[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14476-14482]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        FEDERAL LAND ASSISTANCE, MANAGEMENT AND ENHANCEMENT ACT

  Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 5541) to provide a supplemental funding source for 
catastrophic emergency wildland fire suppression activities on 
Department of the Interior and National Forest System lands, to require 
the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to 
develop a cohesive wildland fire management strategy, and for other 
purposes, as amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 5541

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

       (a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Federal 
     Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act'' or ``FLAME 
     Act''.
       (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents for this Act 
     is as follows:

Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Flame Fund for catastrophic emergency wildland fire suppression 
              activities.
Sec. 3. Cohesive wildland fire management strategy.
Sec. 4. Review of certain wildfires to evaluate cost containment in 
              wildland fire suppression activities.
Sec. 5. Reducing risk of wildfires in fire-ready communities.

     SEC. 2. FLAME FUND FOR CATASTROPHIC EMERGENCY WILDLAND FIRE 
                   SUPPRESSION ACTIVITIES.

       (a) Definitions.--In this section:
       (1) Federal land.--The term ``Federal land'' means the 
     following:
       (A) Public lands, as defined in section 103 of the Federal 
     Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1702).
       (B) Units of the National Park System.
       (C) Refuges of the National Wildlife Refuge System.
       (D) Lands held in trust by the United States for the 
     benefit of Indian tribes or individual Indians.
       (E) Lands in the National Forest System, as defined in 
     section 11(a) of the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources 
     Planning Act of 1974 (16 U.S.C. 1609(a)).
       (2) Flame fund.--The term ``Flame Fund'' means the Federal 
     Land Assistance, Management, and Enhancement Fund established 
     by this section.
       (3) Secretary concerned.--The term ``Secretary concerned'' 
     means--
       (A) the Secretary of the Interior, with respect to Federal 
     land described in subparagraphs (A), (B), (C), and (D) of 
     paragraph (1); and
       (B) the Secretary of Agriculture, with respect to National 
     Forest System land.
       (4) Secretaries.--The term ``Secretaries'' means the 
     Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture, 
     acting jointly.
       (b) Establishment and Availability of Flame Fund.--
       (1) Establishment.--There is established in the Treasury of 
     the United States a fund

[[Page 14477]]

     to be known as the Federal Land Assistance, Management, and 
     Enhancement Fund.
       (2) Contents.--The Flame Fund shall consist of the 
     following amounts:
       (A) Amounts appropriated to the Flame Fund pursuant to the 
     authorization of appropriations in subsection (c).
       (B) Amounts transferred to the Flame Fund pursuant to 
     subsection (d).
       (3) Availability.--Subject to subsection (e), amounts in 
     the Flame Fund shall be available to the Secretaries to pay 
     the costs of catastrophic emergency wildland fire suppression 
     activities that are separate from amounts annually 
     appropriated to the Secretaries for the predicted annual 
     workload for wildland fire suppression activities, based on 
     analyses of historical workloads and anticipated increased 
     workloads due to changing environmental or demographic 
     conditions.
       (c) Authorization of Appropriations.--
       (1) Authorization of appropriations.--There is authorized 
     to be appropriated to the Flame Fund such funds as may be 
     necessary to carry out this section. It is the intent of 
     Congress that the amount appropriated to the Flame Fund for 
     fiscal year 2009 and each subsequent fiscal year equal the 
     average amount expended by the Secretaries for emergency 
     wildland fire suppression activities over the five fiscal 
     years preceding that fiscal year.
       (2) Sense of congress on designation of certain 
     appropriations as emergency requirement.--It is the sense of 
     Congress that the amounts appropriated to the Flame Fund that 
     are above the average of the obligations of the preceding 10 
     years for wildland fire suppression in the Forest Service and 
     the Department of the Interior, adjusted for inflation, 
     should be designated as amounts necessary to meet emergency 
     needs, and the new budget authority and outlays resulting 
     therefrom should not count for the purposes of titles III and 
     IV of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
       (3) Notice of insufficient funds.--The Secretaries shall 
     notify the congressional committees specified in subsection 
     (h)(2) whenever only an estimated two months worth of funding 
     remains in the Flame Fund.
       (d) Transfer of Excess Wildland Fire Suppression Amounts 
     Into Flame Fund.--At the end of each fiscal year, the 
     Secretary concerned shall transfer to the Flame Fund amounts 
     appropriated to the Secretary concerned for wildland fire 
     suppression activities for the fiscal year, but not obligated 
     for wildland fire suppression activities before the end of 
     the fiscal year.
       (e) Use of Flame Fund.--
       (1) Declaration required.--Amounts in the Flame Fund shall 
     be made available to the Secretary concerned only after the 
     Secretaries issue a declaration that a wildland fire 
     suppression activity is eligible for funding through the 
     Flame Fund.
       (2) Declaration criteria.--A declaration by the Secretaries 
     under paragraph (1) shall be based on the following criteria:
       (A) In the case of an individual wildland fire incident--
       (i) the fire covers 300 or more acres;
       (ii) the severity of the fire, which may be based on 
     incident complexity or the potential for increased 
     complexity; and
       (iii) the threat posed by the fire, including the potential 
     for loss of lives, property, or critical resources.
       (B) Consistent with subsection (f), in the case of a 
     firefighting season, cumulative wildland fire suppression 
     activities, when the costs of those activities for the 
     Secretary concerned are projected to exceed amounts annually 
     appropriated.
       (3) Transfer of amounts to secretary concerned.--After 
     issuance of a declaration under paragraph (1) and upon the 
     request of the Secretary concerned, the Secretary of the 
     Treasury shall transfer from the Flame Fund to the Secretary 
     concerned such amounts as the Secretaries determine are 
     necessary for wildland fire suppression activities associated 
     with the declared suppression emergency.
       (4) State, private, and tribal land.--Use of the Flame Fund 
     for catastrophic emergency wildland fire suppression 
     activities on State and private land and, where applicable, 
     tribal land shall be consistent with existing agreements 
     where the Secretaries have agreed to assume responsibility 
     for wildland fire suppression activities on the land.
       (f) Treatment of Anticipated and Predicted Activities.--The 
     Secretary concerned shall continue to fund anticipated and 
     predicted wildland fire suppression activities within the 
     appropriate agency budget for each fiscal year. Use of the 
     additional funding made available through the Flame Fund is 
     intended to supplement the budgeted and appropriated agency 
     funding and is to be used only for purposes and in instances 
     consistent with this section.
       (g) Prohibition on Other Transfers.--All amounts in the 
     Flame Fund, as well as all funds appropriated for the purpose 
     of wildland fire suppression on Federal land, must be 
     obligated before the Secretary concerned may transfer funds 
     from non-fire accounts for wildland fire suppression.
       (h) Accounting and Reports.--
       (1) Accounting and reporting system.--The Secretaries shall 
     establish an accounting and reporting system for the Flame 
     Fund compatible with existing National Fire Plan reporting 
     procedures.
       (2) Annual report.--The Secretaries shall submit to the 
     Committee on Natural Resources, the Committee on Agriculture, 
     and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of 
     Representatives and the Committee on Energy and Natural 
     Resources, the Committee on Indian Affairs, and the Committee 
     on Appropriations of the Senate an annual report on the use 
     of the funds from the Flame Fund, together with any 
     recommendations that the Secretaries may have to improve the 
     administrative control and oversight of the Flame Fund.
       (3) Public availability.--The annual report required by 
     paragraph (2) shall be made available to the public.

     SEC. 3. COHESIVE WILDLAND FIRE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY.

       (a) Strategy Required.--Not later than one year after the 
     date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the 
     Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture shall submit to 
     Congress a report that contains a cohesive wildland fire 
     management strategy, consistent with the recommendations 
     contained in recent Comptroller General reports regarding 
     this issue.
       (b) Elements of Strategy.--The strategy required by 
     subsection (a) shall address the findings of the Comptroller 
     General in the reports referred to in such subsection and 
     include the following elements:
       (1) A system to identify the most cost effective means for 
     allocating fire management budget resources.
       (2) An illustration of plans by the Secretary of the 
     Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to reinvest in non-
     fire programs.
       (3) A description of how the Secretaries will employ 
     appropriate management response.
       (4) A system for assessing the level of risk to 
     communities.
       (5) A system to ensure that the highest priority fuels 
     reduction projects are being funded first.
       (c) Notice of Prescribed Fires.--As part of the strategy 
     required by subsection (a) for the Forest Service, the 
     Secretary of Agriculture shall ensure that, before any 
     prescribed fire is used on National Forest System land, 
     owners of adjacent private land are notified in writing of 
     the date and scope of the proposed prescribed fire.

     SEC. 4. REVIEW OF CERTAIN WILDFIRES TO EVALUATE COST 
                   CONTAINMENT IN WILDLAND FIRE SUPPRESSION 
                   ACTIVITIES.

       (a) Review Required.--The Secretary of the Interior and the 
     Secretary of Agriculture shall conduct a review, using 
     independent panels, of each wildfire incident for which the 
     Secretary concerned incurs expenses in excess of $10,000,000.
       (b) Report.--The Secretary concerned shall submit to the 
     Committee on Natural Resources, the Committee on Agriculture, 
     and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of 
     Representatives and the Committee on Energy and Natural 
     Resources, the Committee on Indian Affairs, and the Committee 
     on Appropriations of the Senate a report containing the 
     results of each review conducted under subsection (a).

     SEC. 5. REDUCING RISK OF WILDFIRES IN FIRE-READY COMMUNITIES.

       (a) Fire-Ready Community Defined.--In this section, the 
     term ``fire-ready community'' means a community that--
       (1) is located within a priority area identified pursuant 
     to subsection (b);
       (2) has a cooperative fire agreement that articulates the 
     roles and responsibilities for Federal, State and local 
     government entities in local wildfire suppression and 
     protection;
       (3) has local codes that require fire-resistant home design 
     and building materials;
       (4) has a community wildfire protection plan (as defined in 
     section 101 of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 
     (16 U.S.C. 6502)); and
       (5) is engaged in a successful collaborative process that 
     includes multiple interested persons representing diverse 
     interests and is transparent and nonexclusive, such as a 
     resource advisory committee established under section 205 of 
     the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act 
     of 2000 (Public Law 106-393; 16 U.S.C. 500 note).
       (b) Fire Risk Mapping.--As soon as is practicable after the 
     date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of 
     Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior (in this 
     section referred to as the ``Secretaries'') shall develop 
     regional maps of communities most at risk of wildfire and in 
     need of hazardous fuel treatment and maintenance. The maps 
     shall identify priority areas for hazardous fuels reduction 
     projects, including--
       (1) at-risk communities in fire-prone areas of the 
     wildland-urban interface (as defined in section 101 of the 
     Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 (16 U.S.C. 6502));
       (2) watersheds and municipal drinking water sources;
       (3) emergency evacuation corridors;
       (4) electricity transmission corridors; and
       (5) low-capacity or low-income communities.
       (c) Local Wildland Firefighting Capability Grants.--
       (1) Grants available.--The Secretaries may provide cost-
     share grants to fire-ready communities to assist such 
     communities in carrying activities authorized by paragraph 
     (2).
       (2) Eligible activities.--Grant funds may be used for the 
     following:

[[Page 14478]]

       (A) Education programs to raise awareness of homeowners and 
     citizens about wildland fire protection practices, including 
     FireWise or similar programs.
       (B) Training programs for local firefighters on wildland 
     firefighting techniques and approaches.
       (C) Equipment acquisition to facilitate wildland fire 
     preparedness.
       (D) Implementation of a community wildfire protection plan.
       (d) Wildland Fire Cost-Share Agreements.--In developing any 
     wildland fire cost-share agreement with a State Forester or 
     equivalent official, the Secretaries shall, to the greatest 
     extent possible, encourage the State and local communities 
     involved to become fire-ready communities.
       (e) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized 
     to be appropriated to the Secretaries to carry out this 
     section such sums as may be necessary.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) and the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Sali) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from West Virginia.


                             General Leave

  Mr. RAHALL. 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 the bill under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from West Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, this year's fire season in California started in 
unprecedented fashion, when 1,700 fires erupted in a 48-hour period 
beginning June 21. Already, just over 3 weeks later, fires have burned 
more than 960 square miles in California.
  And as of yesterday afternoon, 330 fires were still actively burning 
there, when citizens received the ominous warning that conditions are 
right for, as the National Weather Service described it, ``explosive 
fire growth.''
  Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Big Sur, Santa 
Barbara County, and other areas up and down the coast, who are 
experiencing devastating wildfires as we speak.
  Those California fires are only the most recent example of the 
dramatic and tragic expansion of our Nation's wildland fire season. For 
the last decade, the United States has experienced a growth in the 
destructive nature of fire seasons that have taken American lives, 
eliminated homes and businesses, and scorched thousands of acres of our 
treasured public lands.
  And this is not only occurring in the West. I well recall several 
years ago when the New River Gorge in my home State of West Virginia 
was burning. I had the honor to meet with Federal firefighters who flew 
in from across the country to battle the blazes.
  Indeed, the Federal Government has, time and time again, answered the 
call and mobilized legions of brave firefighters to beat back the 
flames and protect our lands and our communities.
  But as a result, the government has also dramatically shifted 
spending priorities, rapidly increasing funding for fire fighting, 
while axing moneys for other necessary programs. And ironically, some 
of those programs that have been gutted were created to actually 
prevent fires.
  There is little reason to hope that fire seasons for the foreseeable 
future will be any less catastrophic than those of the last decade. The 
trend has certainly been working toward more destruction. Knowing that, 
we must be better prepared.
  The FLAME Act, which my colleagues Mr. Raul Grijalva, Mr. Norm Dicks 
and myself introduced, is an effort to correct course, to get out in 
front at the start of these fire seasons.
  The bill has received broad, bipartisan support from 56 Members of 
Congress, including the ranking member of our Natural Resources 
Committee, Mr. Young.
  As well, it enjoys the support of the five former Chiefs of the 
Forest Service, the National Association of State Foresters, the 
National Association of Counties, the National Federation of Federal 
Employees, the Western Governors' Association, and nearly 40 other 
organizations.
  Within the Forest Service, wildland fire activities now account for 
approximately 48 percent of the agency's budget, causing the Service to 
cut back on other important programs to cover the escalating costs of 
fire suppression.
  The FLAME Act would help to address that funding problem, as well as 
the funding issues faced by other Federal agencies that are 
contributing funds from their limited accounts to fight these fires.
  The Act would establish a dedicated Federal fund for catastrophic, 
emergency wildland fire suppression activities, separate from 
appropriated agency fire fighting funding.
  The bill would also require the Forest Service and the Department of 
the Interior to present to Congress a long-overdue, comprehensive 
strategy for combating wildland fire, a strategy that would address the 
troubling shortcomings in the agencies' response to fires as identified 
by the Government Accountability Office and the Agriculture 
Department's Inspector General.
  I cannot overstate the importance of today's action on the FLAME Act. 
Without a doubt, this is one of the most serious issues facing our 
Federal land management agencies, and it is one that, if not addressed 
properly and appropriately, will continue to cost homes, businesses, 
communities, public lands, and American lives.
  The FLAME Act will allow the Forest Service and the Department of the 
Interior to respond to these dangerous fires while also accomplishing 
other important aspects of their missions, including those that will 
prevent fires from devastating our communities in the future.
  I ask my colleagues to support passage of the FLAME Act.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SALI. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.
  Fire season is here and wildlands are in flames across the Nation as 
we speak. California is currently reporting 24 large fires, and along 
with California, there are large wildland fires burning in Arizona, 
Oregon, Washington, Virginia, and North Carolina.
  Since January of this year, some 46,113 wildland fires have burned 
more than 2.71 million acres, destroying more than 461 residences, 15 
commercial buildings, and 979 outbuildings. But it's not just property, 
homes, community, watersheds or livelihoods that are at stake when a 
wildland fire burns. Lives are also in danger, and since January of 
this year alone, eight firefighters have died while on duty to fight 
wildland fires.
  For many areas of the country, the wildland fire season is just 
beginning.
  This is an issue that I have familiarity with, as each year in Idaho 
the skies fill with smoke from fires. Last year alone, more than 2 
million acres burned in Idaho, threatening lives, homes, and 
communities.
  I commend the gentleman from West Virginia, my chairman, on his 
initiative to move a bill and bring this critical issue before the 
House of Representatives today. Real solutions to these deadly and 
growing wildfires must be found, and I appreciate his efforts to this 
end.
  Regrettably, the bill before us today will not do enough to address 
the raging wildfires across this country. Communities, homes, and lives 
will remain at risk from wildland fires.
  There is no question that there are budget issues that must be 
addressed. We require the Forest Service to fight these fires, while we 
have handcuffed that agency at the same time, whether through its 
budget or with forest management practices.
  Over and over again on this floor, we have had discussions of how to 
pay for the measures that are passed by this body. And yet, the Forest 
Service used to provide a source of revenue. It used to manage Federal 
lands, selling the harvested timber and thereby bringing in revenue.
  Today, in most areas, active harvesting and forest management is 
nonexistent on Federal lands. This has had a twofold effect. There's 
less and less money generated by the Forest Service, while there are 
also ever-growing fuel loads on federally managed lands.

[[Page 14479]]

  I agree that we cannot expect an agency to budget for the very large 
wildland fires that we have seen develop over the last 6 or 7 years. To 
do that is something like asking an American family not only to budget 
for ordinary and foreseeable expenses, like dental care, health care 
and car repairs, but also to budget for a serious car accident or 
tragic health crisis that would eat up 50 percent of their entire 
budget for the year.
  Yet that is the point we have reached with the Forest Service. Today, 
roughly 48 percent of the Forest Service's budget is dedicated to 
wildland fires, but we still expect the Service to be able to budget 
for these fires.
  We agree there is a problem with the funding. Unfortunately, this 
bill doesn't fix that problem. While well-intended, this bill fails to 
correct the 10-year funding average problem we currently face. Even if 
it did, merely erasing and rewriting lines in a ledger book does 
nothing to fix the crisis on the ground in federally managed lands. 
Moving money to different accounts will not solve the problem.
  While well-intentioned, unfortunately the bill before us today fails 
to address the more critical issue, forest management. The greatest 
obstacle our public land managers face in preventing catastrophic 
wildfires isn't dollars, it is having the ability to overcome mountains 
of red tape and lawsuits filed by extremists. The laws that Congress 
has created in an attempt to save our forests have now become the 
biggest obstacles to saving them from wildfires.
  Congress should not be addressing funding for suppressing these large 
fires without addressing the cause of these large fires as well, the 
increasing and unchecked fuel loads in our national forests that 
surround or are adjacent to homes and communities.
  The critical link between pre-fire forest management and fire 
fighting was illustrated at the hearing we had on this bill in the 
Natural Resources Committee in April.
  During that hearing, Arizona Governor Jane Napolitano, a Democrat, 
testified that the 2006 woody fire near Flagstaff, Arizona, was halted 
before it reached 100 acres because of the hazardous fuels treatment 
that had been done in that area. And according to Governor Napolitano, 
those treatments dramatically minimized the fire's devastation.
  Similarly, during that hearing our colleague Norm Dicks testified 
about the large fuel loads that continue to accumulate in Federal 
forests.

                              {time}  1445

  He pointed out that the larger fires have resulted from increasing 
tree density and fuel loads.
  We will continue to have larger and larger fires until we reduce 
fuel-loading. Until we provide the tools for pre-fire forest management 
to reduce fuel-loading, the western United States will continue to see 
homes burn, watersheds destroyed, and even lives lost. We must provide 
the tools to preempt these devastating fires, the kind of preemption 
pointed to by Governor Napolitano that protected so many people and 
homes in the 2006 Woody Fire near Flagstaff.
  Last year, during the Poe Cabin fire in Idaho, in one area the fire 
moved some three miles in a mere 20 minutes. In that area, several 
homes that had defensible space around them due to fuel reductions on 
private land survived the fire, while other structures in that area 
without defensible space did not survive.
  One of these homeowners was able to get his wife out while he stayed 
just a bit longer to finish loading his truck. However, because of the 
fast-moving and intense fire combined with the heavy fuel-loading on 
Federal ground, he became trapped by the fire and was unable to leave. 
While this could have quickly become a tragic story, this man lived and 
his home survived thanks to the fuel reduction that had been done 
around his home.
  While this was a result of the fuel reduction done wholly on private 
ground, many communities and individuals abutting these forests do not 
have the luxury of enough land to adequately protect the communities, 
watersheds, homes and lives. Providing the tools to these communities 
to protect their homes, livelihoods and very lives from these 
devastating fires is something we can and must do when addressing long-
term funding to suppress the fires. We should be discussing solutions 
like the one I proposed, H.R. 4245, to provide the agencies with one 
more tool to reduce hazardous fuel loads around communities and homes.
  In the great State of Idaho, many communities have put the time and 
energy into developing Community Wildfire Protection Plans, but 
implementation of many of these plans has been significantly delayed in 
large part because of the NEPA process. These CWPPs, as my colleagues 
know, are cooperative plans, requiring community collaboration and 
input in the formation of the plan. By delaying treatment for the 
safety of communities through unbelievable red tape, we subject these 
communities to be threatened by large wildfires.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not only a bipartisan issue, this is a 
nonpartisan issue. It's about public safety and sound forest management 
that will benefit millions of Americans. My bill, which I would urge 
this body to take up as it addresses these wildland fires, would 
provide for a categorical exclusion from the NEPA process to provide 
another tool for timely treatments to protect these communities from 
large and devastating fires and preserve our pristine national forests. 
Too many homes have burned and too many lives have already been lost. 
We must provide real tools for firefighting.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I would reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California, an individual who has some firsthand experience with these 
fires, Mr. Sam Farr.
  Mr. FARR. I thank Chairman Rahall for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the FLAME Act. I rise in 
support of the act with background experience of having been a seasonal 
firefighter for the U.S. Department of Forestry when I was a young 
college student. And I rise with the experience of being on the base 
and complex fire in Big Sur many times last week.
  What I have learned from my experience throughout my life is that 
what we have done in responding to fires has been the best 
organizational structure in government. The whole incident command 
structure is now being used--it started in a California fire, and being 
used all over the United States and the rest of the world for how we 
should manage emergency incidents like fires; in fact, our whole 
structure within homeland security, which is essentially a lot of money 
that we spent to bring to one stop so that we can bring the resources 
necessary for prevention and response.
  The one area, though, that has never been addressed has actually been 
in the area where we have to respond year after year after year, which 
is wildland fires. Last year, the U.S. Forest Service spent $1 billion 
on fires. And essentially that spending is an emergency process. And 
what happens at the end of the year is, when you want to say, okay, now 
it has stopped, the fire season, we have some time, let's go and do 
some prevention, let's do some control burns and do things like that, 
and we have no money to do it. And what this great bill does is it sets 
up a special fund that essentially recognizes that we need to have that 
emergency money there available to respond to emergencies.
  And I would just like to say that in California we have really 
changed the nature of our whole State through our fire experiences. And 
we have changed the Department of Forestry in California.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from California 
has expired.
  Mr. RAHALL. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. FARR. What this bill does is now, for the first time, to bring 
the Federal Government together and say let's do the same thing we've 
done with homeland security; let's have one stop, let's have fire 
planning; let's have prevention, and let's have the ability to respond. 
This is a great bill.

[[Page 14480]]


  Mr. SALI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon 
(Mr. Walden).
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today in 
support of this legislation and feel that it's a good first step. 
Unfortunately, it doesn't do quite what it was supposed to do, which 
was to really wall this off as emergency funding and address the 
problem. But it does authorize the money. It does set up a separate 
budget account.
  Today in the Forest Service they spend 47 percent of their budget 
fighting fire. And for many years I've argued on this floor that what 
happens is we get the fire season, the Forest Service runs out of 
money, so then they rob from all the accounts where they had the 
projects in place to do the thinning to reduce the threat of fire for 
the next year. And then time runs out in the season, they can't do 
those projects, and we get fire. And then we restore the money as a 
Congress, and we repeat the cycle.
  And today in America there are tens of millions, if not hundreds, of 
acres of Federal forest land that are subject to catastrophic fire, 
disease and bug infestation. If you're concerned about global warming 
and think carbon additions to the atmosphere are the problem, then you 
need to know that every year 290 million metric tons of carbon dioxide 
go into our atmosphere from forest fires. That's the equivalent of 4 to 
6 percent of the Nation's carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel 
burning.
  This portrait here is a picture of Judge Steve Grasty, a Democrat in 
my district, his grandkids. And they're standing out in the Egley fire 
after it occurred in Harney Country. This fire burned well over 100,000 
acres in an area that obviously needed thinning and hadn't been 
thinned.
  And that's part of what brings me to the floor today, not only to 
support this bill--because I think it makes sense to have a separate 
firefighting budget, I think it makes sense to identify the most 
highest risk areas that need the treatment and to go in and treat them 
and to help the communities with grants and the things that are in this 
bill--but we need to do more than that because we should have learned 
the lesson that a treated forest is a healthier forest.
  When we collectively passed the Healthy Forest Restoration Act and 
signed into law by President Bush in 2003, the Forest Service began to 
have the tools to expedite the treatments in the wildland urban 
interface. And the collaborative process my colleague from Idaho talked 
about that brought together the Community Wildfire Protection Planning 
Program allowed them to go outside the 1.5 mile around the community, 
and the community decided what needed to be treated.
  The problem in my region, region six in the northwest, the great 
forest of America, is that most of the fires--over 1,400 of them in 
2007--started up in the ridge lines and deep in the forest. Only a 
dozen or two dozen started right around the wildland urban interface.
  The foresters who are the trained scientists that deal with fire 
environment tell me they need to take that Healthy Forest Restoration 
authority we gave them as a Congress in a bipartisan way and expand it 
out into the Condition Class 2 and 3 lands, the lands determined by the 
scientists to be most out of whack with balance in nature, to go in and 
do the thinning. And we know where that occurs, fire behaves 
differently. And you all from California know very clearly, this is the 
kind of fire you have today, it sweeps through these areas that are 
overstocked, bug-infested, disease-ridden, dried out and can't handle 
fire. This is the same area of that fire, the Squire's Peak Fire, that 
had been treated.
  This area that's burning is the area they hadn't treated yet. This is 
the difference. Look at the green growth here. The fire went through 
under the brush that had been treated, and it's fine. This picture, by 
the way, was shot by the last guy doing treatment as they drove away 
from the fire. They were out doing the treatment, and then they turned 
into firefighters and he shot that out of the back of his rig.
  So I think we need to move forward with different legislation. This 
is good legislation: Pass it; get it over to the Senate; declare it an 
emergency; do this funding piece. But we need to do more. If you want 
to deal with these fires that are setting records for how much they 
consume, not only of the taxpayers' purse, but of our Nation's 
resource, habitat, watershed, look at the greenhouse gases, the smoke, 
the pollutants in the atmosphere, then we have to be able to give our 
forest managers the tools that they've proven can work in a 
collaborative way around communities and extend those out into the 
great reserves, the forests that are Condition Class 2 and 3.
  And so I hope we can build a bipartisan coalition to do that. And I 
hope the chairman of the Resources Committee will help us on that. 
Because if we don't, then the change that's occurring in our climate 
with temperature will only cause these forests to grow more drought-
ridden, more disease-ridden, more bug-infested, more likely to burn up 
in fire. And I'll tell you what, when you go back to this picture, 
Judge Grasty's grandkids, this is what's left behind. This is not snow, 
this is ashen, destroyed ground. These are the trees which, by the way, 
may never get hard.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. SALI. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. So we can do better. We can be better stewards 
of our Nation's forest. We owe it, as our legacy to the future, to be 
good stewards today. But we can't do it with the laws that are in place 
that impede the work. I mean, we owe it. I can't be more passionate 
about this. And I've worked with many of you in a bipartisan way to 
pass the Healthy Forest Restoration Act and the Forest Emergency 
Recovery and Research Act, which the Senate failed to take up last 
Congress. We've got to do better than we're doing now.
  This is a good little step forward in terms of managing the money so 
that the forest workers can do their work. We need to do more.
  Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Speaker, I'm very happy to yield 2 minutes to a very 
valued member of our Committee on Natural Resources, the gentlelady 
from California (Mrs. Capps), and commend her for her assistance in 
developing this legislation as well.
  Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the FLAME Act. I 
thank Chairman Rahall for yielding me time and for bringing this 
important legislation to the floor.
  This bill comes at such a critical time. Our Nation is now and will 
continue to face longer and more intense fire seasons due to global 
warming and drought.
  The cost of fighting fires has grown enormously in recent years, and 
projections indicate that this trend will only increase, especially in 
populated wildland urban interface areas.
  The Forest Service has spent over $1 billion per year on 5 of the 
last 7 years to extinguish fires. And wildland fire management 
activities are estimated to consume close to half of the Forest 
Service's budget this year. These escalating costs are having a 
significant impact on the Forest Service. For example, the Forest 
Service is forced to pull funds from other programs, leaving fewer 
funds available for camp ground maintenance and forest restoration.
  The emergency fund created by the FLAME Act will reduce the need to 
deplete important Forest Service programs and will provide more 
reliable funding than uncertain year-to-year supplementals. Even more 
important, the FLAME Act will ensure the Forest Service has regular 
funding available for day-to-day fire management. This includes such 
important prevention steps, like FIREWISE Communities, hazardous fuels 
treatment, and restoration work.
  It's absolutely essential that our efforts to fight today's fires 
don't hurt our efforts to prevent tomorrow's fires. This bill will 
ensure this is the case.
  Mr. Speaker, the Zaca Fire that burned 240,000 acres in my 
congressional district last year cost the Forest Service $120 million. 
That's one fire alone. With more than 1,700 fires in California this 
year already and the

[[Page 14481]]

fire season is not even half over, it's pretty clear we're going to 
have to create an emergency Federal fund dedicated solely to 
devastating wildland fires.
  This idea is long overdue, and this legislation deserves to be 
approved by the House. So I urge all of my colleagues to address the 
long-term wildfire suppression funding situation by supporting the 
FLAME Act.
  Mr. SALI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, these fires are extremely dangerous, and our 
heart goes out to all those people in California who are suffering from 
these fires and all over the country.
  In my area, we rely on volunteer firefighters who are dedicated and 
whose service I cherish. However, we're putting these dedicated 
servants who are volunteers all over this country at a terrible 
disadvantage with gas costs at $4.11 a gallon; 75 percent higher since 
the Democrats took control of Congress.
  Now, let me say that again. Many Americans do not realize that the 
Democrats are in control of Congress. We are not being allowed to vote 
on increasing the supply of gasoline by the Democrats.
  Now, what is the Democratic strategy for increasing supply of 
gasoline, which is what we have to do to bring down the price? Let me 
quote from an article in yesterday's Hill newspaper an aide to Speaker 
Pelosi.

                              {time}  1500

  ``Right now our strategy on gas prices is `Drive small cars and wait 
for the wind.' '' Now, that reminds me of the episode which many people 
will remember from their history books, when the people of France were 
starving, people went to the Queen and said that the people need bread, 
they're begging for bread. She said, ``Let them eat cake.'' Again, the 
strategy of the Democrats is ``Right now our strategy on gas prices is 
`Drive small cars and wait for the wind.' ''
  Folks, that's not what we want in terms of leadership. We need 
leadership on this issue. We need action to bring down the price of 
gasoline. And what will bring down the price of gasoline is American-
made energy. We are not being allowed to produce American-made energy 
that we can produce to bring down the price of gasoline.
  On the last bill, the Democrats talked about the fact that our 
unemployment rate is up. We had 54 straight months of job growth in 
this country until January of this year when gas prices really started 
to go up. The price of gas is affecting everything in this country. 
Again, it's Democratic leadership that has put us in this position, not 
Republican leadership.
  I met today with people from the Turkey Federation. They're concerned 
about the price of feed. It's driving up the cost of food. Why? Because 
we're giving such great subsidies to ethanol; so corn is being used to 
produce ethanol, not going into feed for our animals. We know that's 
happening all over the place.
  Why is it that Congress has a 9 percent approval rating right now? 
It's because, as the Wall Street Journal said, this is the most do-
nothing Congress in 20 years.
  We have to respond to the American people. The American people have 
to know that the Democrats are in charge and they are not responding. 
We can bring down the price of oil, we can help volunteer firefighters, 
we can bring down the cost of food by providing American-made energy, 
and it's time that we started doing that.
  Democrats think you can defy the law of supply and demand. We cannot 
do that. If we increase supply, we will be able to bring down the price 
of gasoline, and that's what we have to do.
  Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Speaker, in response to the last speaker, this 
gentleman certainly joins with her in commending our firefighters, 
especially those who have volunteered across our Nation to fight these 
fires where they occur. Our firefighters, as they showed us on 9/11, 
are certainly on the forefront of our Nation's defense and our first 
responders in this country.
  In regard to the price of gas, though, let me remind the gentlewoman 
that when President George Bush took office, the price of gas, 
according to his own Energy Information Agency, was $1.47. The last 
time I left West Virginia yesterday morning, it was $4.14 a gallon.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very honored to yield now such time as she may 
consume to the distinguished Speaker of the House of Representatives, 
Ms. Pelosi.
  Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him and Mr. 
Sali for their leadership in bringing this important legislation to the 
floor in a timely fashion for us in California. I appreciate the good 
work of their committee.
  Mr. Speaker, California today is fighting some of the most 
significant fires in terms of acres burned in our history, more than 
675,000 acres, as the fires that have cost $276 million to fight, 
according to the State and Federal reports, to date. The number of 
active wildfires up and down the coast of California is 330. There have 
been 1,731 fires since June 21.
  Up to 20,000 firefighters are battling the blazes, many of them from 
neighboring States, many from far and wide across the country. Some 
from other countries, from Mexico, from Canada, from Australia, and New 
Zealand and other places, coming to the rescue. Later today we will 
have a resolution offered by my colleague from California (Mr. Farr), 
whose district is greatly impacted by these fires, a resolution to 
commend our firefighters, thank them for their service and their 
sacrifice, and that will be an important resolution and debate at that 
time.
  But in addition to extending our sympathy to those for their losses 
and our appreciation to our firefighters, we have to do more. And 
today, Mr. Rahall, you have given us the opportunity to do just that.
  This legislation, the FLAME Act, before us creates an emergency 
Federal fund dedicated solely to combating the catastrophic wildfires. 
This funding will help ensure that fire prevention resources are not 
consumed by emergency firefighting expenses. Others have spoken about 
the need for us to even go beyond this act in terms of treatment and 
prevention, but this act is important because this fund will prevent 
the soaking up of all of the other dollars that should be used for 
prevention but are used for extinction.
  The FLAME Act also requires the administration to develop a cohesive 
wildfire management strategy. This is very, very important and long 
overdue. We need prevention. We need the treatment that was described 
by our colleague. A long-term strategy is needed and should include 
approaches to hiring and retaining experienced Federal wildland 
firefighters. We have enormously talented people in our country. We 
want many of them to work for the Federal Government, and that's why I 
oppose the administration's insistence on outsourcing and other 
policies that undercut the Federal workforce which extend to our 
wildland firefighters.
  I want to commend Mr. Rahall, whose leadership on the Natural 
Resources Committee is helping to strengthen efforts to better prepare 
for and combat wildfires, Mr. Sali as well, for bringing this 
legislation to the floor; Chairman Raul Grijalva of the Natural 
Resources Committee's National Parks, Forests and Public Lands 
Subcommittee; and Chairman Norm Dicks of the Appropriations 
Subcommittee on the Interior. These outstanding leaders have brought 
forward bipartisan legislation that will help us fight future 
catastrophic fires and ensure that sufficient resources are dedicated 
to protecting both citizens and property. That is why this legislation 
has such broad bipartisan support and has been endorsed by five former 
chiefs of the Forest Service, the National Association of State 
Foresters, the National Association of Counties, the National 
Federation of Federal Employees, the Western Governors Association, and 
nearly 40 other leading organizations.
  As I said earlier, our colleague Congressman Farr is to be commended 
for authoring the resolution the House will consider shortly that 
commends our firefighters from California and

[[Page 14482]]

throughout America for their courageous service. As we thank our 
colleagues for this much-needed legislation, we should also honor the 
service of our firefighters, the California Office of Emergency 
Services, the National Guard for helping protect our neighbors' lives 
and homes in California and throughout the West.
  We also express our deepest sympathies to those who have suffered 
deep personal losses as a result of these fires, particularly the 
families of two firefighters who lost their lives: Robert Roland of the 
Anderson Valley Fire Department, a volunteer fireman who lost his life 
fighting a fire; and John Hermo of Oregon. He came down from Oregon to 
help fight the fires. He was drowned while off duty but, nonetheless, 
here in the service of this important fight.
  This critical legislation is an opportunity to provide consistent 
assistance and structure for relief in these times of emergency. Again, 
we express our appreciation to the legislation's authors and hopes that 
the weather and the wind will assist our brave firefighters in 
combating the blazes. I know we all join in saying that we wish God 
will bless our courageous firefighters.
  Mr. SALI. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. RAHALL. I urge support of the bill.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my disappointment 
with the bill before us today, H.R. 5541, the Forest Land Assistance, 
Management, and Enhancement Act or the FLAME Act. Mr. Speaker, I 
believe that the authors of this bill are well intentioned and truly 
want to solve the wildfire funding problem, but, sadly, the FLAME Act 
does not provide the comprehensive solution needed to adequately 
resolve this problem.
  With the unhealthy conditions in our forests, extreme drought, and 
the increasing influx of people building in fire-prone areas, the size 
and severity of wildfires has dramatically increased. In the 1990s, an 
average of 3.2 million acres burned each year. Since 2000, that annual 
average has doubled to 7.1 million acres. The cost of fighting these 
wildfires has skyrocketed, from averages of $400 million annually in 
the 1990s to roughly $1.4 billion in 2007. This year an area roughly 
the size of Connecticut has already burned, at cost of over $665 
million to date.
  This is not just a western issue. In my home State of Virginia, more 
acres have burned already this year than in any single entire year 
since 1963 at a cost of millions of dollars.
  As firefighting costs have increased, the overall USDA Forest Service 
and Department of the Interior budgets have not. So, the Forest Service 
and DOI are footing the bill for these large, unpredictable emergency 
wildfires within the confines of a flat budget. For the Forest Service, 
this has meant a 77 percent increase in fire expenditures, a 23 percent 
decrease in funds to manage the national forests, and a 38 percent 
decrease in funds to help States and private owners manage their 
forests. Whether you're a wilderness advocate, a hunter, a mountain 
biker, or a logger, everyone will be impacted if we don't solve this 
problem.
  Wildfires are not only consuming more forestland, they are consuming 
the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior themselves.
  The FLAME Act falls short of protecting the Agencies' budgets from 
this continued erosion. H.R. 5541 does not change the current budget 
practice of funding firefighting based on the average expenses over the 
previous decade. Without this change, we will continue to see more and 
more of the Agencies' budgets go toward fire and less towards taking 
care of our Nation's forests.
  In addition to this shortfall, the FLAME Act lacks a comprehensive 
set of solutions to the problem. Fixes to the wildfire budgeting system 
must be accompanied by strong cost containment and accountability 
standards while also ensuring firefighter safety, incentives to 
encourage communities to step up to the plate and reduce wildfire 
risks, and more tools to prevent or minimize damage due to catastrophic 
wildfires, particularly in our Federal forests.
  H.R. 5648, the Emergency Wildland Fire Response Act of 2008 which 
Chairman Peterson and I introduced along with a bipartisan group of our 
colleagues, provides this comprehensive solution. Unfortunately, 
negotiations for a more comprehensive solution were cut short.
  I'm pleased to see that the authors of the FLAME Act have 
incorporated aspects of H.R. 5648 that encourage communities to step up 
to the plate and become ``fire-ready'' and encourage the Agencies to 
contain costs in their firefighting efforts.
  Unfortunately, even with these improvements, the FLAME Act ignores 
the underlying problem causing the increases in firefighting costs--the 
unhealthy condition of our Federal forests. We will continue to see 
skyrocketing firefighting costs and more damage to our forests, 
watersheds, and communities unless we take steps to reduce fire risk in 
our Federal forests. We must provide the Agencies additional tools to 
get our Federal forests in a healthy, more fire resilient condition.
  My alternative bill, H.R. 5648 provides a new contracting tool for 
the Forest Service to partner with States to address these unhealthy 
conditions in Federal forests. This authority has been tested in 
Colorado and Utah where it's proven to be very effective. 
Unfortunately, H.R. 5541 contains no such tools.
  Mr. Speaker, as California and other States are dealing with massive 
wildfires even as we speak, we shouldn't squander our time with 
legislation that is only half the solution. H.R. 5541 is akin to using 
the watering can to fight a wildfire: it might have some short-term 
benefit of slowing down the flames, but ultimately, it won't stop the 
fire.
  That being said, I will vote for this bill because it does move the 
ball forward. I'm hopeful that we can improve it as we move forward and 
ask my colleagues to join me in this effort.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, with nearly 300 fires continuing to burn in 
California, it is clear we cannot afford to wait to deal with the 
enduring threat forest fires pose to our communities. That's why I rise 
in strong support of H.R. 5541, the Federal Land Assistance, 
Management, and Enhancement (FLAME) Act.
  Over the last decade, we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of 
devastating forest fires. Those fires have long lasting effects on our 
ecosystem, increasing the deadliness of mudslides, which destroy our 
homes, displace once vegetated areas with bare terrain, and disburse 
large quantities of pollutants across broad regions.
  Nine million acres burned across the United States last year, and 
there is no indication that 2008 will be any different. Climate change 
and drought are creating longer and more intense fire seasons, while a 
century of fire containment has made the forests denser and more 
vulnerable to burning.
  The increase in forest fires has led to skyrocketing costs for 
federal fire suppression efforts, which prevents the U.S. Department of 
the Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service 
Agency from adequately funding essential programs that will lessen the 
intensity of fires, reduce their frequency, and better protect the 
public. The FLAME Act would prevent future forest fires from 
devastating communities across the country and crippling federal land 
management agency budgets by creating an emergency national fund 
devoted solely to fighting such destructive fires. This fund will be 
separate from traditional funding for fire mitigation and prevention.
  It's our responsibility to empower our nation's firefighters with the 
tools they need to effectively fight forest fires. I ask my colleagues 
to join me in passing this important legislation to better ensure that 
our citizens, environment, and ecosystem are safe from the dangers of 
forest fires.
  Mr. RAHALL. 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 West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) that the House suspend the 
rules and pass the bill, H.R. 5541, as amended.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________