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Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, last month, the Gray and Oregon Road wildfires in Eastern Washington caused serious devastation and forced thousands of people to evacuate, including members of my family and members of my staff. While folks on the ground are still assessing the awful scope of the damage and what resources our communities need to recover and rebuild in the aftermath, we already know that these fires burned tens of thousands of acres; destroyed hundreds of buildings, including over 350 homes; and, tragically, the fires were responsible for two deaths.

My heart goes out to the many families whose lives have been upended by these horrific fires, including our selfless firefighters, some of whom lost their homes to the flames while they were working hard to defend others'. I am incredibly grateful to all of our firefighters who have worked around the clock for weeks to get these fires under control. And I am also grateful to so many other first responders who helped keep our families safe from the blazes--law enforcement officers who raced door-to-door warning people as the fires approached, dispatchers who worked so quickly to coordinate emergency response efforts, and everyone who helped those in danger, from evacuating families to conducting boat and helicopter rescues, to all of the volunteers who chipped in for the recovery effort.

We are all relieved that those fires are now under control, thanks to the heroic efforts of so many firefighters, but communities in Eastern Washington have a long way to go on the road to recovery. So I will absolutely be staying in close touch with folks in my State and on the frontlines and making sure that our families and communities have the support they need to get through this.

I am also going to continue to push to bolster our national efforts to prevent and mitigate and respond to wildfires and other extreme weather events, and that has to include more action on climate change because it is painfully clear--and it has been for a while now--that the climate crisis continues to make wildfires like this more common and more severe.

Beyond the recent fires in Eastern Washington, my State has seen devastating fires in the Sourdough fire in the North Cascades; fires on our Olympic Peninsula, on Tribal lands, in the Columbia River Gorge; and we have seen high risks for catastrophic fires in literally every corner of my State.

Over the last few years, Washington State has seen drier and hotter summers, which means longer and more dangerous fire seasons. And we are not alone. My heart breaks for the communities in Hawaii where the Presiding Officer has seen the impact firsthand. They were hit hard by devastating, unprecedented wildfires last month and are still suffering from that damage.

We have to do more to address the climate crisis that is driving increasingly severe disasters. And on another important note, we absolutely must provide more resources for the critical work being done by FEMA and our Federal wildland firefighters to respond to fires across the country.

FEMA's disaster relief fund is running dry. The Agency has already been forced to begin prioritizing immediate response efforts over longer term recovery projects. So it is absolutely essential that we deliver the additional resources FEMA needs as soon as possible because leaving behind communities struck by disaster is simply not an option.

And we absolutely cannot let Federal inaction result in a salary cut for Federal wildland firefighters at the end of this month. After all they do for our communities, the last thing our firefighters need is to see their pay slashed.

I know there is bipartisan support for providing the resources FEMA desperately needs in making sure wildland firefighters do not face a pay cut. I am talking with colleagues on both sides of the aisle about how we can make sure we get this done by the end of the month.

But as the Presiding Officer knows, people are hurting right now. But they are also coming together to support survivors and gather donations and rebuild our communities. We need Congress to come together as well so we can tackle the climate crisis, support our wildland firefighters, continue to build on our investments in wildfire prevention and mitigation in a big way, and make sure FEMA has the resources it needs to help our communities.

As the Presiding Officer well knows, when there is a fire, you don't ask what someone's politics are; you grab a bucket and go to work. That is what we need to do.

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