[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 5 (Thursday, January 8, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Page S117]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. PADILLA (for himself and Mr. Sheehy):
  S. 3609. A bill to establish a community protection and wildfire 
resilience grant program, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
  Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the bipartisan 
Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act. This crucial piece of 
legislation would help local communities defend themselves from the 
growing and pressing danger of wildfires.
  This bill would empower communities to implement science-based 
methods for mitigating wildfire damage and provide funding to design 
and implement new Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Plans 
with community members, first responders, and relevant State agencies.
  Today, is the 1-year anniversary of the devastating Eaton and 
Palisades fires in Los Angeles that taught us all that not all 
wildfires are forest fires and as such Federal preparedness efforts 
need to be improved and streamlined to ensure that we better prepared 
when the next natural disaster strikes. We increasingly see wildfires 
in the wildland urban interface, and we must do more to prepare and 
harden our communities. As the countless fires in my State and across 
the West have shown us, we need to increase Federal support for 
communities to mitigate the risk of catastrophic wildfires.
  The Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act would work 
towards this goal by establishing guidelines for communities to 
conceptualize new Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Plans, 
CPWRP, that are developed in coordination with community members, first 
responders, and relevant State agencies.
  This bill will achieve this through improving early detection 
technology, public outreach and education, alerts and warnings, 
evacuation planning, evacuation execution, and access for first 
responders; addressing vulnerable populations, including the elderly 
and those with disabilities; hardening critical infrastructure and 
homes; applying community-scale defensible space across contiguous 
areas; building local capacity to implement and oversee the plan; 
deploying distributed energy resources; implementing strategic land use 
planning; educating community members; and coordinating with existing 
wildfire plans like a Community Wildfire Protection Plan. Aside from 
this, the bill will provide grants for at-risk communities, complete a 
report on existing programs to protect communities from wildfires, and 
it will allow for structure hardening that will help build more fire 
resilient communities.
  I would like to thank my colleague Senator Sheehy for being a great 
partner here in the Senate to advance and put forth commonsense 
wildfire legislation that will help Western States and the country 
become better equipped to respond to increasing wildfires. I also want 
to express my appreciation to Representatives Huffman and Obernolte for 
leading this effort on the House side.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues to advance this bill 
this Congress to ensure that communities are better equipped to meet 
the growing threat of fires.

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