By Kim Riley

U.S. Senate committee members on Tuesday approved a bipartisan bill supported by electric utilities that would streamline the process for vegetation management near power lines, helping to reduce wildfire risks and infrastructure damage. 

The U.S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee voted 18-5 to advance the Fix Our Forests Act, S. 1462, which now heads to the full chamber for consideration. 

“Wildfires are a national challenge that require national solutions, and this legislation represents a critical step forward in reducing wildfire risks and safeguarding communities,” said Drew Maloney, president and CEO of the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), which represents all of the nation’s investor-owned electric companies. “We urge senators to act quickly to pass this bill, work with the House, and ultimately deliver the Fix Our Forests Act to the president’s desk.”

Specifically, S. 1462 would improve forest management activities on National Forest System land, public land under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management, and tribal land to return resilience to overgrown, fire-prone forested land, according to the bill’s text. 

Key highlights of the bill include expediting environmental reviews for forest management projects, allowing utilities to remove hazardous trees more easily, and reducing the potential for litigation associated with these activities.

“This bipartisan legislation is critical for improving our nation’s overall wildfire preparedness and ensuring that communities have the resources they need to protect themselves from the threat of wildfires,” Partners in Wildfire Prevention said in a statement issued ahead of the committee’s vote.

“Passing this legislation is a key part of a comprehensive, coordinated response to wildfires that our coalition believes is necessary to address the ongoing wildfire crisis,” said the organization, which has a growing membership that includes organizations from the public safety, labor, and business sectors, along with wildfire preparedness and community interest groups.

Electric cooperatives, especially in the West, also strongly support the bill. The legislation would expedite federal approvals to allow co-ops to strengthen their systems against wildfires and remove the trees and brush that fuel blazes.

“The Fix Our Forests Act offers smart, bipartisan reforms to outdated forest management policies, giving electric co-ops the tools they need to protect their infrastructure and the communities they serve from the escalating threat of wildfires,” said Hannah Scott, legislative affairs director at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA).

S. 1462, introduced April 10 by lead sponsors U.S. Sens. John Curtis (R-UT) and John Hickenlooper (D-CO), is companion legislation to the same-named H.R. 471, which U.S. Reps. Bruce Westerman (R-AR) and Scott Peters (D-CA) proposed in January alongside 40 other original cosponsors.

The House version passed the full chamber with a 279-141 vote on Jan. 23 before heading to the Senate and being referred for consideration to the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, which has now reconciled both versions of the bill, approved it, and sent it to the full Senate for a vote.

“@SenateAgGOP just passed the Fix Our Forests Act by a bipartisan vote of 18-5,” Curtis posted this morning on X. “This comes as @GovCox and the Governors of California, Montana, and Colorado endorsed the bill. I commend the committee’s action and look forward to the bill’s swift passage by the full Senate.”

Last week, four governors — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom — sent an Oct. 17 letter of support for the bill to committee leaders, calling the measure “meaningful progress” toward addressing the needs of their states, communities, and forests.

In fact, the proposed bill picked up myriad supporters, including Xcel Energy, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, United Power, the National Rural Electric Co-Op Association, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, the Colorado Rural Electric Association, the Western Governors’ Association, The Nature Conservancy, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, the California Natural Resources Agency, the Climate and Wildfire Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among many others.

If enacted, the comprehensive measure would: 

• Establish new and updated programs to reduce wildfire risks across large, high-priority “firesheds,” with an emphasis on cross-boundary collaboration.
• Streamline and expand tools for forest health projects (e.g., stewardship contracting, Good Neighbor Agreements) and provide faster approvals for certain hazardous fuels treatments.
• Create a single interagency program to help communities in the wildland-urban interface build and retrofit with wildfire-resistant measures, while simplifying and consolidating grant applications.
• Support prescribed fire activities on both federal and non-federal lands – prioritizing large, cross-boundary projects, strengthening the prescribed fire workforce, and facilitating coordination on air quality protections.
• Expand research and demonstration initiatives – including biochar projects and the Community Wildfire Defense Research Program – to test and deploy cutting-edge wildfire prevention, detection, and mitigation technologies.
• Enable watershed protection and restoration projects to include adjacent non-federal lands; establish new programs for white oak restoration; and clarify policies regarding wildfire-related litigation.

The measure also includes language from two bipartisan Hickenlooper bills. One to boost reforestation to support reforestation capacity of state, tribal, and private nurseries, and the other to bolster coordination efforts across agencies through a new Wildfire Intelligence Center, which would streamline federal response and create a whole-of-government approach to combating wildfires.

Meanwhile, Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Chairman John Boozman (R-AR), who led today’s committee passage of the Fix Our Forests Act, said he also looks forward to the bill’s swift passage in the Senate.

“The growing threat of wildfires underscores the need for more proactive forest management policies,” Boozman said. “The Fix Our Forests Act is a critical step toward preventing catastrophic wildfires and delivering solutions that reduce their frequency and intensity. This is a common-sense way to protect lives, property, and the environment.”