[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 126 (Thursday, July 28, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Page S3785]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. PADILLA (for himself and Mr. Cramer):
  S. 4672. A bill to modify the authority of the Secretary of Defense 
to transfer excess aircraft to other departments of the Federal 
Government and to authorize the Secretary to transfer excess aircraft 
to the Governor of a State, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
Armed Services.
  Mr. PADILLA, Mr. President, I rise to introduce the bipartisan 
Emergency Aircraft Act of 2022.
  Currently, DOD has a program to transfer excess aircraft to Federal 
Agencies for wildfire suppression purposes. However, under current law, 
DOD is limited to providing only seven aircraft total to each Agency.
  After years of increasingly catastrophic wildfires, it has become 
clear that the Federal Government must do more to support suppression 
efforts to get fires under control quickly, as well as support search 
and rescue to keep communities safe. If there are excess aircraft 
available, they should be put to use suppressing fires and protecting 
communities.
  Furthermore, as fire activity has exploded in the past few years, 
States have stepped up and greatly increased their own suppression 
efforts. They should also be allowed to utilize these excess aircraft 
to increase suppression capabilities and put fires out faster. However, 
under current law, States do not have access to these excess aircraft.
  This bill would remove the arbitrary cap on how many excess aircraft 
DOD can transfer to Federal Agencies for wildfire suppression efforts; 
allow States to receive excess aircraft; expand the purposes for which 
these aircraft could be used from just ``wildfire suppression 
purposes'' to include purposes of ``wildfire suppression, search and 
rescue, or emergency operations pertaining to wildfires''; and mandate 
an annual report from DOD to the Committees on Armed Services of the 
Senate and the House of Representatives on aircraft transferred during 
the previous fiscal year.
  This bill represents a commonsense step forward to expand fire 
suppression and search and rescue operations across the Federal 
Government and State governments.
  I want to thank Senator Cramer for joining me in this bipartisan 
effort, and I urge my colleagues to join us in working to pass this 
bill as quickly as possible in light of the extreme wildfire danger 
facing States across the country.

                          ____________________