Emergency Wildfire Fighting Technology Act of 2025

Floor Speech

I rise in support of this legislation introduced by the gentleman from California (Mr. Valadao).

In a few minutes, I will also have a lot to say about one of the bills that was abruptly and outrageously pulled from our agenda today, but right now, I am happy to support my friend's bill.

I point out that the text of this bill passed the House as part of Chair Westerman's H.R. 471 less than 2 weeks ago. I recognize that this is the beginning of a new Congress. Things are pretty chaotic, and our friends across the aisle want to appear busy amidst all the unconstitutional chaos and illegal action that is flooding our in-boxes and our newspapers, and we are constantly on the defensive because our democracy is under attack by someone who doesn't want to be a President--he wants to be a king--and has no regard for Article I of the Constitution.

We have silence from our friends across the aisle about all of that, but I guess we have time today to move a bill that we have already passed and that nobody opposes. Congratulations for this particular head-scratcher.

It is a real missed opportunity since we could be using this time to talk about critical issues like the Federal wildland firefighting pay and benefits that are set to expire a few weeks from now.

I think there is bipartisan support to extend those, but I can't get my friends across the aisle to talk about that, let alone come together and move some legislation to get it done.

Of course, fixing firefighter pay wasn't in the recent Republican package. It is not on the agenda today either. I hope we get to it at some point, but we are not doing it today, and that is a shame.

We should also be talking about disaster relief for California, but that is not on the agenda today either. Since we are considering this bill for a second time, Groundhog Day on this bill, instead of all of the other priorities, I will say committee Democrats continue to support this bill.

There is no opposition to this bill. We are going to pass it again and again, maybe, if we run out of other things to do this in this Congress.

The legislation would require relevant Federal agencies to complete an updated evaluation of the Container Aerial Firefighting System to support wildland fire mitigation and suppression efforts across the country. The system involves using a box or a container for aerial drops of water or fire retardant.

Its proponents claim that the utilization of this technology could improve delivery time and make it easier for aircrafts to fight fires. That is fine. That is a good thing.

However, back in 2011, the Forest Service conducted a study and determined that this particular system did not meet existing standards and posed safety risks to our communities and forests. Since that initial report, there have been technological advancements.

This bill aims to take another look at a potentially useful tool while ensuring the Forest Service retains its authority to decide if the tool is ready to use or not. This is an important safeguard for wildland firefighters and the communities who are impacted by the wildfire crisis.

As we saw in the recent southern California fires, the climate crisis is clearly increasing the severity and duration of wildfire season. Evaluating new technology that can help keep communities safe needs to be a priority.

This bill is one of many examples of the potential for truly bipartisan collaboration on the issue of wildfires. I hope we can keep this work going. I hope we can extend it to actually be a permanent fix for the firefighter pay problem that we need to address.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly didn't think I was engaging in personalities by talking about a President that wants to be a king. I thought I was just acknowledging the reality of what is happening in this country.

I was also referring to these 19-year-olds in hoodies that have been given read-write access to our most sensitive, personal data who are inside the Treasury Department's payment system right now rummaging through our private information doing who knows what.

We can't even get answers because our friends across the aisle don't want to talk about it. They want to rerun all these bills that we have already passed and that are, frankly, not opposed, and this is a waste of our time here on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' again on this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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