Fix Our Forests Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Chair, today, we will pass this vital legislation to fix our forests, and we will do so with bipartisan support.

This bill has a number of very important provisions. It simplifies and expedites environmental reviews. It ends frivolous legislation and endless agency consultation. It strengthens the Good Neighbor Authority. It creates a new categorical exclusion to increase vegetation management for utility rights-of-way. It prioritizes hazardous fuel reduction in high-risk firesheds. It protects communities in wildland urban interfaces, and it incorporates technology in a smart way.

I am particularly grateful for those in the California congressional delegation on both sides of the aisle who have spoken in support of this legislation. The contrast could not be clearer to what is going on in Sacramento at the State capital right now where just in the last hour, the runaway supermajority rejected legislation by Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher to add $1 billion to the fire prevention budget, the very budget that the current Governor has slashed time and time again. He was even caught by NPR exaggerating the amount of fire mitigation work done by a staggering 690 percent.

Today, we will pass this very much-needed legislation at the Federal level, and it will make a big difference. It will reduce the risk of wildfire, but until California's political leadership gets its act together, our citizens will remain at risk.

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