María Elvira Salazar: “a few days ago I came to the floor of the Senate to talk about a very important issue that is facing the entire Nation…”

“a few days ago I came to the floor of the Senate to talk about a very important issue that is facing the entire Nation with respect to the fire emergency we are seeing across many of our States, including many of our western States. At that point I proposed an amendment that would provide an additional $30 million in disaster emergency aid so the Forest Service can take on the work it needs to take on to assure that we don't have the destruction from fires we have seen in prior years. In my own State alone, we have seen what happens when you have the fire situation getting out of control. In 1994, the Storm King fire near Glenwood Springs ended up with the deaths of over 14 firefighters. Back in 2002, we had another fire, the Hayman fire, which caused 138,000 acres of national Forest Service lands to be burned across 4 different counties. These kinds of fires are the kinds we are seeing across our entire country, and we need to make sure we have the resources in order to be able to fight the fires we are going to be seeing in the weeks and months ahead throughout our great Nation. What I am doing with this amendment is simply providing the amount of money that would be needed to get us up to the levels for firefighting that we had during the prior year. It is something that is essential to our country, it fits within the framework of addressing disaster emergencies, and I am hopeful my colleagues in the Senate will agree with me and support this amendment. Mr.…”