Martin Heinrich Pleads With Committee To End 'Bleeding Of Staff' At Park And Forest Services

During a Senate Appropriations Committee markup meeting on Thursday, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) spoke about the forest service.

Transcript

00:00Madam Chair, I'd like to call up my amendment on minimum hiring requirements for the Park

00:04Service and for Forest Service wildfire response.

00:11With that objection.

00:13Madam Chair, what deeply concerns me is that every time I go home for the weekend, I hear

00:21directly from public land employees about the bleeding of staff through rifts, through

00:29unlawful terminations, through forced requirements, and I'm at this point incredibly concerned

00:36that this is leaving the Park Service without EMTs, it's leaving the Forest Service without

00:42a sufficient number of qualified firefighters, and I guess I would just urge all my colleagues

00:48to just speak directly with rank and file both Park Service and Forest Service employees

00:54right now, because it's not the funding level, they're simply not the number of employees

01:01to execute at these forests and parks.

01:05My amendment would require the Department of Interior and the Forest Service to hire and

01:10maintain a workable minimum number of full-time employees in order to actually be able to

01:16manage wildfire preparedness, suppression, and other mission-critical support.

01:20It would require the Park Service to hire and maintain a minimum number of full-time employees

01:25for the successful operation of national park units.

01:30The agencies would effectively be required to maintain no less than the number of full-time

01:36employees that were employed at the end of fiscal year 2020.

01:39That was the final year of the Trump administration when they still had a workable workforce.

01:45What I'm hearing on the ground is deeply concerning, and I should say a thank you to both Chair Murkowski

01:57and Ranking Member Merkley for the work that they've done on this bill.

02:01I think they did a remarkable job under difficult circumstances, but I do think we need the workforce

02:09to be able to actually execute on the bill that they have written.