From the office of Rep. Bill Sali

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Bill Sali today led a national debate on forest fires, saying Congress needs to do more to actually prevent forests and rangeland from going up in flames – as is happening now across the county. Sali, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, served as the Republican debate “manager,” allocating speaking time to his colleagues as they debated a bill to dedicate funding for wildfire suppression. During the debate, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi complimented Sali for his leadership.

“Each year in Idaho the skies fill with smoke from fires. Last year alone more than two million acres burned in Idaho, threatening lives, homes and communities,” said Sali, a leading voice in Congress for sound forest management. “Real solutions to these deadly and growing wildfires must be found.”

While recognizing that the proposal under consideration was an attempt to address Forest Service issues, Sali lamented that the legislation, “fails to address the more critical issue – forest management. The greatest obstacle our pubic land managers face in preventing catastrophic wildfires isn’t dollars; it is having the ability to overcome mountains of red tape and lawsuits filed by extremists. The laws that Congress has created in an attempt to ‘save’ our forests, have now become the biggest obstacles to saving them from wildfires.”

H.R. 5541, the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act (FLAME Act) is aimed at dedicating funds for suppressing large wildfires. The bill passed on a voice vote. The Forest Service used to provide a source of revenue by managing federal lands and selling the harvested timber. Today, in most areas, active harvesting and forest management is non-existent resulting in less money generated by the Forest Service while there are growing fuel loads on federally managed lands.

“There is no question that there are budget issues that must be addressed. But we must address the cause of the fires as well, the increasing and unchecked fuel loads in our national forests that surround our homes and communities. We will continue to have larger and larger fires until we reduce fuel-loading,” said the Congressman. “Until we provide the tools for pre-fire forest management to reduce fuel-loading, the western United States will continue to see homes burned, watersheds destroyed and even lives lost.

“Providing tools to communities to protect their homes, livelihoods and very lives from these devastating fires is something we can and must do when addressing long-term funding to suppress these fires. This is precisely what I suggest we do in my bill, the Saving American Lives and Investing in Protecting Land and Nature Act, H.R. 4245, which I urge the House of Representatives to take up. This is a non-partisan issue about public safety and sound forest management that will benefit millions of Americans,” Sali said.

During debate, Speaker Pelosi praised Sali for his bipartisan leadership. Pelosi also echoed Sali’s call for treatments as a necessary element of a comprehensive approach to fire management. “We need prevention; we need the treatment that was described by our colleague. A long term strategy is needed…” Pelosi said during her comments today.

Sali’s bill, H.R. 4542, speeds up projects to reduce hazardous fuels and reduce risks from wildfire, insect damage and disease. Such projects help protect communities and private lands adjoining federal forest lands by reducing the risks on those lands. The bill would allow a shortened environmental review process – a categorical exclusion – as allowed under the National Environmental Policy Act. The bill would keep in place the environmental safeguards stipulated in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, would provide old growth and endangered species protections and comply with forest management plans and environmental laws.

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