U.S. CONGRESS – U.S. Senators Steve Daines and Dianne Feinstein and Congressmen Doug LaMalfa and Jimmy Panetta led a bipartisan group of Members in urging Congressional Leadership to pass their bipartisan wildfire prevention and forest management legislation by the end of the year. The bipartisan bill will protect Western communities from deadly wildfires, promote public safety and create good paying timber jobs.
“We write to you near the end of another catastrophic wildfire year. Over 8.7 million acres have burned in the West, 2.2 million acres more than the ten-year average. Experts predict that this trend will continue, as rising temperatures lead to drier, hotter conditions in many parts of the West,” the Members wrote. “Each year that Congress delays in passing forestry legislation, we jeopardize the lives and homes of our constituents. We respectfully urge you to include provisions from S. 4431 in any end-of-year legislative package and support passage of this Western priority.”
To read the full letter, click HERE.
Senators Jim Risch and Mike Crapo and Congressmen Greg Gianforte, Jim Costa, Josh Harder and John Garamendi also signed the letter.
The bipartisan legislation has the support of over 100 organizations, including governors, mayors, counties, conservation organizations, and fire departments.
Background:
On September 16th, 2020, in a U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, U.S. Senators Daines and Feinstein stressed the importance of passing their bipartisan wildfire prevention and forest management reform bill.
On September 9th, 2020, U.S. Senators Steve Daines and Dianne Feinstein announced that their bipartisan forest management reform bill had been given a hearing date in the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee for the following week.
On August 20th, 2020, U.S. Senators Steve Daines and Dianne Feinstein sent a letter to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee calling for a hearing as soon as possible on their bipartisan forest management reform legislation.
Earlier this summer, Daines and Feinstein introduced a major forest management reform bill after working for over a year on a bill that would have strong bipartisan consensus.