Returning Common Sense to Wildfire Prevention and Response

Today, the Subcommittee on Federal Lands held a hearing on the state of our nation's federal forests with testimony from U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Chief Tom Schultz. Subcommittee Chairman Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) issued the following statement in response:

"Without proper forest management and proactive wildfire prevention, our federal lands are left vulnerable to catastrophic damage. Today, the Federal Lands Subcommittee will focus on the fundamentals to ensure that our nation's federal forests can once again be healthy, resilient and productive."

Background

In recent years, America has faced some of the largest, deadliest and most expensive wildfires in history. These catastrophes are occurring more frequently due to a lack of active forest management, a century of fire suppression and unprecedented drought conditions.

Across the country, more than one billion acres are at risk of wildland fire. Federal land management agencies have identified approximately 117 million acres of federal land at high or very high risk of wildfire, representing nearly one-fifth of the total land overseen by those agencies. High-risk federal forests are overstocked with hazardous dry fuels accumulated from over a century of fire suppression, and a lack of thinning, prescribed burns and mechanical treatments.

This crisis has wreaked unprecedented havoc on landscapes and communities across the western United States. Catastrophic wildfires have destroyed lives and property, degraded air and water quality and irreparably damaged millions of acres of wildlife habitat.

President Trump has issued two executive orders (EOs) directly related to forest management this year. The first, EO 14225, "Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production," directs the USFS to use tools like Good Neighbor Authority, Stewardship Contracting and Tribal Forest Protection Act agreements to increase timber production and promote sound forest management. The second, EO 14308, "Returning Common Sense to Wildfire Prevention and Response," directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of the Interior to support the adoption of new technology and tools to fight wildfires.

Many provisions of the EOs would be implemented or codified by H.R. 471, the Fix Our Forests (FOFA) Act, introduced by U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and U.S. Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.). FOFA would restore forest health, increase resiliency to catastrophic wildfires and protect communities by expediting environmental analyses, reducing frivolous lawsuits and increasing the pace and scale of forest restoration projects.