"This is my first bill that I am bringing up. And I couldn't be more proud to hopefully have this become the first law that I have sponsored, because this is a long time coming."
"Thank you very much. I didn't go to Wharton, but I did spend 25 years working in manufacturing distribution in international and domestic trade."
"I represent Oregon's 4th Congressional District in Southwest Oregon, and the Bureau of Land Management manages over 800,000 acres of timberland in my district."
"The majority of the forest lands in my district are made up of the Oregon and California railroad revested lands, or the O&C lands, and these lands are unique, their history, their location, purpose, ..."
"In 2020, we lost 1.1 million acres and 4,000 homes in Oregon, and we would like to not have that happen again."
"It works well, and it keeps 95 percent of all fires from growing over 100 acres."
"Our national forests are faced with an incredible challenge."
"But once it is a mega fire, we have unlimited money."
"the key is the funding, and the fact of the matter is, it is more expensive to fight fires in the O&C lands in the wetter forests."
"the next time that we have really bad wildfires, it is not just going to be 4,000 homes. It will be one of our urban areas, and it will make the Paradise California Fire look like a campfire."
"I really want your commitment to make sure that not only that you will work on it, but we will put our money where we need to, funding it upfront."
"The checkerboard pattern of private, industrial, state, tribal, and Federal forest makes it complicated to manage, and even more complicated to protect, especially in this era of climate-driven megafi..."