[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15612-15613]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 COMMENDING THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET FOR THEIR ATTENTION TO 
                         WILDFIRES IN THE WEST

  (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, I wish to commend this evening the Office 
of Management and Budget and Mr. Mulvaney for the special attention 
they are taking to the wildfire situation we have in this country, 
especially in the West.
  They have put forward a request for $576 million additional funding 
for fire

[[Page 15613]]

suppression, but even more importantly is to get at the root of the 
problem with better forest management that will make sense and make a 
difference over the coming years of getting rid of the fuel, getting 
the fuel out of the forest that is so much of the problem, with 
millions and millions of dead trees, brush, and all the other hazards 
that cause wildfires, that are going to happen anyway, to become 
catastrophic fires.
  So OMB calling for these reforms that we have been talking about, me 
and my colleagues, for a long time is really a good sign that this 
administration wants to get serious about cutting way back on the 
wildfires and the severe damage to air quality, habitat, wildlife, and 
the asset the American people own, that they are serious about it.

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