[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 5, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H478-H480]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EMERGENCY WILDFIRE FIGHTING TECHNOLOGY ACT OF 2025
Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 836) to require the Secretary of Agriculture, acting through
the Chief of the Forest Service, and the Secretary of the Interior to
conduct an evaluation with respect to the use of the container aerial
firefighting system (CAFFS), and for other purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 836
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 ``Emergency Wildfire Fighting
Technology Act of 2025''.
SEC. 2. CONTAINER AERIAL FIREFIGHTING SYSTEM (CAFFS).
(a) Evaluation.--Not later than 90 days after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Agriculture and
the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the
National Interagency Aviation Committee and the Interagency
Airtanker Board, shall jointly conduct an evaluation of the
container aerial firefighting system to assess the use of
such system to mitigate and suppress wildfires.
(b) Report.--Not later than 120 days after the date of the
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Agriculture and the
Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the National
Interagency Aviation Committee and the Interagency Airtanker
Board, shall jointly submit to the appropriate committees a
report that includes the results of the evaluation required
under subsection (a).
(c) Appropriate Committees Defined.--In this section, the
term ``appropriate committees'' means--
(1) the Committees on Agriculture and Natural Resources of
the House of Representatives; and
(2) the Committees on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
and Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Arkansas (Mr. Westerman) and the gentleman from California (Mr.
Huffman) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arkansas.
General Leave
Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on H.R. 836, the bill now under
consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Arkansas?
There was no objection.
Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
I rise in strong support of Congressman Valadao's bill, the Emergency
Wildfire Fighting Technology Act of 2025. This timely legislation
offers us a chance to equip land managers with another tool in their
arsenal to combat the catastrophic wildfire crisis by testing a new and
innovative method for wildfire suppression.
[[Page H479]]
Last month, wildfires in southern California took the lives of at
least 29 people and changed thousands of lives forever. These fires
destroyed more than 16,000 structures and racked up untold fire
suppression costs and economic damages.
This tragedy is a wake-up call for millions of Americans and
demonstrates just how important it is to proactively address the
wildfire crisis. Unfortunately, decades of inadequate forest management
have created an unprecedented forest health crisis. Across our country,
1 billion acres are now at risk of wildland fire. In the absence of
dramatic change, the future outlook remains bleak.
When it comes to fighting these out-of-control infernos, it is
critical that we utilize all available technologies that could improve
the cost efficiency and effectiveness of fire suppression. Wildland
firefighters on the front lines of these disasters must have all the
tools and methods available to fight fires and protect lives and
property.
Aircraft and helicopters provide lifesaving support to ground crews,
often by delivering water or fire retardant. In order to drop water or
fire retardant from a plane or helicopter, the aircraft must be
designed or retrofitted for such purpose, which limits the number of
aircraft available.
Representative Valadao has worked with various stakeholders who have
developed and improved container aerial firefighting systems that drop
water or fire retardant from aircraft via disposable containers. This
technology could decrease the response time to wildfires by increasing
the number of aircraft available, which could, in turn, save lives and
critical infrastructure.
This technology is not new and is used successfully in other parts of
the world. However, U.S. wildland firefighting agencies have not
recently studied the system.
H.R. 836 would require the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of
the Interior to evaluate the use of container aerial firefighting
systems in response to wildfires. The evaluation will focus on
effectiveness, cost, ease of delivery, and safety.
Directing our wildfire firefighting agencies to study new and
emerging technologies is a win for the wildland firefighting crews and
a win for those who live in vulnerable, fire-prone areas.
I applaud Congressman Valadao for his leadership on this important
topic. His legislation passed the House unanimously last year, and it
has also passed the House twice with bipartisan support as part of the
Fix Our Forests Act.
Mr. Speaker, I support the bill and reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise in support of this legislation introduced by the gentleman
from California (Mr. Valadao).
In a few minutes, I will also have a lot to say about one of the
bills that was abruptly and outrageously pulled from our agenda today,
but right now, I am happy to support my friend's bill.
I point out that the text of this bill passed the House as part of
Chair Westerman's H.R. 471 less than 2 weeks ago. I recognize that this
is the beginning of a new Congress. Things are pretty chaotic, and our
friends across the aisle want to appear busy amidst all the
unconstitutional chaos and illegal action that is flooding our in-boxes
and our newspapers, and we are constantly on the defensive because our
democracy is under attack by someone who doesn't want to be a
President--he wants to be a king--and has no regard for Article I of
the Constitution.
We have silence from our friends across the aisle about all of that,
but I guess we have time today to move a bill that we have already
passed and that nobody opposes. Congratulations for this particular
head-scratcher.
{time} 1330
It is a real missed opportunity since we could be using this time to
talk about critical issues like the Federal wildland firefighting pay
and benefits that are set to expire a few weeks from now.
I think there is bipartisan support to extend those, but I can't get
my friends across the aisle to talk about that, let alone come together
and move some legislation to get it done.
Of course, fixing firefighter pay wasn't in the recent Republican
package. It is not on the agenda today either. I hope we get to it at
some point, but we are not doing it today, and that is a shame.
We should also be talking about disaster relief for California, but
that is not on the agenda today either. Since we are considering this
bill for a second time, Groundhog Day on this bill, instead of all of
the other priorities, I will say committee Democrats continue to
support this bill.
There is no opposition to this bill. We are going to pass it again
and again, maybe, if we run out of other things to do this in this
Congress.
The legislation would require relevant Federal agencies to complete
an updated evaluation of the Container Aerial Firefighting System to
support wildland fire mitigation and suppression efforts across the
country. The system involves using a box or a container for aerial
drops of water or fire retardant.
Its proponents claim that the utilization of this technology could
improve delivery time and make it easier for aircrafts to fight fires.
That is fine. That is a good thing.
However, back in 2011, the Forest Service conducted a study and
determined that this particular system did not meet existing standards
and posed safety risks to our communities and forests. Since that
initial report, there have been technological advancements.
This bill aims to take another look at a potentially useful tool
while ensuring the Forest Service retains its authority to decide if
the tool is ready to use or not. This is an important safeguard for
wildland firefighters and the communities who are impacted by the
wildfire crisis.
As we saw in the recent southern California fires, the climate crisis
is clearly increasing the severity and duration of wildfire season.
Evaluating new technology that can help keep communities safe needs to
be a priority.
This bill is one of many examples of the potential for truly
bipartisan collaboration on the issue of wildfires. I hope we can keep
this work going. I hope we can extend it to actually be a permanent fix
for the firefighter pay problem that we need to address.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I reserve the
balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from
engaging in personalities toward the President.
Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my friends across the aisle for their
overwhelming support of Representative Valadao's bill. We should have
that kind of support for a bill that is addressing a huge issue in our
country with wildland fire and the dangers that it imposes.
Mr. Speaker, I believe you and Mr. Valadao both serve on the
Committee on Appropriations where Republicans brought an Interior
appropriations bill to the floor with firefighter pay funding in that
bill, and it was voted down by our friends across the aisle.
We do need to take care of our firefighters. When we get bills on the
floor that increase pay for firefighters, I would hope we could get
more bipartisan support on that.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr.
Valadao), the lead sponsor of the bill.
Mr. VALADAO. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the
Emergency Wildfire Fighting Technology Act of 2025, which would
dramatically increase the number of airlift assets available for
wildfire emergencies.
Containerized Aerial Firefighting Systems, or CAFFS, are airdrop-
capable disposable containers for water or fire retardant, which can be
dropped from much higher altitudes and with less visibility than
current aerial firefighting operations.
Current operations depend on single-mission aircraft, but CAFFS can
be used by any standard cargo plane. The use of CAFFS provides for more
coverage for firefighters on the ground and allows teams to quickly
respond to prevent smaller fires from raging out of control.
These systems are used by other countries, but the United States has
not utilized them. We have the technology that we can deploy to stop or
minimize the devastation these fires cause, and we should be using it.
[[Page H480]]
Mr. Speaker, I thank Chair Westerman and his staff at the Committee
on Natural Resources for their work on this important bill to combat
and contain wildfires in a quicker and more efficient way.
Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I certainly didn't think I was engaging in personalities
by talking about a President that wants to be a king. I thought I was
just acknowledging the reality of what is happening in this country.
I was also referring to these 19-year-olds in hoodies that have been
given read-write access to our most sensitive, personal data who are
inside the Treasury Department's payment system right now rummaging
through our private information doing who knows what.
We can't even get answers because our friends across the aisle don't
want to talk about it. They want to rerun all these bills that we have
already passed and that are, frankly, not opposed, and this is a waste
of our time here on the floor.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' again on this bill,
and I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Again, I would remind Members to refrain
from engaging in personalities toward the President.
Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 836 is a good, commonsense piece of legislation
that has passed the House three times on a bipartisan basis.
I commend Representative Valadao for his proven leadership on
bipartisan solutions that meaningfully improve forest health and reduce
wildfires. If we could get the Senate to act on some of these bills, we
wouldn't have to pass them so many times.
I appreciate Representative Valadao being so persistent and
continuing to work on his good legislation. I encourage adoption of the
bill.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman) that the House suspend the
rules and pass the bill, H.R. 836.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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