[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14493-14498]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    WILDFIRES AND FOREST MANAGEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman) is 
recognized for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the 
majority leader.


                             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 materials on the topic of my Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mooney of West Virginia). Is there 
objection to the request of the gentleman from Arkansas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to draw attention to 
wildfires and forest management.
  Recent headlines show that our forests are in terrible shape: 8.8 
million acres have burned this year; $250 million was recently 
transferred from forest management accounts to fight fires, announced 
last week.
  Emergency fire spending has already topped $700 million this year and 
is still growing. We have a problem that is greatly decreasing and 
impairing the value of our forest for the next generation.
  I worked with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass H.R. 
2647, the Resilient Federal Forests Act, back in July. This bill was 
supported from Maine to Alaska by Democrats and Republicans. The bill 
ends the destructive practice of fire borrowing in a fiscally 
responsible manner. It creates a subaccount under the Stafford Act for 
wildfire. This ensures that resources to put out major fires are 
available when necessary.
  This week, the Obama administration publicly called on the Congress 
to fix fire borrowing. While I appreciate the President's interest, I 
agree with him that we need to fix fire borrowing. I applaud the 19 
Democrats who voted for H.R. 2647 that fixes fire borrowing.
  Fixing fire borrowing alone won't solve the problem. Fixing fire 
borrowing alone simply is treating a symptom instead of a disease. It 
is like putting on a bandaid without cleaning out the wound.

[[Page 14494]]

  Again, the House passed this bipartisan legislation back in July. We 
could be fixing these problems now, but the Senate hasn't acted. It is 
time for the Senate to act. It is time to stop playing politics with 
our Nation's forests, one of our most treasured resources. The House 
offered a solution. Let's embrace constructive governance and make H.R. 
2647 the law of the land.
  I want to take a moment and look at what the Resilient Federal 
Forests Act does. We already talked about fire borrowing, but it also 
prevents future fires.
  H.R. 2647 gives the Forest Service the tools it needs to better 
manage our national forests immediately after its passage. Our forests 
are overgrown, and therefore, they are fire prone. Fighting fires 
doesn't prevent future fires. That is why we need better management. 
Scientific thinning helps prevents future fires.
  I would like to show some photographs from a forest in my home State 
of Arkansas. To some, this may look like a healthy, thriving forest 
because you see trees and you see a lot of greenery, but I am a 
forester, and when I look at that, I see an overstock stand of trees. I 
see too much undergrowth. I see too much dead and dying material on the 
forest floor. This is not a healthy forest, but this happens to be a 
control site in the middle of a healthy forest.
  Next, I want to show how we get to a healthy forest on this 
particular side.
  This area has been thinned, and there is controlled burns taking 
place. These burns take place on intervals of 3 to 5 years. They not 
only make the forest better to withstand potential forest fires; they 
also create better wildlife habitat. The biodiversity in this forest 
goes through the roof when these kind of management practices are put 
in place. We get healthy trees. We get an early successional habitat 
that is good for wildlife. It also is good for the soil; it is good for 
water quality, and it is good for air quality.
  This last picture shows what a healthy forest in my district looks 
like. These trees are thriving. This is an early growth not too long 
after a fire. This is a great wildlife habitat. The biodiversity of 
wildlife and plant life is much higher in this photograph than what we 
saw in the previous photograph. This creates a win-win situation.
  Now, this isn't the solution for everywhere across the country; this 
is what works in the forests in my district, but there are forest 
managers across this country that know how to manage their forests in 
their particular climate and in their particular setting to create 
healthy forests and forests that can withstand a fire. It would be 
almost impossible for a forest fire to destroy these trees.
  The next thing that the Resilient Federal Forests Act does is it 
stops frivolous lawsuits. You may ask: Why do we need to stop frivolous 
lawsuits?
  Well, frivolous lawsuits hinder forest plans that are developed 
locally, using science, best management practices, and collaborative 
efforts that represent stakeholder values. The end result is a forest 
that is decreased and impaired in value for our next generation.
  This bill discourages frivolous lawsuits by requiring those suing to 
stop collaborative projects to post a bond. If the plaintiff loses, 
they pay the taxpayer's legal bills. If they win, they get their money 
back.
  This bill also aids in better land management planning. In the words 
of former U.S. Forest Service chief Dale Bosworth: ``We do not have a 
fire problem on our Nation's forests; we have a land management 
problem. And it needs to be addressed quickly.''
  Delayed decisionmaking or, even worse, no decisionmaking at all, is 
hurting our forests. Forests are dynamic. They are a living, growing 
organism. When we say no action, we are actually taking action. Since 
forests are not static, scientific analysis should not be static.
  This bill requires the Forest Service to critically analyze the 
impacts of no action, which often are overgrowth, increased wildfire, 
and diseases. Increases in future wildfire problems are often caused 
because of poor land management. It makes it difficult for 
reforestation, ultimately decreasing and impairing the value of 
forests.
  This bill sets up requirements for salvage plans in response to 
catastrophic events. It requires environmental assessments for salvage 
projects to be completed within 90 days so that timber can be removed 
while it is still commercially valuable.
  The USDA completed post-Hurricane Katrina NEPA on the De Soto 
National Forest within 90 days. They expedited it. They were successful 
at that. As a result, 80 percent of the timber was salvaged that was in 
moderate to heavily damaged areas.
  The management actions laid out in this bill must comply with forest 
plans. It is not taking a shortcut. Despite what some folks say, this 
doesn't mean thousands of acres clearcut. It doesn't mean destruction 
of snag habitats that often become available after a large fire.
  In my home State, clearcuts are restricted to 180 acres, at most. We 
are talking about thousands of acres of land that still have to follow 
forest management practices.
  This bill rewards collaboration. It incentivizes collaboration and 
speeds up the implementation of collaborative projects. It safeguards a 
strong, timely environmental review process through categorical 
exclusions for forest management projects.
  You may ask: What are collaborative projects? This is simply where 
local land managers, environmentalists, citizens, and industry 
representatives come up with a plan. These groups spend hundreds if not 
thousands of hours working on a plan that is best for their local area. 
Why wouldn't we encourage this sort of compromise?
  This bill encourages more collaborative projects. Passing this bill 
shows that we endorse commonsense plans that tend to local and 
ecological needs.
  This bill creates greater reforestation after natural disasters. As a 
forester, this statistic is really disturbing to me. On average, less 
than 3 percent of an area is reforested after a catastrophic event on 
our national forests. This bill requires that 75 percent reforestation 
takes place within 5 years. This will revitalize our forests that are 
destroyed by fire or other natural events.
  When we reforest an area, we have young trees that grow fast and 
sequester carbon faster than older, fully grown trees. If we want to 
sequester more carbon, then we should be planting more trees. We should 
demand that we reforest our land after the timber is destroyed in one 
of these catastrophic events.
  We have to stop playing politics, and we need to pass this bill.
  This bill creates greater roles for the tribes. Oftentimes, the 
Federal Government does not collaborate and work together with those 
who have expertise in forest health. This bill brings in State and 
tribal governments as strong partners in forest management.
  It gives the Forest Service the authority to accept assistance from 
States willing to put money toward forest management.

                              {time}  1815

  It also reinforces existing tribal authority to assist in the 
management of national forest land adjacent to reservations.
  The Resilient Federal Forests Act modernizes secure rural schools. 
This is an issue that is very important in my district. We have many 
rural areas near our national forests, and the schools are hurting 
because of the decreased funding because we are not keeping our forests 
healthy.
  Rural communities not only depend on our forests for their 
sustenance, but they also provide emergency services, education, and 
support for the forests and residents who live near the forests. As 
forests lose value, communities suffer, and they will only suffer more 
in the future.
  This bill gives counties flexibility to spend secure rural schools 
funding. It allows them to spend money on emergency services on Federal 
lands, and it puts 25 percent of stewardship contracts into the county 
treasury where the projects occurred.
  This bill means more money for our schools and other public services, 
along

[[Page 14495]]

with the benefits of a healthy and resilient forest.
  One more time, I want to look at the fire borrowing issue. This is 
one of the worst fire seasons we have seen. We know what good 
management practices are. We know how to implement those practices on 
the land.
  The House has acted by passing H.R. 2647, the Resilient Federal 
Forests Act. It solves fire borrowing. It completely reforms current 
bad management practices. And this is isn't just me saying this. We 
have letters from hundreds of groups that have endorsed this bill. Here 
is a list of just a few of them: the Forest Products Industry National 
Labor Management Committee, the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, 
the National Association of Counties, the National Association of 
Forest Service Retirees, the National Water Resources Association, the 
International Association of Fire Chiefs, the United Brotherhood of 
Carpenters and Joiners of America. There are hundreds more that have 
supported this legislation because it is good, commonsense legislation 
that is good for our country; it is good for our forests.
  The House has acted. It is time for the Senate to act. It is time for 
the administration to stop playing politics with wildfire. It is time 
to make H.R. 2647 the law of the land.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).
  Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for 
bringing this subject up. It is a subject that all of us in the West 
deal with every year.
  A couple of years ago, we had Tom Tidwell in New Mexico. He was there 
at a time when the Forest Service was in the process of burning down 
255 homes in Ruidoso. The fire almost burned completely out of control 
and burned the entire town down. That is what the agency was surprised 
and frightened by.
  These fires are caused by a lack of management. And instead of 
addressing the problem by reducing the number of trees in the forests, 
the Forest Service is saying, and Tom Tidwell himself said, that our 
policy is going to be to reintroduce fire into its natural habitat.
  Introducing fire into the forest at this stage, with the years of no 
attention, with the years of fuel buildup, with the decades of drought 
that have put them in an explosive position in much of the West, is 
absolute lunacy. And yet this was the highest ranking Forest Service 
employee saying that we need to reintroduce fire into the wild.
  I am sorry, but we need to clean up the forest first, then the fire 
can keep the forest healthy--but not until then. These raging wildfires 
are a natural conclusion to the management policies for the past 
decades, and so we can't start and act like that policy has not been in 
place.
  Another policy that the Forest Service is engaged in is letting fire 
achieve management objectives. If I were to take a look at, say, one of 
the large fires out in Grant County, in the Gila Wilderness area of New 
Mexico, you can see the daily reports where they are talking about, 
well, the fire is 300 acres, it is 600 acres, and it is achieving its 
management objective.
  Well, there is one truth about New Mexico: If the wind is not blowing 
today, it is going to blow tomorrow. Letting those fires go, while they 
are supposedly monitoring them, and the fire then gets the push from 
the wind and grows from 300 or 800 acres to 10,000 to 30,000 acres is, 
again, a natural conclusion to the management policies of this Forest 
Service.
  It is time for us to revise the way our forests are managed. Mr. 
Westerman has a bill that is exactly right, H.R. 2647, and we should 
pass that bill, and that process should go forward.
  Let's start cleaning the excess timber out of our forests. It is much 
simpler than what everybody wants to make it. It is much simpler than 
the Forest Service would allow.
  So again, I appreciate the fact that you are bringing this issue up. 
I appreciate the fact that you have yielded time.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I wish to express thanks to the gentleman 
from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman) for leading this discussion tonight. It 
is very important to many of us in rural America.
  Of course, my district, which includes seven national forests, has 
experienced increasingly devastating forest fires caused by overgrown, 
mismanaged, or even nonmanaged forests, and has been economically 
strangled by restrictions on forest management.
  Our Nation has already lost over 8\1/2\ million acres to wildfire, 
and the year isn't yet over. We are on pace to exceed the record of 10 
million acres burned back in 2006, and that is not a record we want to 
break.
  Our rural communities, public lands, and the environment are being 
destroyed through neglect. The habitat is gone, erosion into our lakes 
and waterways goes unchecked, and the people's asset, the value of the 
trees, is wasted.
  In light of Forest Service surveys finding that over 12 million 
Sierra Nevada trees have died in the last year, we cannot afford to 
wait another year.
  That is why we need Mr. Westerman's bill, H.R. 2647, which will 
return active management to our forests by increasing flexibility, 
cutting red tape, and, most importantly, acting to manage forests 
before fires occur, not afterwards.
  Streamlining review process means that forest management can occur 
when it is actually needed to address dangerous conditions, not after 
years of legal roadblocks.
  Allowing categorical exclusions for post-fire salvage and 
rehabilitation hastens forest recovery and prevents fuel buildup that 
can contribute to future fires.
  Expanding local involvement in forest management will improve the 
data and know-how available for planning and also respect local 
priorities.
  Finally, the budget impact of forest neglect can no longer be 
ignored. Just this week, the Forest Service diverted yet another $250 
million from forest management to fighting fire. That brings the 
Federal spending total so far this year on firefighting to $700 
million, money that, though we agree, needs to fight fire this year, 
could surely be used better if we properly managed forests in the 
future.
  This bill will end the borrowing by funding fires, as we do 
hurricanes, earthquakes, and other disasters, making them eligible for 
FEMA disaster funds.
  In California, over 1,000 homes have burned. Tens of thousands have 
been evacuated from their homes or communities. Firefighters have lost 
their lives, as well as some residents now. This is a needless loss of 
life, needless suffering in rural America.
  Let's start by keeping H.R. 2647 moving in the process through the 
Senate and on to the President's desk.
  I again thank Mr. Westerman for his leadership and allowing me to 
speak on this important topic here tonight.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. I thank the gentleman from California.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Zinke).
  Mr. ZINKE. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support to remind my colleagues in the Senate 
that the Western United States is on fire. We don't have time for 
inaction and more political pandering.
  The House has passed the Resilient Federal Forests Act, which 
includes vital reforms that can be implemented tomorrow if our 
colleagues in the Senate take the bill up.
  So why don't we do what is right for America? Why don't we come 
together and move the bill?
  This wildfire season has been one of the worst in the last 10 years, 
and it has had enormous cost. Despite the cooler conditions in Montana, 
we have 35 fires that are continuing to burn, a total of 334,000 acres 
gone. That is equivalent to 522 miles, square miles. Two-thirds of this 
acreage belongs to the public, our national forests.
  And it is not just the physical damage. We lost four firefighters in 
Washington, four that paid the sacrifice fighting forest fires, and we 
have to remember that.

[[Page 14496]]

  I was at a fire in Glacier National Park. It was a reburn from a fire 
that occurred in 2003. The reburn happened to occur because of a threat 
of a lawsuit which prevented the Forest Service from doing the right 
thing. What they wanted to do was salvage timber. But because there was 
standing timber, ground crews couldn't get at it. And when ground crews 
couldn't get it, that means they had to fly aircraft at $3,000 an hour 
to put out the fire. That is wrong. It is wrong for Montana, and it is 
wrong for America.
  I know the firsthand value of our natural resources. I am a 
conservationist. But I also know the value of tourism in Montana. I 
also know the value of clean air. And when the smoke in Montana--which 
people travel all the way from across this country and the world to go 
to--is worse than Beijing, it has an impact.
  It also has an impact on the elderly, the asthmatic. It is unhealthy. 
Worst of all, it is preventable.
  The problem is real. Not only does the Forest Service lack the 
resources to adequately fight fires, it has a land management problem 
at the source.
  Former Chief of the Forest Service, Dale Bosworth, his quote before 
the hearing was: ``We do not have a fire problem . . . we have a land 
management problem.''
  This isn't from a political member. This is from a scientist. And 
yes, we need more scientists in the woods and less lawyers.
  That is why I am proud of what we did in the House on H.R. 2647. We 
passed it back in July because we saw this problem coming, and so we 
crafted a solution. That is what we are all sent here to do. We were 
sent here for solutions, to look at the challenges ahead and make a 
difference.
  So this bill addresses both the fire borrowing problem and the 
practices that have created the crisis that we now, unfortunately, have 
to bear. It does address lawsuits that are frivolous. The number one 
expense in the Forest Service is fighting forest fires, Number two is 
litigation, and if they have any money left, then that is what they use 
for management.
  Why are we spending, this fire season, over $600 million in August 
alone? Don't we all agree that $600 million can be better utilized by 
preventing forest fires, by restoring habitat, by providing better 
public access, better recreational activities and opportunities on our 
public lands?
  Unfortunately, we have lost this fire season, and still it burns.
  Unfortunately, the Senate won't take up the bill. My fellow Montanan 
Senator Steve Daines has been a loud and vocal advocate of this bill. 
He understands, and I am asking his colleagues to stand and do the 
right thing: Take the bill up. If you don't like a provision in the 
bill, then show leadership and put an amendment on it and we will work 
together to fix it. That is what leadership does. But to sit there and 
not take up the bill and have no action is unacceptable.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. I thank the gentleman from Montana.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to add that when we passed this bill in the 
House, we put amendments on it that were offered by Democrats. We were 
open. We listened. We wanted to do what is best for the forest.
  I encourage the Senate to take up this bill. If there is something 
you don't like, let's talk about it. But let's do what is best for the 
forest. Let's make this bill the law of the land.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis).

                              {time}  1830

  Mrs. LUMMIS. I join in thanking Representative Westerman for this 
legislation and this Special Order tonight, explaining the extent to 
which these catastrophic wildfires are destroying the West and other 
areas of our country.
  This year, over 9 million acres have burned in the West. It is a new 
record for catastrophic wildfires. This year, most of the damage has 
been in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and northern California.
  You heard the gentleman from northern California earlier talk about 
the number of houses that have been destroyed; the lives that have been 
disrupted; the wildlife that has been destroyed; the habitat that has 
been destroyed; the carbon that has gone up in the air and the illness 
that that has caused; the watersheds that are destroyed; the oxygen 
that is destroyed when you have ash running down hillsides into 
streams, choking the oxygen out of the water, killing the fish.
  The habitat destruction, the effects on people and ungulates and fish 
and resources, it is irresponsible. We have a stewardship obligation 
for these lands. We know how to manage these lands. This doesn't need 
to be happening.
  Representative Westerman is a professional forester and an engineer. 
He has spent his career studying the science of doing this right.
  I have a photograph here of an example of how to do this right. He 
showed us some earlier from his State of Arkansas. I want to show you 
how his methodology works in the Black Hills that straddle the border 
between South Dakota and Wyoming.
  You can't see this terribly clearly, but if you look at this vibrant 
green in the middle and compare it to the browns and yellows that you 
see down here--Black Hills National Forest--that has been thinned, that 
has been forested, that has been conservation logged.
  It has created sunlight in places that were clogged and choked from 
sunlight. It has created healthy underbrush, as opposed to a clogged 
underbrush that burns. It has allowed wildlife to graze. It allows snow 
to be stored and held longer in the forest into the spring and very 
early summer before it melts and goes downstream, thereby preventing 
flooding downstream. It is a natural hedge against flooding.
  We know all of this. All we have to do is pass and implement 
Representative Westerman's bill, and we can start preventing this.
  The day to save a tree is yesterday, but this summer, because we have 
ignored this problem for so long, we let 9 million more acres go up in 
smoke in the West.
  I spent the entire August work period in my State of Wyoming. 
Although Wyoming, thank God, wasn't on fire this summer--it has been in 
the past--but I can tell you, every day, when I woke up on the western 
side of the State of Wyoming, my eyes were burning from fires that were 
burning hundreds of miles west of me in Idaho, in Oregon, in 
Washington, and in northern California.
  To ignore science, to ignore management practices, and to allow this 
to continue is abominable.
  The gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman) has the answer. The House 
passed it. I urge the Senate to take it up.
  I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for his thoughtful contribution 
to the Congress of the United States by serving here.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. I thank the gentlewoman from Wyoming for her comments, 
and I also thank her for pointing out that forest management is 
different in different parts of the country.
  We have trained forestry professionals all over this country. We have 
good people working for the Forest Service that know how to do the 
right job, but their hands are tied. They can't use the things that 
they have learned in forestry school. They can't use the things that 
they have learned through practice. They can't practice the art of 
forestry and the science of forestry because of policy here in 
Washington, D.C.
  We need to untie their hands so that they can implement these 
management procedures on the land to make it healthier.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
McClintock).
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking Congressman 
Westerman for organizing this Special Order tonight and for his 
indispensable work on the Natural Resources Committee and its 
Subcommittee on Federal Lands.
  Mr. Westerman is a professional forester, schooled at Yale 
University, which the founder of the U.S. Forest Service, Gifford 
Pinchot, did so much to shape.

[[Page 14497]]

  Mr. Westerman's H.R. 2647 represents the first step toward restoring 
the sound, well-established, scientifically validated, and time-tested 
methods that, for generations, produced healthy, thriving, and vibrant 
forests.
  These forest management practices prevented vegetation and wildlife 
from overgrowing the ability of the land to support them. Not only did 
this assure robust and healthy forests capable of resisting fire, 
disease, and pestilence, but it also supported the prosperous economy.
  Revenues from the sale of excess timber provided a steady stream of 
revenues to the Treasury which could, in turn, be used to further 
improve the public lands.
  About 45 years ago, we replaced these sound management practices with 
what can only be described as a policy of benign neglect. In 1970, 
Congress adopted the National Environmental Policy Act that opened a 
floodgate of ponderous and Byzantine laws, regulations, and lawsuits, 
with the explicit promise that they would ``save the environment.''
  Well, after 45 years of these policies, I think we are entitled to 
ask: How is the environment doing?
  Well, according to every scrap of evidence submitted to our 
subcommittee by a broad cross-section of experts, the answer is that 
these laws have not only failed to improve the forest environment; they 
have catastrophically harmed that environment.
  Surplus timber harvested from our national forests as a result of 
these laws has dropped dramatically since the 1980s, while acreage 
destroyed by forest fire has increased concurrently and concomitantly. 
Wildlife habitats that were supposed to be preserved are now being 
incinerated.
  Precipitation that once flowed to riparian habitats now evaporates in 
overgrown canopies or is quickly claimed in the fierce competition of 
densely packed vegetation. We have lost vast tracts of our national 
forests to beetle infestations, as weakened trees can no longer resist 
their attacks.
  The U.S. Forest Service reports that in the Tahoe Basin in my 
district, there is now four times the vegetation density as normal, and 
trees that once had room to grow and thrive now fight for their lives 
against other trees trying to occupy the same ground.
  Revenues that our forest management agencies once produced and that 
facilitated our forest stewardship have all but dried up. This has 
devastated mountain communities that once thrived from the forest 
economy, while precious resources are diverted for lifeline programs 
like secure rural schools and PILT.
  Despite a growing population, visitation to our national forests has 
declined significantly. We can no longer manage lands to prevent fire 
or even salvage dead timber once fire has destroyed it.
  Appeals, lawsuits, and especially the threat of lawsuits have 
paralyzed and demoralized the Forest Service and created perverse 
incentives to do nothing to manage our lands.
  The steadily deteriorating situation is forcing managers to raid 
forest treatment and fire prevention funds to pay for the growing costs 
of wildfire suppression, creating a fiscal death spiral--the more we 
raid prevention funds, the more wildfires we have; the more wildfires 
we have, the more we have to raid our prevention funds.
  Ironically, our private forest lands are today conspicuously 
healthier than the public lands, precisely because the private lands 
are free from so many of the laws that are tying the hands of our 
public foresters. These laws may be making environmental law firms 
rich, but they are killing our national forests.
  H.R. 2647 is the first step toward restoring sound, rational, and 
scientific management of our national forests. It streamlines fire and 
disease prevention programs and assures that fire-killed timber can be 
quickly removed to create both the revenues and the room to restore 
fire-damaged lands. It protects forest managers from frivolous 
lawsuits.
  In my district, comprising the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, 
two major forest fires are now raging. The Butte fire in Amador County 
has already killed two people, left hundreds homeless, and destroyed 
72,000 acres of forest land. The Rough fire in Fresno County has 
destroyed 141,000 acres, and they are still burning tonight.
  We have exhausted our firefighting budget, and, without relief, we 
will have to begin stripping funds intended for fire prevention.
  Mr. Westerman's bill would allow these catastrophic wildfires to be 
funded like every other natural disaster.
  Mr. Speaker, we have a very simple choice. We can continue the 
misguided environmental laws that, for 45 years, have become 
responsible for the destruction of hundreds of square miles of our 
national forests every year, or we can restore the sound forest 
management practices that will guarantee healthy and resilient forests 
for the next generation.
  This bill has already passed the House. It is now sitting in the 
Senate, and it is essential that the Senate act soon to put it on the 
President's desk.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. I thank the gentleman from California and would also 
like to thank the gentleman for his tireless efforts on the Natural 
Resources Committee, the chairman of the Federal Lands Subcommittee.
  This is something that--I am a freshman, and I have been working on 
for a small amount of time--but he has spent years working on this 
issue. I thank him for his tireless efforts and his desire to see 
healthy forests not only in his home State but across the country.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Palmer).
  Mr. PALMER. Mr. Speaker, sometimes overlooked in the debate 
surrounding wildfires is the importance of forestry practices intended 
to prevent the wildfires before they start.
  The Resilient Federal Forests Act, authored by my friend from 
Arkansas (Mr. Westerman), passed the House in July with bipartisan 
support. Since then, there have been multiple fires, major fires that 
are raging across the country.
  This bill would simplify and streamline environmental process 
requirements and reduce the cost of forest management projects intended 
to prevent catastrophic wildfires. The bill would also allow for quick 
removal of dead trees to pay for reforestation after large fires and 
prevent the incidence of reburn.
  As wildfires continue to burn in the Western United States, with 
tremendous costs to people and property, it is important to note that 
these fires are literally sending billions of dollars of Federal assets 
up in smoke, depriving State government, local government, and the 
Federal Government of billions in revenues not just in wood products, 
but in recreation revenues.
  I am a small forest owner myself. I understand the value of a healthy 
well-managed forest.
  Mr. Speaker, America has already lost 9 million acres in valuable 
forests this year. Our forests continue to burn and more will be burned 
unless we act on this legislation. I encourage my colleagues in the 
Senate to quickly pass this much-needed legislation and send it to the 
President's desk.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. I thank the gentleman from Alabama. We are from 
Southern States, but good forestry management is very important to us 
as well. I have about 2.5 million acres of Federal forest in my 
district in Arkansas, and we want to see that land managed properly. We 
don't want to see it go up in smoke.
  Mr. Speaker, we face a lot of contentious issues in this body and in 
Congress, but this shouldn't be one of them.
  President Roosevelt, who was the father of our national forests, 
along with Gifford Pinchot, said that this is one of our most treasured 
natural resources. We need to leave it in better shape for the next 
generation than what we received it in.
  Right now, we are not doing that. This is not a partisan issue. This 
is something that we need to look at the science, we need to work 
together, and we need to do what is right for America. We need to do 
what is right for forests because healthy forests create a winning 
situation on many levels.

[[Page 14498]]

  We get better air quality. We get better water quality. We get a 
better economy. We get better wildlife habitat. We sequester more 
carbon.

                              {time}  1845

  There is not a downside to a healthy forest, but we have to get our 
act right here in Washington, D.C.
  It is with that that I, again, plead with and encourage the Senate to 
take up this issue. Let's have a debate on it. Let's fix this and get 
ourselves back on the right path to healthy forests. We didn't get here 
overnight, and we are not going to fix everything overnight, but we 
have to start sometime. The sooner we start, the sooner we can have our 
forests back in a healthy condition and the sooner we can enjoy this 
national treasure that belongs to all of us in America.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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