that California needs to treat 
approximately 20 million acres to meaningfully impact wildfire risk. We 
treat closer to 13,000 acres annually.
  Bureaucratic delays and frivolous lawsuits have halted much of this 
proactive work. The town of Berry Creek, received a grant to remove 
hazardous fuels, but it took the state nearly two years to review the 
project and allow it to proceed. By the time they did, it was too late, 
and the North Complex fire was already raging, destroying more than 50 
homes in this community.
  Salvage logging is another example of a win-win solution where 
companies still have an economic incentive to harvest the timber while 
helping prevent the next catastrophic wildfire. Charred trees left in 
the wake of wildfires are extremely flammable and hazardous fuels. 
Salvage operations must be conducted quickly or the economic value is 
lost, and extreme environmental groups frequently file lawsuits to halt 
these efforts.
  In 2018 when I served as Chairman of the Interior Appropriations 
Subcommittee, I worked in a bipartisan fashion with Congresswoman 
McCollum to prioritize forest management and fuel reduction on our 
federal lands. We worked in good faith to achieve some meaningful 
reforms including a funding fix for the Forest Service and some limited 
regulatory reforms. Still, much more needs to be done to protect our 
communities.
  We need to eliminate the red-tape that prevents these common-sense 
management efforts. We must take forest management decisions out of the 
courts and put the forest managers back in the driver's seat. 
Fortunately, House Republicans have solutions.
  Congressman McClintock's Proven Forest Management Act takes lessons 
learned from a pilot program in Lake Tahoe National Forest. Land 
managers were able to approve the first forest management project in 
under four months in a 16-page report, compared to an average of 4.5 
years and 500 pages. We should pass this bill and expand this 
successful program nationwide.
  Congressman Westerman's Resilient Federal Forests Act is another 
example. This legislation has passed the House twice with overwhelming 
bipartisan support but was never considered by the Senate. This bill 
would streamline permitting for a wide array of forest management 
projects. When it comes to forest management, time is of the essence, 
and this legislation would dramatically increase our national 
capability to reduce the frequency and severity of catastrophic fires 
across the West.
  I call on Speaker Pelosi to take up these bills and pass meaningful, 
comprehensive forestry reform. More bureaucracy is not the answer to 
our wildfire crisis, and we in Congress must act like there are lives 
at stake, because that is the reality of the threat we face.

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