Earl Blumenauer: “Our hearts go out to the almost million people forced to flee their homes from wildfires in Southern California. At the…”

“Our hearts go out to the almost million people forced to flee their homes from wildfires in Southern California. At the same time a drought has gripped North Carolina and Georgia which in the long run may be end up being as devastating. These disasters are almost unimaginable, except we've been there before, like in Southern California in 2003. And two-thirds of the new development in the last 10 years in Southern California has been in areas we know are subject to wildfire. What are we going to do about it? The administration's refusal to deal meaningfully with global warming is the most glaring example of behaviors that doom us to reruns for years to come. Georgia has no real plan to deal with its water and doesn't even know what supplies it can count upon. Here in Congress, we fail to prioritize the right infrastructure and give billions of dollars for relief after a disaster and won't spend millions to invest in programs to protect before it happens. I hope and pray that the message sinks in and that we use this disaster as a wake-up call to get our act together to help people before these things happen to save both lives and money in the future.”