Political Quotes

“I rise to speak in support of the bipartisan Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020, a bill that Senator Daines and I are introducing today to protect our constituents from the increasing threat of catastrophic wildfires. As a result of climate change, California and other Western States are experiencing a growing crisis. Over my 27 years in the Senate, I have witnessed dozens of massive wildfires. But the level of destruction we have seen in recent years and the transformation of wildfire from a seasonal phenomenon into a year-round threat require bold, new action. Our bill would do just that by giving Federal, State, and local governments new tools to better manage wildfires and protect communities. While California has always had dangerous wildfires, the particularly devastating fires in 2017 and 2018 were a wake-up call and a harsh example of the consequences of inaction on climate change. The latest National Climate Assessment found that, over the past three decades, the number of acres burned in the Western United States is double what would have burned if the climate weren't changing. Nowhere is this being felt more than in California. The 2018 Camp Fire killed 86 people in town of Paradise and destroyed 15,000 homes. That fire spread as fast as 80 acres a minute according to some estimates. After the 2017 Tubbs Fire, I visited the Coffey Park subdivision of Santa Rosa, which was destroyed when wildfire swept through Napa and Sonoma.…”