Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to speak in support of the Community Wildfire Protection Act, bipartisan legislation that Senator Daines and I are reintroducing today. This bill would ensure that those communities that are deemed to be under the greatest threat from wildfire are eligible to receive existing Federal wildfire grants. This sounds obvious but unfortunately is not the case under current law. The current definition of an ``at-risk community'' was codified in the 2003 Healthy Forest Restoration Act. That law requires that, in addition to experiencing significant wildfire risk, an eligible community must either be adjacent to Federal land or included on a list generated in 2001 consisting of voluntary input from States and Tribes. Unfortunately, this 2001 list is far from objective or comprehensive. Communities on the list were not added based on an objective evaluation of their wildfire risk or threat to life and property, only whether an individual Governor or Tribal leader decided to add them. To make matters worse, there are obvious omissions from the list that show its inadequacy, and in fact, 19 States and territories never submitted a single community. For example, large California cities such as Fresno, Fairfield, and Napa are not encompassed by this definition, all of which have experienced recent major wildfires.…”