Fire Facts

Floor Speech

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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor our firefighters who put their lives on the line to keep our communities safe every day. As new wildfires start every week, these brave men and women selflessly join the fight to protect life and property, while their families must live with the uncertainty of the threats they face on the frontlines. I commend these individuals, and Congress must provide all the support necessary to ensure our firefighters can return safely to their families.

I also commend the heroes joining the fight from across the country. California's firefighting resources are strained by the sheer number and size of the fires we face, and it is a testament to our nation's highest ideals that firefighters from across the West have come to our aid as these historic fires rage in every corner of our state.

Riverside County has already faced four distinct fires this wildfire season, burning over 60,000 acres in and around my district. In these fires alone, 17 individuals have been injured, and one firefighter lost his life trying to put out the El Dorado fire. Charlie Morton was a 14- year veteran of the Forest Service, and I send my deepest condolences to Charlie's family for their terrible loss.

Nearly every year California seems to break some record during the fire season.

It doesn't have to be this way.

For years, top congressional Democrats have rejected bipartisan proposals to reform our nation's forest management practices. Many Democrats have outright rejected the idea that how we manage our National Forests has anything to do with the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires in the West.

Well, here are some of the facts:

Since 2010, approximately 150 million trees have died across federal, state, and private lands in California.

It is estimated that over 2 million properties are at extreme risk of wildfire due to high fuel loads nearby.

Between 60 and 80 million acres of national forest are at high- to very-high risk of catastrophic wildfire, but the Forest Service treats between just 1 and 2 percent of high risk acres each year.

In January, a study in Nature found that California needs to treat approximately 20 million acres to meaningfully impact wildfire risk. We treat closer to 13,000 acres annually.

Bureaucratic delays and frivolous lawsuits have halted much of this proactive work. The town of Berry Creek, received a grant to remove hazardous fuels, but it took the state nearly two years to review the project and allow it to proceed. By the time they did, it was too late, and the North Complex fire was already raging, destroying more than 50 homes in this community.

Salvage logging is another example of a win-win solution where companies still have an economic incentive to harvest the timber while helping prevent the next catastrophic wildfire. Charred trees left in the wake of wildfires are extremely flammable and hazardous fuels. Salvage operations must be conducted quickly or the economic value is lost, and extreme environmental groups frequently file lawsuits to halt these efforts.

In 2018 when I served as Chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, I worked in a bipartisan fashion with Congresswoman McCollum to prioritize forest management and fuel reduction on our federal lands. We worked in good faith to achieve some meaningful reforms including a funding fix for the Forest Service and some limited regulatory reforms. Still, much more needs to be done to protect our communities.

We need to eliminate the red-tape that prevents these common-sense management efforts. We must take forest management decisions out of the courts and put the forest managers back in the driver's seat. Fortunately, House Republicans have solutions.

Congressman McClintock's Proven Forest Management Act takes lessons learned from a pilot program in Lake Tahoe National Forest. Land managers were able to approve the first forest management project in under four months in a 16-page report, compared to an average of 4.5 years and 500 pages. We should pass this bill and expand this successful program nationwide.

Congressman Westerman's Resilient Federal Forests Act is another example. This legislation has passed the House twice with overwhelming bipartisan support but was never considered by the Senate. This bill would streamline permitting for a wide array of forest management projects. When it comes to forest management, time is of the essence, and this legislation would dramatically increase our national capability to reduce the frequency and severity of catastrophic fires across the West.

I call on Speaker Pelosi to take up these bills and pass meaningful, comprehensive forestry reform. More bureaucracy is not the answer to our wildfire crisis, and we in Congress must act like there are lives at stake, because that is the reality of the threat we face.

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