Senate Bill Would Reduce Risk of Catastrophic Wildfires

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Sens. John Curtis (R-UT), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Tim Sheehy (R-MT) today introduced the Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA) in the U.S. Senate. This proposal will expedite forest restoration and management in the most threatened landscapes, with a focus on reintroducing prescribed fire which can thin overgrowth forests and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires.

"For many Americans, catastrophic wildfires are a very real and growing threat to their homes and lives,” said Environmental Defense Fund Executive Director Amanda Leland. “The U.S. Forest Service needs new tools and more resources now to prevent and control these wildfires, and with the right funding, this bipartisan proposal will help. Protecting people and nature from catastrophic wildfire requires both a robust, science-based plan of forest management and the resources to implement it.”

Scientists believe sensible management to restore beneficial fire regimes in dry western forests can help stabilize climate pollution and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires that threaten communities and emit large amounts of climate-warming and toxic pollution. Catastrophic wildfires are the single greatest threat facing our forests, and thinning and prescribed fires are needed at large scale to reduce the risks facing communities.

The Senate version of FOFA is different from the House proposal in a few key ways. The Senate proposal:

1. Gives tribes greater authority to initiate and lead forest resilience projects on federal and tribal lands;
2. Strengthens community wildfire protection programs to prevent urban conflagrations such as the tragic fires in Los Angeles and Maui;
3. Allows more favorable protections for communities;
4. Removes the requirement that groups comment during the comment period in order to challenge a project in court; and
5. Maintains the ability of the public to have input on these projects up-front.

Successful implementation of the Senate’s proposal will require the U.S. Forest Service to be appropriately funded and staffed, a challenge exacerbated by recent illegal executive actions impounding funding for the U.S. Forest Service and firing U.S. Forest Service workers. To enable effective implementation, Congress should provide full funding for FOFA’s programs and actions and restore and rebuild the U.S. Forest Service.

If this Senate proposal is signed into law, project plans impacting forests will remain publicly available and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) will continue to apply to those plans. NEPA guarantees federal agencies assess the potential environmental impacts of their actions. However, time limits for the public to file legal challenges will move from six years to 150 days from the release of project plans by federal agencies.

In addition, the Senate proposal includes five categorical exclusions to NEPA, which allow federal agencies to expedite environmental review of low impact and environmentally beneficial projects. Four of these categorical exclusions are already in use, but allowable acreage would be expanded. The new categorical exclusion is for hazard tree removal, which will allow removal of trees most likely to harm firefighters and others in harm’s way.

This Senate proposal will also create a Wildfire Intelligence Center to facilitate coordination and information sharing across federal and state departments and agencies, tribal entities, academia and the private sector on wildfires, and expedite planning and permitting for projects that reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires.