[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12882-12883]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           MONTANA WILDFIRES

  Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, I left Montana yesterday morning to come 
back to Washington, DC, to do the work of the American people but, as 
always, my heart remains in Big Sky Country. That is especially true 
right now as fires burn across our State. In fact, just yesterday, of 
the top 30 wildfires in the Nation, 28 of those 30 wildfires were in 
Montana.
  Our crisis in Montana isn't water. It is not too much water. It is 
not hurricanes. It is fire. It is smoke filling the air and filling our 
lungs. It is communities being evacuated, Montanans standing on the 
side of the road looking at the fires moving toward their homes. We 
have seen the loss of homes and many structures. Montanans are looking 
at the tons of fuel just lying on the forest floor waiting for a spark 
to ignite. In fact, in this year alone, over 1,600 fires have burned 
nearly 1 million acres in Montana. That is nearly the size of the 
entire State of Delaware.
  At my invitation, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Secretary 
of the Interior Ryan Zinke both came to Montana, just about 2 weeks 
ago--in fact, 2 weeks ago tomorrow--so they could see firsthand the 
impact wildfires are having on our great State. We went out and saw the 
Lolo Peak Fire. The impact is devastating.
  We need to be sure Montana gets the resources it needs, first of all, 
to stop the fires. I am very grateful to the men and women who are 
risking their lives to fight these fires, going on virtually very 
little sleep, living in tents, fighting these fires. The firefighters 
battling on the ground are away from their families, and they are 
giving everything to protect our lives, our lands, and our property. 
Tragically, already in Montana, two firefighters have lost their 
lives--Trenton Johnson, age 19, and Brent Witham, age 29.
  Preventing wildfires is impossible, but we can do much more to lessen 
the severity and impact of these fires. Seven million federally 
controlled acres in Montana are at high risk for wildfire. Five million 
acres--five million acres--have been designated for accelerated forest 
management due to insect infestation. We are talking about dead trees. 
Yet, since 1990, our State of Montana has lost over 40 percent of its 
forestry workforce and two-thirds of its mills. The remaining mills 
that we have are not running around the clock, multiple shifts, which 
they could do, except for the fact they can't get enough logs. We are 
literally bringing in logs from out of State and even out of the 
country to our mills in Montana to keep them going.
  Let's talk about Mineral County, MT. Mineral County was founded in 
1914. This county in Western Montana is well known for its dense 
forests and abundant natural resources. The first sawmill came to this 
area around the turn of the 20th century. Multiple others followed 
suit. For decades, the timber industry thrived. Montanans worked hard, 
and they earned good money in the timber industry. In fact, the timber 
industry produced tax revenues to support their schools, teachers, 
infrastructure, and allow our counties to prosper, but in the early 
1990s things changed. Across the State of Montana, environmental 
lawsuits became a barrier to timber contracts that were awarded to 
Montana's small businesses. A community that once thrived on the 
abundant resources surrounding them now sits with one of the highest 
unemployment rates in the State.
  Today, Mineral County has just a single lumber mill. Folks living 
there today are watching the very resources that supported their 
grandparents burn. In fact, in Mineral County alone, over 25,000 acres 
have been torched this fire season, and the fires continue to burn. The 
weather outlook for September continues with above normal temperatures 
and below normal precipitation. This fire season is not over. We are 
going to be in it for quite some time.
  The mismanagement of our Federal forests and radical 
environmentalists have prevented hard-working Montanans from having 
jobs, and this just adds more fuel, literally, to these wildfires. Our 
inability to act and treat these acres further deteriorates the health 
of our forests and the communities that desperately depend on them.
  I can tell my colleagues--and I can speak on behalf of all of 
Montana--that we are tired of being told that others know better than 
we do when we watch our forests burn every summer, our mills close, our 
neighbors lose jobs, and our counties lay off road crews because they 
don't have the funds anymore to support basic infrastructure, and our 
communities suffer from the lack of management of our Federal lands.
  A safe forest, a vibrant forest is a managed forest. A healthy forest 
is a

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managed forest, and timber jobs are good jobs. A properly managed 
forest is also good for wildlife habitat. We have teamed with the Rocky 
Mountain Elk Foundation. Their headquarters are in Missoula, MT. If you 
want to see more elk, if you want to see more wildlife, you need to 
manage the forests. It is good for wildlife habitat and good for water 
quality. A wildfire is devastating to the watershed because what 
happens is the wildfires come through, they wipe out the trees and 
grasses, and then when the spring rains come--when the snow melt comes 
from the spring--we see tremendous erosion and devastation of fish 
habitat and the loss of good sources of water for our communities.
  Let's talk about the unspeakable amount of carbon emissions that are 
produced by these wildfires. I can tell my colleagues that we are done 
listening to radical environmentalists when they tell us otherwise. Too 
many forest management projects have been held up in frivolous 
litigation at the expense of the people of Montana. One such project--
the Stonewall project--was halted because of the terrible Cottonwood 
decision, which is the 21st century poster child for radical 
environmental activism. Two fires blazed on the very lands that were 
set to be managed had it not been for these radical environmentalists. 
This is wrong.
  We need litigation relief. We need to reform the process that our 
land managers go through to get these projects done. The National 
Environmental Policy Act--NEPA--was established to provide guidance for 
land managers to analyze all project alternatives and allow for public 
comment. This process has become so bogged down with additional steps 
and litigation that projects now at times take years to get through it. 
Others never even make it.
  When it takes this long to analyze whether to even start a project, 
the forests continue to get more and more overstocked, more and more 
littered with fuels. A forest is a renewable resource, but if we do not 
manage the forests, they become unhealthy. They become prone to 
wildfire. Something needs to be done to streamline the process while 
allowing more collaboration between stakeholders. We can't wait any 
longer.
  We need our colleagues to come to the table because we need 
comprehensive forest management reform. How many more thousands of 
acres in Montana and all over the West must burn before we act? Tying 
the hands of the State, tying the hands of the local communities, tying 
the hands of the people of Montana who best know how to manage these 
lands has not served us well. We need to change course.
  I will work with anyone of any party and at all levels of our 
government to ensure that forests are managed in a way that reduces the 
severity of wildfires because Montanans deserve it, and because, quite 
frankly, it makes sense. Montanans are tired of seeing and breathing 
the smoke. The firefighters risking their lives out there deserve it as 
well.
  Here is the bottom line. Either we are going to manage the forests or 
the forests are going to manage us. It is time to put the loggers of 
Montana back to work. I urge my colleagues to join me in this effort.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Wyoming.

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