Bruce Westerman Demands Wildfire Prevention Actions: ‘We Cannot Become Numb To This' Destruction

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing before the congressional recess, Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR) spoke about forest management and wildfire prevention.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Chairman Gosar, and appreciate you holding this hearing today, very important

00:07hearing, and thank you to our esteemed panel of witnesses. I think this is a topic that gets far

00:14too little attention, and we need to shine a light on the other side of what's happening in these

00:20devastating wildfires. You know, just a few short months ago, the whole world watched in horror as

00:26raging infernos leveled entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles. These fires destroyed more than

00:3216,200 buildings and caused $131 billion in direct property damages, but these statistics only tell

00:40part of the story and never can fully encapsulate the toll that devastating wildfires have on the

00:46thousands of families that are still trying to pick up the pieces and return to any semblance of

00:51normalcy. We cannot become numb to this level of destruction year after year. We can and we should

00:58do more. I would say we must do more. As we sit here today and we think about those 16,200 homes that

01:06were destroyed, there are more than 44 million homes in the wildland-urban interface at risk of these

01:13kinds of wildfires across our country. This should be a top priority for every American, especially those

01:19things out west where the fires seem to be more frequent and of higher magnitude. And the thing

01:27that we're going to talk about a lot today is how insurance rates are skyrocketing in fire-prone

01:33communities. And that is if folks are even able to buy policies in the first place. Just this week,

01:40the state of California approved a 17% increase in state farm insurance premiums due to wildfires.

01:46On top of increases homeowners have already faced over the past few years. There is a direct connection

01:53to lack of forest management and the cost of insurance in these communities. This problem is

01:58quite literally killing the American dream, making owning a home unattainable for millions of families.

02:04Even worse, without insurance, many folks affected by wildfires can't afford to rebuild their homes,

02:09meaning some communities will quite literally never look the same again.

02:13The good news is that we know what needs to be done, and it requires using every tool at our

02:19disposal. This means hardening homes and infrastructure, creating more defensible space

02:24around communities, and treating our forests so they aren't tinderboxes ready to explode

02:28at the strike of a single match. That's why the Bipartisan Fix Our Forest Act, which overwhelmingly

02:35passed the House earlier this year, comprehensively addresses this process by providing new tools and

02:41authorities to prevent wildfires at both a community and the landscape level. Wildfire is fast and

02:48bureaucracy is slow. Take, for example, the Angeles National Forest, which burned as part of the Eaton

02:53Fire. In 2020, federal land managers wanted to install roughly 8,600 acres of fuel brakes and began

03:00conducting an environmental assessment. Due to delays, the Forest Service eventually split this project into

03:06three separate categorical exclusions. After nearly four years of delays, these categorical exclusions were

03:12finally approved weeks after the Eaton Fire. Too late to make a difference to the residents of Pasadena

03:19and Altadena. Had FOFA been in place in 2020, this project could have taken place under one 10,000 acre

03:26categorical exclusion. FOFA also codifies existing emergency authorities, shortening the timeframe for action from four

03:34years to right now. We know that this works. Look no further than South Lake Tahoe, which was saved from

03:41certain destruction by forest management treatments that happened under a 10,000 acre categorical

03:46exclusion. Now we need to take that model and apply it nationwide. As a forester, I can say that one of the

03:56favorite sayings of a forester is that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time

04:01is today. The best time to have these authorities in place was years before the LA fires ever occurred.

04:08But the second best time is to enact these reforms now so that communities in the future don't have to

04:13suffer the same consequences that we saw there in Southern California. I really look forward to

04:20hearing the testimony today and continuing work in a bipartisan fashion with my colleagues to improve

04:25forest management and protect communities. And with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

04:30I think the gentleman from Arkansas, the gentleman from California, the ranking member for the

Category

Transcript

Recommended