Date: 2003-11-21
Speaker: LORETTA SANCHEZ (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. my home state of California has just been through a terrible series of wildfires. The fires burned more than 800.000 acres. destroyed over 3.300 homes. caused over $12 billion In property damage. and tragically took the lives of 22 people. *What could have been done to prevent It? What should we do now to prevent such occurrences in the future? The answer. it seems to me. is active management and control of overgrown areas near development. usually referred to as the WoodlandUrban Interface. This will go a long way to preventing fires from destroying homes and worse. killing our citizens. We have a bill in front of us today. H.R. 1904. The Health Forests Initiative. that Its proponents tell us will help prevent the kind of devastation that we endured in California. This conference report is certainly better than the initial House version of the bill. In the House bill. money used for clearing would have had to come from nearby logging activities. In the chaparral of Southern California. there is no logging. and that means no removal of forest fuels would have occurred to protect our homes and our families. The HouseSenate compromise that is before us today Is a step in the right direction. Most Importantly. it provides $760 million to fund clearing forest fuels to prevent catastrophic wildfires. Nevertheless. there remain some fundamental problems with the bill. First of all. the Healthy Forests Initiative is only effective for federal lands. Roughly twothirds of the lands that burned In California was not federal land. and therefore would be unaffected by the healthy forests Initiative. Second. only half of the $760 million is set aside for forest clearing within 11/2 miles of structuresthe WildlifeUrban Interface. The other half will go toward thinning in other areas. Moreover. where in the initial bill the clearing was paid for by nearby profitable logging. now we are giving $365 million to commercial loggers for these thinning activities. So. instead of asking logging companies to contribute their fair share to forest management and fire mitigation. we are subsidizing them to do it. I am disappointed with this bill. We had an opportunity to craft a bipartisan bill. one that would have addressed the pressing Issue of protecting lives and property In the WildlifeUrban Interface. Instead. the Healthy Forests Initiative puts commercial logging interests ahead of protecting our vulnerable communities. Once again. the Republicancontrolled Congress has it priorities all wrong. While this bill does not sufficiently address this Important priority. I am supporting an effort that does. I am working to provide more funding for commurity and individialInl lated and driven initiatives to clear fire fuels in their areas. We should be empowering local communities to clear these areasthey have the greatest knowledge of the environments in which they live. and the greatest personal stake In the success of these efforts. I am hopeful that this Initiative will generate broad bipartisan support. In the meantime. I regret that I must oppose the Health Forests Initiatives. principally because it uses a great deal of resources. but it wont do very much to make our Southern Californian forests any healthier.