[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12853]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           FIRES 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, appropriately and necessarily, we will be 
addressing the issue of Hurricane Harvey and its devastating effects on 
Texas, Louisiana, and our American colleagues down there. But also we 
have a crisis going on in the West. Tens of thousands of acres of our 
forests are going up in smoke this year just like every year. The 
inability of the Forest Service to act due to lawsuits and lack of will 
is inexcusable.
  Our people are suffering in the West as well: Montana, tens of 
thousands of acres; northern California and many other areas. It ruins 
the habitat, it ruins the air quality, it ruins the water quality, and 
it ruins the people's assets of what they own in their Federal land and 
the Forest Service.
  It eliminates jobs. It is harmful to our part of the country. We need 
to do something about this crisis that happens every year and is 
happening right now to the people of the West, to the habitat of the 
West, and to our natural lands.
  Mr. Speaker, we must take action very soon on this and not continue 
to ignore it. It is hardly even in the news of what a devastating 
effect this is of wildfire every year in our forests in our Western 
States.

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