Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, according to the Forest Service--and we checked with them this morning--there is right now an 11,000-acre fire burning in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. This is just April, not the time when one normally thinks you are going to have fires when the fire season is on. But there is a fire burning in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia that has already cost more than $3 million. This is the second largest fire in Shenandoah National Park history.

I have come to the floor this afternoon to once again make the case for the Senate, on a bipartisan basis--Democrats and Republicans--to come together to fix this dysfunctional system of fighting fire in America. I am going to describe it, but let me talk first a little bit about the consequences.

In the American West, we used to talk about the seasons in a way that Americans had done for decades and decades: harvesting crops in the fall, skiing in the winter, fishing during the spring salmon runs, and camping in the summers. We fought fire during the wildfire season. But when Americans in the West talk about the seasons now, they are talking about the seasons of yesteryear. That is because the wildfire season raging across our forests and special places is no longer limited to a single time of the year.

Fighting fires has become a continuous battle virtually year-round throughout the country. That is why this fire burning in the Shenandoah National Park ought to be a wake-up call once again to everyone to understand how important it is to fix this broken system of fighting fire, because the funding system for doing so is leading to dysfunction throughout the Forest Service and contributing to the breakdown of the national forest management that is needed to prevent catastrophic wildfires in the first place.

According to the Forest Service, 1.4 million acres have already burned across America this year. That is more than twice the 10-year average for this time of year. These numbers show, in my view, how important it is that urgent action be taken to fix the way we fund wildfire fighting operations. This is something that Senator Crapo and I have been working on for some time.

With the support of scores of organizations, well over 200, a significant number of bipartisan Senators and a significant number of bipartisan House Members have all joined in this effort, because it is not just the West that has been impacted. Forest Service work in States that manage timber sales, stream restoration, trail maintenance, and recreation get shortchanged when money has been diverted to fighting wildfires.

I was particularly struck last year when we had the good fortune of having the senior Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, join as a cosponsor of our legislation. The reason he did so is because this absolutely dysfunctional system of fighting fires has resulted in important priorities for New York State not being in a position to secure the funding they need. That is because the rising costs of fighting fires keeps raiding all these other programs in the Forest Service that are needed to help prevent fires down the road.

The raids take place two different ways. Certainly, in my part of the world, we are very troubled by the fact that you have prevention getting short shrift. Then it gets really hot and dry. We have lots of thunderstorms in our part of the world, and all of a sudden we have an inferno on our hands. Then what happens is the agencies end up borrowing from the prevention fund to put the fire out, and the problem gets worse because you have repeatedly shorted the prevention program.

This is what is called fire borrowing, and it happens not just in the West. That is why the senior Senator from New York wanted to be a cosponsor of our legislation, because programs that were important in New York State, thousands and thousands of miles away from the forests of eastern and central Oregon--those were a problem for programs he cared about and to secure their funding as a result of this dysfunctional system, just like it has been for people in the West.

It is time for the Congress to find a solution to ensure that, one, wildfires can be fought; and, two, to control the cost of fighting these wildfires by better preparing our forests and making them healthier.

I am very pleased that the chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the committee I had the honor of chairing in the past, Senator Murkowski, and Ranking Member Cantwell are committed to working on this issue, and I wanted to once again reaffirm my commitment. I know Senator Crapo shares this view to work with them to find a solution to wildfire funding that can pass in this Congress.

I certainly have some ideas, and I am very interested in welcoming my colleagues' ideas and I have been for some time.

For example, last year in the summer, it was pretty clear that it was going to be a tough fire season. What I and others essentially sought to do was to find a way to get our colleagues working together to try to find some common ground and get this resolved. We couldn't quite get it done. We are now going to be at this day in and day out, week in and week out. Senator Crapo and I will be working with our colleagues and their staff on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and on the Budget Committee and with Members from the other body to find a solution that works for all sides of the issue.

We saw last summer that this was going to be a problem. A big group of us got together and said we have to get it resolved. We couldn't quite thread the needle. This time we have to make sure that gets done. There are not a lot of certainties in life, but the fire season is one of them, and the Congress simply cannot let this problem continue.

I wanted to come to the floor, particularly today, to take note of the fact that the fire in the Shenandoah area ought to be a wake-up call to everybody. If they are having one of the biggest fires they have ever had this early in April, that is a signal of what is to come. It has been the story of summer after summer. Now we are learning, as I indicated earlier--and it appears it is not just in the West--that we are thinking about the seasons and talking about the seasons of yesteryear because now it is fire season all year round.

My colleague is here.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source