Combating Wildfires in the Western United States

Floor Speech

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Mr. GIANFORTE. Honoring Barbara Rose Johns

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Mr. GIANFORTE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring the Chamber's attention to the wildfires that have devastated our country this year, consuming nearly 7.7 million acres across 12 States. This figure, however, doesn't account for the lives tragically lost, the homes destroyed, or the livelihoods that went up in flames. This doesn't account for the smoke from these wildfires that swept from many of our Western States into the Midwest, creating poor air quality.

The House has passed measures to reduce the severity of our wildfires and improve the health of our forests. Last November, the House passed the Resilient Federal Forest Act, written by my friend from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman). The legislation provides commonsense reforms that will benefit our forests, economy, and the environment.

Conservationists, organizations, foresters, stakeholders, and local leaders throughout Montana recognize the need for reforms to get us managing our forests again. Unfortunately, the other Chamber, mired in obstruction, has not taken up the bill. The House, however, has not lost our focus, including critical forest management reforms into other legislation.

Looking across the West and seeing the devastation of the wildfires this year, I know we can't afford to wait. I am honored that many of my colleagues are joining me here tonight who recognize the threat of catastrophic wildfires and want to do something about them. I look forward to hearing from them.

At this time, I yield to the gentleman from Utah, John Curtis.

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Mr. GIANFORTE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah for his comments, and especially for his leadership on this important issue, bringing the knowledge of local government here to this House to help us deal with this devastating situation out west.

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Mr. GIANFORTE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for his principled approach to getting reform so we can start managing our forests again.

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Mr. GIANFORTE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania, especially that he is a member of the Western Caucus joining us there, and pointing out the national implications of the massive wildfires we have out west on resources back east; on the forests that you have in Pennsylvania and the resources there.

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Mr. GIANFORTE. The gentleman mentioned many of the things that--the livelihoods, the lives. You know, the other thing that we often neglect is the amount of smoke that is discharged into the air and the effect on people with asthma and other lung issues. I am sure many, many have died as a result in our communities, so it is a public safety issue as well.

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Mr. GIANFORTE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his comments.

This past summer, nearly 7.7 million acres have burned across America. Wildfires consumed thousands of acres in Glacier National Park.

The Howe Ridge Fire in Glacier National Park consumed over 14,000 acres. I was there. I saw the devastation. It destroyed homes on the shores of Lake McDonald. These are historic national buildings, lost to fire.

Last year in Glacier National Park as well we lost Sperry Chalet, which also had historic value and had created memories for thousands of tourists who had visited that facility.

Our courageous firefighting efforts did save the main Wheeler cabin, with great effort. It even threatened the Going-to-the-Sun Road. I met with the incident commanders there and the brave firefighters at the Howe Ridge Fire.

Last summer, we saw similar behavior. Nearly 8.5 million acres burned in our country last year. In Montana alone, last summer, Mr. Speaker, we lost 1.25 million acres.

Just to put that in perspective, 1.2 million acres is the equivalent of the entire State of Delaware, burned in Montana last summer. And I saw the destruction firsthand. I was on five of these fires, visiting with the incident commanders, and seeing devastation.

In one county alone, we burned 270,000 acres, and we had over 60,000 cattle with no grass. Fortunately, we were able to work with the Department of the Interior to get retired grazing allotments in the C.M. Russell opened up to fill that need for those ranchers, but those livelihoods were suspended.

The habitats were destroyed. Smoke hangs in the air. My own driveway in Bozeman, Montana, on mornings when the fires are burning the worst, we come out to cars covered with ash that we have to brush off before we can drive them. The air quality is dangerous and unhealthy.

And even where there weren't fires, we saw smoke from the tragic, destructive California fires that filled our skies in Montana.

As bad as the wildfires have been, I have seen the impact of properly managed forests. This year, when I was at the Glacier National Park fire, it was interesting to me, as the incident commanders explained what they were doing there. It turns out there were four fires being managed, all started by the same lightning storm, through lightning strikes.

Three of those fires started in national forests where there had been hazardous fuel reductions. The forest had been managed. One started in a national park, and it was such a stark example to me to see that the three fires that had been started by the same storm in the national forests where there had been hazardous fuel reduction, on the day I was there, had been constrained to two to 300 acres each. And yet, the one that started in a national park was burning over 10,000 acres.

Now I am not advocating to go log our national parks, just to be very clear. But it is a stark example of the impact.

I have been in eastern Montana, southeast of Miles City, and I have seen where the BLM has done forest management. I saw a situation where a fire had burned through a landscape and, in an area where there had been no forest management, no fuels reduction, no thinning of the forest, the fire burned so hot that, even years later, it still looked like a moonscape. Nothing was growing.

And yet, when it hit the managed forest, where the forest had been thinned, the fire quickly dropped into the underbrush, burned the grass and twigs, but not a single tree was lost. A year later, that forest was healthier than it was, and yet, the forest that had burned completely will not recover in our generation. This is a stark example.

In other areas, where forest management has been done, where trees have been thinned, the water comes back into the streams again, the surface water. These are healthier habitats.

So there are many benefits of a properly managed forest. We get more wildlife. There is more habitat. There is more opportunity for sportsmen and women. We have more recreational opportunities. You can gain access to the forests again. We have good-paying timber jobs. Wildfires are less severe, and the health of our communities are not threatened.

One of the biggest problems is litigation. We need more collaborative projects, but litigation is one of the greatest obstacles to managing our forests. A good example is the Stonewall Vegetation Project in Lincoln, Montana. I toured that site.

It took 8 years to get a permit to thin the forest, and then the lawyers swooped in, arguing the project would disrupt lynx habitat. A judge overturned the permit, and that summer, that entire forest burned.

And, Mr. Speaker, there is no lynx habitat anymore. There is no habitat for any animal there because that forest is gone.

The House did take action this past year. We passed the Resilient Federal Forests Act that Congressman Westerman of Arkansas authored and I cosponsored. It would get us back into our forests, managing them again. Unfortunately, the Senate, tied up with obstruction, didn't act on it.

But we have made progress. Back earlier this spring, we overturned the Cottonwood decision, which has been used as a tool to invalidate existing forest management permits. We have been cutting red tape to accelerate the removal of hazardous fuels.

The Forest Service estimates that 6.3 billion dead and dying trees are across 11 States. I know in my own home State, in our State capital, Helena, Montana, if you drive west into the Lewis and Clark Forest, you can look at a hillside and, in some cases, because the forests have not been managed and they have overgrown, nearly 90 percent of the trees are standing. It is a tinderbox waiting to go up in flames.

We have also reformed how we pay for catastrophic fires. This was fixed also earlier this year, through legislation in this House, and it was signed into law, that will allow us to treat large fires just like we do large hurricanes when they exceed budgets, because the cost of these fires has expanded so much, it is consuming the majority of the U.S. Forest Service budget.

Mr. Speaker, last year, forest firefighting costs consumed 55 percent of the Forest Service budget.

That takes away money for trail maintenance and recreational programs. It is consumed in fighting these fires.

We have also added some provisions to the farm bill which is now in conference, adding Good Neighbor Authorities, extending that capability for categorical exclusions down to county commissioners and local government so that they can be involved in making our forests healthier.

We have also provided for expedited salvage operations so we can cut dead and dying trees at landscape size without the frivolous litigation shutting down these projects.

Mr. Speaker, it is time to act. We can't control the weather, but we can control how we manage our forests. It is time to reform how we manage our forests by passing commonsense forest management reform. We need to reduce the severity of the wildfires. We need to get our forests healthy again.

This is good for wildlife. It is good for recreationists. It is good for hunting. It creates good-paying jobs in our mills. Montana can't afford for Congress to continue kicking the can down the road and let important projects be tied up in unnecessary, frivolous litigation. This is an urgent issue, and we need to address it quickly.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleagues bringing to the attention of this Chamber the wildfires and the need for forest management reform. The House has offered commonsense solutions to get us back to managing our forests. The evidence shows that a properly managed forest is a healthier forest. We have less severe wildfires. I have seen this firsthand in the field.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the efforts of Mr. Westerman, who has been a leader on the issue and a forester by training, and my colleagues who know the destruction of a catastrophic wildfire brings us to know how critical it is to deliver meaningful reforms.

Like my colleagues, I urge the Senate to act on commonsense measures this Chamber has sent so that Montanans can spend the summer in their forests enjoying them, not having to breathe them at home.

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