Raúl Grijalva: “As we have talked about H.R. 2936, this is something that has been before two previous Congresses and went nowhere; and…”

“As we have talked about H.R. 2936, this is something that has been before two previous Congresses and went nowhere; and as a consequence, we continue to not confront the issue of appropriate and necessary funding for the Forest Service to conduct wildfire suppression. That is the gap in this. This flawed attempt to try to fix the funding issue does not. In fact, Congress has provided appropriate tools to conduct restoration, reduce hazardous fuels, and restore ecological balance on national forest and public lands. Congress should fix the wildfire budget--that is the issue--not use this as leverage to subsidize the timber industry and also overturn essential environmental laws. This legislation has an attack on NEPA, has an attack on the Endangered Species Act, has an attack on judicial review and access to justice, has an attack on the Antiquities Act, and continues the process of fire borrowing. H.R. 2936 is not about forest health or reducing wildfire risk. It is intended to make it easier to advance commercial logging and sales on our national forests and public lands. A flawed attempt to fix the wildfire funding problem, it does nothing to change the anti-environmental provisions in the underlying bill. We have a serious issue, validated because of all the studies that have been done, including GAO, which found that climate change is a contributor, scientists have found that climate change is a contributor.…”