Ryan Zinke: “I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support to remind my colleagues in the Senate that the Western United…”

“I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support to remind my colleagues in the Senate that the Western United States is on fire. We don't have time for inaction and more political pandering. The House has passed the Resilient Federal Forests Act, which includes vital reforms that can be implemented tomorrow if our colleagues in the Senate take the bill up. So why don't we do what is right for America? Why don't we come together and move the bill? This wildfire season has been one of the worst in the last 10 years, and it has had enormous cost. Despite the cooler conditions in Montana, we have 35 fires that are continuing to burn, a total of 334,000 acres gone. That is equivalent to 522 miles, square miles. Two-thirds of this acreage belongs to the public, our national forests. And it is not just the physical damage. We lost four firefighters in Washington, four that paid the sacrifice fighting forest fires, and we have to remember that. I was at a fire in Glacier National Park. It was a reburn from a fire that occurred in 2003. The reburn happened to occur because of a threat of a lawsuit which prevented the Forest Service from doing the right thing. What they wanted to do was salvage timber. But because there was standing timber, ground crews couldn't get at it. And when ground crews couldn't get it, that means they had to fly aircraft at $3,000 an hour to put out the fire. That is wrong. It is wrong for Montana, and it is wrong for America.…”