Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, the wildfire crisis is not just a product of inaction, but decades of wrongheaded land management that let our forests, wildlands, and hills turn into tinderboxes. We have suppressed all natural fire, all the time, and let invasive, fire-prone vegetation grow unabated. The work of clearing dead trees and dry vegetation that fuel fires requires long environmental reviews often followed by years of litigation. While we wait for analysis, forests burn down, habitats are lost, air pollution worsens, and our communities are threatened by catastrophic fire. The wildfire crisis is also climate change. California wildfires in 2020 contributed more greenhouse gases than the State's entire power sector. It was said before that the fires in that 1 year undid the State's entire progress on emissions reduction from 2003 to 2019. The Fix Our Forests Act will simplify and expedite the most critical forest management projects while maintaining strong environmental standards. It will reduce the threat of litigation and add new ways for communities to provide input early, something that does not exist today and is one of the reasons why the National Congress of American Indians supports this bill. The Tribes support this bill. This bill will also protect communities on the front lines of wildfire crises like Los Angeles and my hometown of San Diego. It helps localities craft modern, fire-resistant building codes.…”