Fix Our Forests Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to H.R. 471, the Fix Our Forests Act, sponsored by Chairman Westerman.
While this bill is flawed, and we will be discussing those flaws here in a moment, I do appreciate that Chair Westerman and Representative Peters did come together to work on this issue in a bipartisan way that acknowledges our wildfire crisis. That is a good thing. Addressing that should be a bipartisan priority, and the Fix Our Forests Act includes some helpful provisions.
For starters, it has incorporated a number of key Democratic priorities that are in direct alignment with the recommendations of the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission. That is what is referenced in this poster here behind me, 148 nonpartisan consensus recommendations for making us safer from the threat of wildfire.
If this bill simply moved those consensus recommendations forward and also did something that the commission told us we had to do, a critical priority, which is to fund them and make sure that the agencies responsible for overseeing these projects have staffing--if this bill were simply doing that, we wouldn't be here today because this bill would already be law, and many of these good things would already be keeping communities safer.
Mr. Chair, as you will hear in a moment, this bill goes off on some tangents that have nothing to do with fire safety.
Also, with respect to the good provisions it does include, it fails to fund them. That is why we are here. That is why the path of this bill has been more complicated. That is, unfortunately, a missed opportunity.
We were able, in this bill, to include reauthorization of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program and the Joint Chiefs' Landscape Restoration Partnership sponsored by our newly reelected Subcommittee on Federal Lands ranking member, Joe Neguse.
The latest version of the bill also includes a revamped version of the Fireshed Center, which aligns with several of the commission's consensus recommendations aimed at enhancing coordination, using predictive services, and unifying decisionmaking capabilities.
I am glad this bill has evolved to include these priorities my Democratic colleagues have championed. In fact, we have Democratic bills that do all of these good things and more because fire safety is a huge concern for all of us, but our Democratic bills do not pair these good provisions unnecessarily with harmful environmental rollbacks. That, unfortunately, is what the bill before us does do.
If you scratch beneath the surface of H.R. 471, you start seeing problems, starting with the fact that the beneficial provisions are totally unfunded. There is simply no money, no resources, to help any of the good things actually happen.
There are also several poison pills that have the potential to undermine science-based management and public engagement.
On top of doing nothing to address the key driver of catastrophic wildfires, climate change, the so-called Fix Our Forests Act inappropriately co-opts emergency authorities under the National Environmental Policy Act, undercuts the Endangered Species Act, and even makes it more difficult for communities to engage and scrutinize or even know about projects that could directly impact them.
Wildfire is deadly serious. In a matter of minutes, iconic landscapes and entire neighborhoods can be reduced to ashes. I know because it has happened all too often in my district. It is not something politicians should use as a pretext to jam through unrelated industry favors or special interest agendas that undermine our foundational environmental protections.
Let me be clear. House Democrats agree that we need to increase the pace and scale of restoration in our national forests and on public and private land. That is why we worked to secure robust funding in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. This enabled the Biden-Harris administration to develop the Wildfire Crisis Strategy and other key restoration activities.
Thanks to the funding we provided, the Forest Service has been able to achieve record numbers for both hazardous fuels reduction and prescribed burning. They have even identified southern California as a priority landscape through this work. The only thing holding them back from doing even more beneficial work on the ground is lack of money.
However, as we are seeing with the Los Angeles fires, addressing the wildfire crisis is not all about work in the woods. Southern California is dominated by chaparral, where things like timber sales and clear- cutting simply do not provide a fire safety solution for these communities.
My Republican friends seem to think that logging is a panacea for fire safety. In fact, it will do little or nothing to reduce wildfire risk in many of the most vulnerable communities. The fuel in the Los Angeles fires was not trees. The fuel was homes, schools, and businesses.
We will learn many lessons from this tragedy, but one I hope we can take away right now is that we can't keep taking a siloed, myopic approach to wildfire management and prevention. Built environments, like Los Angeles, must be a priority.
We shouldn't have to fight lies and disinformation as our brave Federal firefighters, who are already underpaid, are out there still fighting fires. I would like to set the record straight on some of the misinformation and disinformation swirling around this debate.
While Los Angeles has some of the strongest building codes and fire safety requirements in the Nation, there are still thousands and thousands of homes that require retrofitting to ensure that they are adequately protected. Clearly, we have a lot more work to do, and this bill misses the mark by failing to advance that work.
Keeping homes and property resilient also requires constant upkeep and maintenance. Our communities need guidance, and again, more than anything else, they need resources to ensure that this happens.
While the Fix Our Forests Act includes a community wildfire risk program, which is a good thing, it is not enough. We need to pass the Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act that I introduced earlier this week with my Republican colleague, Congressman Obernolte. It provides actual resources to help local communities defend themselves from the growing danger of wildfires.
Our bill would empower communities to implement science-based methods for mitigating wildfire damage, and we provide funding to design and implement new community protection and wildfire resilience plans with community members, first responders, and relevant State agencies. It would designate a targeted, specific grant program for home hardening within FEMA and add home hardening as an allowable project under an existing Forest Service program.
The bill provides actual support with an adequate focus on the built environment, and that is why I filed it as an amendment to this bill. Unfortunately, the majority decided to move forward on this bill without allowing a vote on that and many other amendments.
I had been hopeful that the amendment process would be an opportunity to address some of the critical gaps in this bill, especially the absence of a pay raise for our Federal wildland firefighters. That, too, has been left out.
What happened in Los Angeles this month is a national tragedy. In moments like this, we should overcome all politics and find ways to work together on solutions that actually help the people we are here to serve.
With that in mind, I want to discourage any of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who might want to embrace this wrongheaded idea that relief and support for Los Angeles can somehow be a bargaining chip or used as leverage to advance other policy goals.
The majority is not going to turn California into a red State by hijacking critically needed disaster relief. In fact, a thought like that never would have crossed our minds when we had the backs of the people in Florida, North Carolina, and Louisiana. We have simply been fellow Americans helping each other in the face of these terrible tragedies. That is the way it has always worked in this Congress, and I hope we are not going to set a terrible new precedent now.
Mr. Chair, I will be recommending a ``no'' vote on this bill today. I hope that we can continue to work together, however, to improve this bill and to address all the critical issues that have been left out. I also hope that when it comes to the broader critical need for Federal disaster relief, we can remember that we are all fellow Americans and that we need to have each other's backs in these moments.
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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, it is always refreshing to hear my colleagues across the aisle, who typically deny climate science forcefully, to suddenly get interested in things like CO
I hope now they will begin to listen to the overwhelming majority of climate scientists who are saying that this fossil fuel energy bonanza of theirs is actually the primary driver of catastrophic climate change. It is the reason we have record-breaking disasters, one after another because of this fossil fuel bonanza. I hope that we can build on the progress, this awakening that we have begun to hear on at least some climate science.
Now, it was mentioned by the chairman, I believe erroneously, that forest treatments have gone down since the passage of the legislation that I mentioned two Congresses ago. In fact, we need to do a little bit of correcting there.
Since the passage of these two laws, the Forest Service has been treating a record number of acres, including a record number of prescribed fires in California and across the country. We also know that from 2002 to 2023, the Forest Service consistently increased the acres that it treated.
Nevertheless, let's pick up where the Trump Administration left off. Mr. Chair, 2.65 million acres were treated in 2020, and we know that the Biden administration was able to treat 4.3 million acres, a lot more than the Trump administration, in 2023. The numbers, admittedly, leveled off over the last 2 years because of Republican budget cuts, but they have still topped 4 million acres a year, and so it is a very different trajectory than what has been suggested.
Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Beyer).
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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, the picture my friend from northern California just showed is instructive because both the right and the left side of that picture are areas that were clear-cut. You can tell that, Mr. Chair, because all the trees were exactly the same height. It is what we call a plantation forest. It is unhealthy. It is absolutely vulnerable to wildfire.
I am glad that they did some thinning on the left side of that picture, but the unhealthy forest on the right side is also a vestige of clear-cutting, which does not make anyone safer. It actually makes communities a lot more vulnerable to wildfire, and it is exactly the kind of project that would go through the huge loophole created in this legislation.
More clear-cutting is not going to make us any safer from wildfire risk.
Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from San Diego in southern California (Mr. Peters).
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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).
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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).
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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Min).
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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I think we can all agree that wildfire is a complex, traumatic, and challenging issue. It is serious stuff. The devastation it can wreak on entire communities and destruction can happen in a matter of minutes.
Addressing our wildfire crisis is a national priority that should never be politicized. House Democrats are committed to supporting a robust all-of-government response, and to doing that in a way that acknowledges critical realities.
Starting with the climate crisis and the role of human-caused climate change, especially the burning of fossil fuels, and these worsening conditions are exacerbating not just wildfires but many other natural disasters.
Second, the reality that solutions, including many of the ones in this bill, actually require resources in order to mean something.
We hope to continue working with our Republican colleagues to address our outstanding concerns about this bill, and we hope that the majority will work with us on additional legislation to address critical issues, like adequate pay for Federal firefighters, that were left out of this bill. They need the resources to do their work. Communities devastated by wildfires also need the resources to rebuild.
There is plenty of work that we still have ahead of us. I hope we can do that together.
It is unfortunate that this bill came up so quickly. In fact, Republicans refused most Democratic amendments. At a time of crisis, we should be trying to find ways to work together.
Democrats have a lot of good ideas. I really think this bill could have benefited from an open and transparent amendment process and, unfortunately, we were denied that.
Forests are critical carbon reserves. They are majestic destinations for outdoor recreation, a habitat for a range of wildlife enjoyed by millions of Americans. Short-circuiting environmental review and not allowing the public to participate in decisionmaking actually has negative consequences. It could put all of these values at risk.
We have to also be able to talk about the climate. Like the recent fires in southern California or the ones that tear through my northern California district all too often and throughout the West all too often, some of the most destructive and devastating fires that we have seen in the past 5 years on non-Federal land started as grass fires, exacerbated by the climate crisis.
In the winter of 2021, the Marshall fire broke out in Boulder, Colorado. At that time, it was the most destructive fire in Colorado history, with over 1,000 homes lost. At the time, Boulder County was experiencing hurricane-force winds just like Los Angeles. The fire blazed across open spaces that had been desiccated by months of extreme drought conditions.
Everything about the Marshall fire was unusual: the level of high winds, the condition of the landscape from an unstable climate, and the proximity to an urban interface. What was once considered unusual is rapidly becoming the norm. We need to acknowledge that reality.
Like the Marshall fire, the fires in Maui started on non-Federal grassland. They were fueled by hurricane-force winds and significant drought. This is a climate disaster.
Fix Our Forests would not have stopped either of these fires. Communities like the ones in southern California; Boulder, Colorado; and Lahaina, Hawaii need resources so they can prepare and respond and be more resilient.
Unfortunately, even the sections of this bill that purport to help in these situations completely lack funding. They need to be refined. They need to be backed up by dedicated funding in order to mean more than just thoughts and prayers.
Rushing bills like this to the floor to capitalize on a crisis does not always lead to the best outcome. We should know that by now.
Let's hope this is not a model for the entire 119th Congress.
Mr. Chair, I close by urging my colleagues to oppose this bill and by urging my Republican colleagues to do a better job of working with Democrats. We should be tackling these issues together.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.
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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, we were under the impression that this was essentially a closed rule. Many of our beneficial amendments were rejected out of hand or ruled out of order, but apparently, there is always room for an amendment that will make the bill worse. We have a great example of that right now.
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We have more work to do by way of studies, so establishing a program to carry out demonstration programs for the development and commercialization of biochar could be a good opportunity to better understand its role in a healthy forest and explore some of these interesting potential benefits.
Now, with this amendment, we have to do it with ideological blinders on because apparently merely mentioning words like CO
This is just remarkably wrongheaded. I am so surprised and disappointed. The chairman actually put a good provision into his bill.
Let me make it very clear: Democrats like that part of this bill, and we are about to lose the beneficial aspects of it because of this absurd ideological obsession where you have to deny all climate science and not talk about the environment. It is just deeply disappointing.
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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, if the excuse for this amendment is that we don't have the money, then you do an amendment to strike the whole program. You don't simply single out the parts of it that are environmental or that have to do with climate solutions. That is what is happening with this amendment. It is just the same old ideological blinders.
Mr. Chair, again, I am greatly disappointed that the chairman is allowing a flawed bill to become even worse with this wrongheaded ideological amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, we still have concerns, obviously, with the underlying bill, but we do support Congressman Carbajal's good amendment. I thank him for his leadership in working on this issue.
Vegetation management around utility lines is a very important priority. That is why the Forest Service and BLM require operating plans and agreements for maintenance and vegetation of these lines through our public land.
This amendment aims to improve the process and make it easier for utility companies to complete that work, especially when hazardous conditions exist. That is a good thing, and we should all support it.
I should mention that it doesn't fix the underlying problem with section 203 of the bill, which includes some language that will have unintended consequences on this issue.
Utility line operators are already responsible and liable for hazard tree mitigation around their lines, but the Forest Service has told us that the current language in this bill could potentially increase liability for utilities by a factor of 15 making it even more challenging for them to get the insurance that they need to operate.
Utility lines often spark fires. We need to make sure they are operated more safely and efficiently, but it is also critical that whatever relief we seek is carefully drafted and thoughtfully drafted.
Mr. Chair, unfortunately, there is still a lot of work to do on the underlying parts of this bill. Hopefully, that work will take place in the Senate.
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Mr. HUFFMAN. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
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