[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13765-13766]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      IT IS TIME TO FUND WILDFIRES

  (Mr. SCHRADER asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. SCHRADER. Mr. Speaker, for the past few weeks, the country has 
tuned

[[Page 13766]]

in to watch as catastrophic hurricanes pummel Texas and Florida, but 
out West we have been facing our own natural disaster, one that doesn't 
get nearly as much attention but one that can be equally devastating 
and destructive. I am talking, of course, about wildfires raging, 
burning a total of 7.8 million acres. In my home State of Oregon, we 
currently have 26 active fires.
  As a member of this body, I have routinely supported emergency 
appropriations packages when national disasters strike this country. I 
have supported funding for Superstorm Sandy. I supported funding last 
week for Hurricane Harvey, and I will support funding for Hurricane 
Irma. I have done this because, as an American and as a Member of 
Congress, it is the right thing to do. I call on my colleagues, now, to 
also support us in the West. We need to change the way we pay to fight 
these wildfires.
  My good friend from Idaho Mike Simpson and I have once again 
introduced bipartisan legislation, H.R. 2862, the Wildfire Disaster 
Funding Act, that will begin to treat wildfires like the national 
disasters they are. The bill will create a fund dedicated to the costs 
of fighting wildfires so the Forest Service and BLM will no longer have 
to spend over 50 percent of their budget on fighting fires that should 
be spent on managing our forests and their sustainable health.
  This is common sense, my friends. It is time to act, time for this 
body to recognize the importance of this issue, especially to those of 
us out West who face these infernos every year.

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