Reducing the Risk of Fires in our National Forests

Floor Speech

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Thank you, Congressman Garamendi, for helping to raise awareness about the pressing need to change the way the Federal Government deals with funding wildfire response and prevention.

As you well know, the devastating effect of wildfires in 2003 and 2007--we had massive, massive loss of property and dislocations in Scripps Ranch, Tierrasanta, Rancho Bernardo, and Poway.

Right now, as I am speaking--and you mentioned this as well--firefighters in Yosemite National Park continue to battle a wildfire that has burned more than 2,600 acres and required 120 firefighters and 11 aircraft to combat.

It is no secret, in addition, that California is facing a prolonged drought that places us at increased risk for wildfires. So we are in the midst of what is expected to be one of the longest and hardest wildfire seasons in recent memory, certainly in any of our memories.

Wildfires are extremely expensive for States and localities to fight. There is an urgent need for Congress to pass a solution that funds firefighting without stealing from prevention, which is a crazy thing to do. I think we all acknowledge that.

Earlier this summer, as you mentioned, I led the discharge petition with 196 signers to demand a vote on the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act of 2014. That bill has real bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate--71 Democrats and 60 Republicans have cosponsored in the House--and that is very unusual around here. It was also included by the President in his budget request.

So you have both parties in the House and the President of the United States all on the same page on this issue. It seems like an area where we ought be able to make some progress, and we ought to have a vote.

The bill allows firefighting agencies to access funds from the natural disaster contingency fund while fighting catastrophic fires, not take money from prevention because, of course, what that does is it makes the following year's fires even more severe and even more costly and dangerous.

So it is fiscally responsible to treat wildfires like the natural disasters that they are, like an earthquake, flood, or hurricane. Instead of stealing funds from prevention efforts to pay for immediate responses, we should be adequately funding both.

I join my colleagues here tonight to call on the Speaker to bring this truly bipartisan bill to a vote immediately so that fire-prone regions like the two we are dealing with in California--mine in San Diego--don't suffer from Washington's dysfunction.

Ladies and gentlemen, we started this fire season this year in May. We are used to having fire seasons. It is natural to have fire seasons in September or October, but the fact that we started in May just underscores what we are up against. We do not want to leave for our October election activities without having dealt with that and exposing these communities to risk.

I thank my colleague, Mr. Garamendi, for helping to raise awareness about this. Thank you for your continued commitment and leadership on the issue. We look forward to bringing it home.

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