Fema Improvement, Reform, and Efficiency Act of 2022

Floor Speech

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Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, it is no secret that our country is facing increasingly devastating disasters, including wildfires.

In my own home district, the SCU Lightning Complex fires of 2020 burned nearly 400,000 acres over 46 days across five counties, destroying more than 2,000 structures and damaging others. That was the fourth-largest wildfire recorded in California's modern history.

As chair of the California Democratic Congressional Delegation, I hear about fires like this almost year-round from my colleagues, but it is not just a Western United States problem. Fire risk areas are growing exponentially to threaten new districts and new States every year.

And fires don't rage only in Democratic districts. This calamity knows no political divide.

As wildfires continue to worsen, our government has not acted with enough urgency. It is clear that Congress needs to pass legislation to better prevent and respond to wildfires.

Last month, I joined State and local officials to specifically discuss this policy and operational gaps, and the systems that we have in place obviously don't work as well as they should.

FEMA's current statutory authorities and operational practices limit our ability to prepare for and recover from wildfires. That is why all the California firefighters, chiefs, and leaders I met with support the FEMA Improvement, Reform, and Efficiency Act, or FIRE Act.

We know that wildfires present a unique and increasing danger, and we also know that policies written with hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes in mind don't always translate well.

The FIRE Act would direct FEMA to create a process that uses the red flag warnings we are all too familiar with to take predisaster measures and predeploy resources to take disaster-specific damages into account during recovery and the like.

It is commonsense legislation, and I encourage my colleagues to support it.

I would like also to thank the co-leads on this bill--Congressmen Thompson, Huffman, and Panetta--for recognizing the importance of this legislation and for their hard work, as well as Senator Padilla for his leadership in the Senate on this bill.

I thank Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer for their efforts to bring this to the floor. I would also like to recognize Ranking Member Graves and, of course, Congressman LaMalfa for working with us on reaching agreement on something that I think will be able to pass the Senate.

This is a good bill. It will improve our response, and I hope we get overwhelming support here today.

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