Washington, D.C.– This morning - Thursday, October 5, 2017 at approximately 10:00 AM in HVC 110 Studio B of the House Recording Studio - Members of the Congressional Western Caucus will discuss the continued threat of catastrophic wildfires facing the nation this year and in years to come. Speakers will also be presenting pending and future legislative solutions to the crisis in the form of improved forest management and better funding allocation practices.
MEDIA ADVISORY: Westerman, Gosar, Bishop to Hold Press Conference & Livestream on Wildfire Solutions
Washington, D.C.– This morning - Thursday, October 5, 2017 at approximately 10:00 AM in HVC 110 Studio B of the House Recording Studio - Chief Infrastructure and Forestry Officer Rep. Bruce Westerman (AR-04), Chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus Paul Gosar (AZ-04), Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee Rob Bishop (UT-01) and other members of the Congressional Western Caucus will discuss the continued threat of catastrophic wildfires facing the nation this year and in years to come. Speakers will also be presenting pending and future legislative solutions to the crisis in the form of improved forest management and better funding allocation practices.
Full speaker list: Reps. Gosar, Bishop, Westerman, Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05), Greg Walden (OR-02), Greg Gianforte (MT-At Large), Raúl R. Labrador (ID-01), Doug LaMalfa (CA-01), Tom McClintock (CA-04) and Dan Newhouse (WA-04).
Background:
As of this morning, the National Interagency Fire Center reports that there have been 50,173 fires that burned 8.439 million acres so far in 2017. The Forest Service has already spent more than $2.3 billion on suppression costs this fiscal year alone - a new record.
According to the Forest Service another 60-80 million acres throughout the country are currently considered high risk. The House Committee on Natural Resources reports that in 2016, wildfires destroyed 4,312 structures, including 3,192 residences.
Mismanagement has left our forests vulnerable to insects and disease and ripe for catastrophic wildfires. The system is broken. We need forest management reforms, and we need them now.
The Forest Service only harvested 2.5 billion board feet in 2016 compared to over 10 billion board feet in 1990. Hazardous fuels are estimated to be accumulating three times as fast as they can be treated. This is a treatable problem, and one which we understand the causes of very well. The Forest Service’s own Fuel Treatment Effective Database reports that “over 90 percent of the fuel treatments were effective in changing fire behavior and/or helping with control of the wildfire.”
Unfortunately, federal land management agencies have failed to recognize this correlation and timber harvests are down 80 percent over the last 30 years. Such flawed thinking also negatively impacts education and local communities as historically 25 percent of the receipts from all timber harvested by the federal government go toward schools and important infrastructure projects.
Eight times in the last twelve years, the Forest Service has moved funds from other operating accounts to fight fire, depleting accounts for forest management in the process that would help prevent catastrophic wildfires. This flawed approach causes us to spend billions of dollars on the backend to suppress fire, neglecting fire prevention and putting our communities at increasing risk of catastrophic fire.
Catastrophic fires also cause significant damage to the environment. Robust data from NASA has concluded that one catastrophic wildfire can emit more carbon emissions in a few days than total vehicle emissions in an entire state over the course of a year. As a result of recent wildfires, Seeley Lake, Montana set a record for the worst air quality ever recorded there - 18 times greater than EPA’s safe particle limit. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce recently reported, “In 2005 alone, wildfires resulted in more than 126 million tons of carbon dioxide in the United States.”
Healthy forest advocates support solutions like Rep. Westerman’s bipartisan H.R. 2936, the Resilient Federal Forests Act. H.R. 2936 is comprehensive legislation that simplifies the cumbersome planning process and reduces the cost of implementing proactive forest management strategies. The bill adopts a forward-thinking, active management strategy that combats dangerous wildfires before they get started and includes reforms that would end the practice of fire borrowing.
It is of the utmost urgency that the federal government adopt a forward-thinking, active management strategy that combats dangerous wildfires before they get started. Thinning overgrown forests and removing hazardous fuels creates jobs and increases overall forest health.
