Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, in Hawaii, California, Colorado, and Michigan, wildfires are posing an increasing threat to the lives and livelihoods of so many Americans. Over the last 30 years, the wildfire season in the West alone has lengthened by several months, and the total number of acres burned per year has nearly doubled. Climate change has contributed to warmer temperatures and drier conditions, causing more frequent and intense wildland fires. Understanding the fundamental science behind wildfires, including the impacts of climate change, is absolutely essential to our ability to improve the prediction and forecasting of increasingly severe wildfires. Another essential element to our response to wildfires is the effective communication of information and risks to land managers and to those living in wildfire-vulnerable areas. To accomplish that, we have H.R. 4866, a phenomenal bipartisan piece of legislation to direct NOAA to establish a program that will increase the accuracy of, and effectively communicate, fire forecasts and warnings. The brave and tireless work of incident management teams is absolutely the cornerstone of successful wildfire responses. This includes incident meteorologists, or IMETs, who work around the clock at active fire sites for days or weeks at a time, providing lifesaving information about wildfire and environmental conditions to firefighters and managers.…”