Reducing the Risk of Fires in our National Forests

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I think we just heard a 1-hour audition for FOX News, but we did not hear a solution to what is a very real problem. We didn't hear a call for a vote, which we are going to have to take if we are to carry out our constitutional obligations, and that is going to be before us.

I don't want to carry on the discussion about the very serious problem of ISIL or ISIS. We have heard a lot of that already. We will have to come to grips with that by October 6 or 7, when the 60-day clock on the War Powers Act runs out and our constitutional obligation takes place.

There are many, many problems facing this Nation, and certainly, the international scene is one of them, but there is also a problem in our communities. I represent a large portion of California, the national forests on the Sierra side and the national forests on the coastal side of the Sacramento Valley. A lot of that is in the U.S. Forest Service, as well as in the Bureau of Land Management.

Over the last several years, those two agencies have been struggling to put out the fires that have raged in the Western United States and, indeed, in the Southeast of the United States. The way in which we have set up the budgeting and the appropriation for fighting fires has created an ongoing cycle of increasing the likelihood of new fires.

We need to change that. We need to get ahead of the century of fire repression and put in place policies and programs that will reduce the risks of fires. We need to manage our forests in such a way that the fire risk is reduced, the forests are thinned, trees appropriately harvested, the undergrowth reduced and eliminated, firebreaks put in place, and protect our communities by the proper management of the forest, reducing the fuel, reducing the load of fuel that these forests have.

We have been unable to do that, principally because we have seen an enormous increase in the number of fires, and the Federal budget to fight these fires is a 10-year rolling average that has not been able to keep up with the increase each year in the megafires, California most recently facing the rim fire in the Yosemite area.

That fire gobbled up not only the forest, but gobbled up the money that was set aside to prevent fires to manage the forest. Instead of having that fund available to do that kind of work, the money was transferred from those programs into the firefighting.

Now, this is an ongoing problem. My colleague from California, Scott Peters, has addressed this problem with a motion to bring to the floor legislation that would set up a new mechanism for appropriating funds for fighting fires. I will let him discuss that and why he has this before us.

Mr. Peters, if you would join us.

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Thank you, Mr. Peters, for your leadership in bringing to the attention of the entire Nation, and certainly to the 435 Members of this House, that there is a way to manage our forests and to deal with the fires that have plagued us so extensively over these many years.

I think all of us have seen this before. It is Smokey the Bear. ``Only you can prevent forest fires.'' We need to add to it, ``But Congress can help.'' And Smokey turns to us and says: How can you help? Well, we can help by changing the way in which we budget for the fighting of fires. Instead of a rolling 10-year average and putting that money up every year and in 9 of the last 12 years blowing through that budget and then reaching back and taking the forest management funds that would allow us to reduce the risk of fires in our forests and in your public lands, instead of doing that, we would have a different system, as Mr. Peters just described. It is H.R. 3992.

H.R. 3992 is a bipartisan bill, Democrats and Republicans. Democrat Mr. Schrader from Oregon and Republican Mr. Simpson from Idaho, the authors of the bill, say there is a better way of doing it. Set aside a special reserve, just like we do for tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods; a special reserve that could be tapped when we exceed the average and blow through that 10-year average with a megafire or a series of fires.

We expect more than 38,000 fires this year in the United States. We are going to blow through that budget. Just this last month in August, the chief forester of the U.S. Forest Service sent a letter out to every part of the U.S. Forest Service saying: Hold on. No more contracts. Save the money. We are going to need to transfer some of your maintenance money. Your fire prevention money, the money that you are using to thin the forests to reduce the fuel load, the money that you are using to carry out logging practices, hold that. We are going to need to hold that because we anticipate once again blowing through that fire budget and having to reach back for the prevention budget.

So Smokey is right. We can prevent forest fires if Congress acts on H.R. 3992. A discharge petition that Mr. Peters has brought to the floor is before us. It has 196 Members of Congress that have signed on. When we get to 218, that bill will automatically be brought to the floor for a vote.

Democrats and Republicans already support it, so bring it to the floor for a vote. Let us put in place a sensible, commonsense way of appropriating money to fight fires and to manage our forests. Let's get ahead of next year's fire. Let's get to prevention not just by not throwing out cigarettes and leaving campfires unattended, but by making sure that our forests are healthy so that they are able to sustain small fires that burn slowly along the floor of the forest, which is the natural ecological way in which forests have for a millennium been able to deal with fire. We are in a different situation now. We have allowed the forests to grow and to be in a position where a fire becomes huge. It is no longer along the floor but gets up into the crown of the trees and destroys the forests.

So we can get back to where we were by properly managing the forests, but we can't do it without money. The Forest Service needs to have that money. The Bureau of Land Management and the National Parks all need to have a different way of appropriating and budgeting. And that is what this bill does.

By the way, it doesn't cost any more. It simply rearranges how that money is going to be spent. That reserve fund would only be available when you have the megafires and you blow through the 10-year rolling average of how much we spend on fighting fires.

It is sensible. It makes a lot of sense. The administration wants it, and, therefore, I suppose my Republican colleagues are opposed to it simply because the administration has proposed a better way of dealing with this budgeting for fires.

So our plea tonight is simple. Just for a few moments, like 12 1/2 minutes thus far, it is to allow us to take up H.R. 3992 and help Smokey prevent forest fires. We only need a few more Members of this House to sign on. More than 50 members of the Republican Party are already coauthors, but none have yet signed the discharge petition. So let's do it. Let's get on with it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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