[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12794]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  RESILIENT FEDERAL FOREST ACT OF 2015

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, well, we have yet another reminder why we 
need for the Senate to take up H.R. 2647, the Resilient Federal Forest 
Act of 2015. We need to bring active management back to our forests.
  Why is this important? Because now in California as well as the rest 
of the Western States the fire season is upon us.
  In my district, the Lowell fire is burning near Alto, California. It 
has already consumed over 1,700 acres since Saturday, and it is only 20 
percent contained. This is one of 12 fires burning in California. It is 
unknown how many throughout the West.
  Sadly, four firefighters have already been injured in this blaze, two 
from the State and two from the Federal level. Thankfully, three of the 
men have been released, though one is still hospitalized with severe 
burns. Thankfully, they are nonlife-threatening.
  Nonetheless, the nonmanagement of our forests are roadblocks that get 
thrown up by a few environmental groups to the type of wise management 
we need, especially in the time of drought, especially in the time we 
have millions of dead trees in the Western States and in California.
  They should be thinned. They should be managed. We should have a 
forest where it will be better for the habitat, better for everybody, 
and better for everything involved. Instead, we have roadblocks.
  We need this bill. We need a much better attitude on managing our 
forests because, again, this is hurting our firefighters, putting them 
at unnecessary risk, as well as the homeowners in the area, the 
wildlife, the habitat, and the economy that used to come from those 
areas.

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