Wyden Sounds Alarm on Trump Kneecapping Fire Preparedness Ahead of Historic Wildfire Season

Wyden Sounds Alarm on Trump Kneecapping Fire Preparedness Ahead of Historic Wildfire Season

Watch a video of Wyden delivering his Senate floor remarks here

As prepared for delivery

I come to the floor today to sound the alarm on a crisis that's a freight train speeding toward the Western United States in the form of what could be one of the worst wildfire seasons in modern history.

I was back home in Oregon earlier this month, where I received a fire briefing from officials in Southern Oregon. What I heard during that briefing was as equally shocking as it was concerning:

Snowpack is at historic lows in Oregon.

Some parts of our state have less than 10 percent of their normal snowpack.

Our beloved Crater Lake received its lowest snowpack in 100 years.

At the time when snowpack should usually be peaking, it's completely gone less than a month into spring.

Western states, including Oregon, were already suffering from devastating drought. And now, this year's record low snowfall is going to make it even worse. Simply put, there is no water. And come summertime, Oregon will be like a tinder box waiting to go up in flames.

This is already a recipe for disaster. But it's made even worse by Donald Trump's failed leadership when it comes to wildfire preparedness. Last year, DOGE took a sledgehammer to federal wildfire programs.

Between funding cuts, bullying federal employees into taking early retirement, and pressure campaigns to leave public service, 1400 qualified firefighting personnel left the Forest Service in the first year of Trump's presidency.

These are known as "red card" holders. They might work in other areas of the Forest Service as technical support, or in administrative roles, but they are trained, qualified firefighters who can be called up in particularly bad fire years-years like this one.

And to make matters worse, last year, firefighting personnel were caught in the crosshairs of Trump and Vance's immigration agenda of chaos and cruelty. While immigrants put their lives on the line to battle fires, Trump's immigration enforcement officers were arresting them and removing them from the fire line.

Let me repeat that: arresting them in the middle of fighting fires.

Safety of our communities be damned, as long as Trump gets his Fox News segment. These are immigrants who chose to put their lives on the line to defend our lives and livelihoods.

And Trump repays them by arresting them on the frontlines and throwing them in detention centers while fires are still raging. Locking firefighters isn't an immigration agenda that makes us safer. It's so self-sabotaging it makes your head spin.

Now let's also talk about how Trump has kneecapped the ability to reduce fire risk altogether. Thinning and prescribed fire are proven, science-backed tools to reduce wildfire risk.

Each year during the cooler, wetter months, hazardous fuels treatment is conducted to reduce the buildup of fuels in our forests that act as kindling for fires during the summer.

Last year, I asked the Trump administration for an update on its treatment numbers. Forest Service Chief Schultz confirmed to me in September that the administration's treatment levels were roughly a million acres below previous years.

Just a few weeks later, Trump plunged us into the longest government shutdown in our country's history, putting hazardous fuels treatment on hold and setting treatment levels back even further.

And, last week, I got a letter from Chief Schultz once again confirming that current treatment levels remain significantly behind their levels at the end of 2024.

The administration is trying to tout this as a win, saying it "almost" met its treatment goals last season. Here's some breaking news for Donald Trump: it's easy to do a victory lap about your achievements when you set the bar on the floor.

So here's the current lay of the land: hazardous fuels treatment levels are down millions of acres.

The Forest Service is still down 1400 firefighters and countless other employees.

Budget cuts have yet to be restored.

Oregon and the rest of the west have no water and massive fuels buildup in our forests.

So what are Donald Trump and JD Vance focused on?

It sure isn't staffing up the Forest Service with qualified firefighters.

It's not making sure states have enough money to prepare for these blazes.

It's not cleaning up our forests to reduce fire risk before the season starts.

And it sure as hell isn't funding FEMA, which plays a critical role in helping our communities recover from wildfires, and remains mostly shut down under Trump's failed leadership.

In fact, Trump has dramatically slashed staffing at FEMA, cutting the agency's ability to respond to emergencies. We saw the deadly reality of that play out with the floods in Texas hill country last summer.

Instead, Trump is cosplaying as a dictator and starting illegal wars in the Middle East. And now he wants Congress to give him 200 billion dollars so he can keep bombing Iran.

I have a better idea: let's use that 200 billion here at home. Let's use it to lower gas prices and health care costs. Let's use it to fund school lunch programs.

Let's use it to manage our forests and reduce the risk of fires burning down homes and livelihoods.

Let's use it to hire and pay the courageous firefighters that put their lives on the line each year to protect our communities.

But true to form, Donald Trump will always find a way to make things worse.

Just last week in the midst of this brewing catastrophe, Trump announced he's dismantling the U.S. Forest Service. The agency that's largely in charge of preparing for and fighting wildfires.

He's doing away with existing regional experts, to no doubt be replaced with people hand-picked by Trump to do his bidding.

He defunded 57 research stations dedicated to researching the impacts of drought and forest management on wildfire risk.

The administration is calling this a harmless "reorganization".

Anyone with a pulse can see this for what it really is: an intentional stunt to kneecap firefighting capabilities and leave Oregonians in the literal line of fire.

Come summertime when these blazes are going strong, the Forest Service will be in complete upheaval, too busy rearranging offices and desk chairs to fight fires. Just like Trump intended.

This is like needing open heart surgery and a few weeks before your operation, learning that the hospital has replaced your heart surgeon with Hannibal Lecter.

It's also another casualty of Donald Trump's crusade to sell off our forests and public lands to billionaires and corporations.

Our public lands are just that: public. Once we sell them off, we can't get them back. But Trump doesn't care as long as his billionaire buddies and the Epstein class get to build their own personal resorts and compounds, or another data center.

I'll close with this. Donald Trump campaigned on cheaper eggs and gas prices.

Instead, aided and abetted by Republicans in Congress, he's done everything to drive up costs and make Americans less safe.

The only winners under a Trump presidency are billionaires, corporations, and the Epstein class. He sure as hell isn't looking out for the rest of us.

When our communities are ablaze this summer, there will be no time to waste. No time to wait for the training of new firefighters because Trump fired everyone who was qualified. No time to do fire risk reduction work. Donald Trump has set Western states up for failure this fire season, and I fear the outcome will be catastrophic.

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