[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 8373]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                FOREST TREE DAMAGE TOLL AND FIRE DANGER

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, years of drought have left a terrible toll 
on the forests of the Sierra Nevada in California. The Forest Service 
estimates that there are at least 40 million trees that have died in 
California alone. The scope of this challenge is almost unbelievable, 
and the danger it presents is nearly unavoidable. However, there are 
steps that we can take to address it.
  While it is refreshing that the Forest Service is finally using the 
categorical exclusions that have been authorized under the recent farm 
bill to speed forest management projects, it won't be enough to prevent 
forest fires of devastating sizes and scopes. The Forest Service should 
rapidly increase the numbers of public-private partnerships it engages 
in and allow the private sector to remove the dead trees that are just 
waiting for a spark.
  The Senate should act immediately to pass H.R. 2647 and allow forest 
fires to be funded like earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural 
disasters so as to end the diversion of forest management funding that 
limits preemptive fuel reduction work.
  We also need to incentivize technologies like the usage of biomass, 
which can make productive use of damaged trees and brush, et cetera, 
and can generate long-term renewable power--base-load, reliable power.
  Congress should act to extend the same tax incentives that wind and 
solar power receive to biomass plants, which don't just create power 
but do so more reliably and which have the additional benefit of 
consuming wood and slash that would otherwise burn in our forests, 
causing pollution. This would also bring jobs back, which are much 
needed in the rural part of America.

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