Washington, D.C. – Today, Representative Scott Peters (D-CA-50) celebrated the Senate introduction of companion legislation to his Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA), a comprehensive bill to combat the country's wildfire crisis, restore forest health, and build fire-safety defenses for communities in high-risk areas. Rep. Peters’ FOFA, which was co-authored by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR-4), passed in the House of Representatives in January by an overwhelming 279 to 141 vote.

“I appreciate our Senate partners working with us to craft a bill that builds on my Fix Our Forests Act and puts us one step closer to providing real solutions to the megafire crisis,” said Rep. Peters. “For too long, procedural delays have gotten in the way of the commonsense forest management work that experts agree will protect our communities and the environment. I urge my Senate colleagues to quickly move this bill through the legislative process so that we can provide our communities with the relief they desperately need.”

The wildfire crisis threatens the continued prosperity of the Golden State. Not only do wildfires destroy our communities, but they also make the cost of housing, particularly insurance, much more expensive. As people are priced out of homeowners insurance or have their coverage dropped entirely, many are put in the unfathomable position of gambling everything they own. The Fix Our Forests Act will remedy some of the worst procedural delays that stand in the way of work needed to protect homes and businesses.

A century of suppressing all natural fires, which led to excessive and unnatural growth, decades of mismanagement of federal lands due to outdated laws, and rising temperatures have created a perfect storm of federal lands susceptible to drought and wildfires. In California, the nine largest wildfires on record and three of the top five deadliest fires have occurred during the last decade. In 2020, California wildfires contributed more to climate change than the state's entire power sector. Wildfires are also now the single largest source of particulate pollution in the United States, posing a significant threat to ecosystems and human health. Fighting these megafires is a climate and public health imperative.

There is scientific consensus on the solution: active and science-based forest management, interagency and state-federal-tribal collaboration, and continued Research & Development on next-generation technologies and solutions. The problem: Forest management projects, like clearing dead trees and dry vegetation that fuel fires, often require multiyear environmental reviews. While we wait for analysis, the forest burns down, adds pollution to the air, contributes to climate change, and threatens communities. 

“Extreme risk of catastrophic wildfires across the West demands urgent action,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom. “In California, we’re fast-tracking projects by streamlining state requirements and using more fuel breaks and prescribed fire. The Fix Our Forests Act is a step forward that will build on this progress — enabling good projects to happen faster on federal lands. I’m appreciative of Senator Padilla and the bipartisan team of Senators who crafted a balanced solution that will both protect communities and improve the health of our forests.”

“About half of our lands in California are owned and managed by the federal government,” explained California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. “So, reducing catastrophic wildfire risk clearly relies on helping our federal lands become healthier and more resilient to fire. This bipartisan Fix our Forests Act does just this, removing barriers to get more good work done across our federal lands more quickly. It represents an all-lands, all-hands approach that is urgently needed at this moment.” 

“The bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA) provides much-needed tools that will move the needle and improve our work to mitigate wildfires,” said CAL FIRE Director and Fire Chief Joe Tyler. “This bill will bring California’s use of cutting-edge technology to the rest of the country. The proposed Wildfire Intelligence Center will advance the kind of predictive services, monitoring, and early detection work already happening at California’s Wildfire Forecast and Threat Intelligence Integration Center.”

The Fix Our Forests Act will:  

• Simplify and expedite environmental reviews to reduce costs and planning times for critical forest management projects while maintaining rigorous environmental standards. 
• Create an interagency Wildfire Intelligence Center to help states, local governments, and communities. The Center will: 
• Assess and help predict fire in high-risk areas near communities through data integration; 
• Help pre-position wildfire suppression assets based on real-time risk; 
• Support post-fire recovery activities, including ecosystem recovery and 
• Provide publicly accessible data, models, technologies, assessments, and fire weather forecasts. 
• Create a new Community Wildfire Risk Reduction Program and Community Wildfire Defense Research Program, which will help communities and tribes in high-risk areas by investing in defensible space creation, infrastructure hardening (like evacuation routes), and deployment of innovative wildfire technologies
• Promote public-private partnerships to help clear flammable materials where our homes meet nature; 
• Expand the use of prescribed burns and grazing as means to reduce fire risk;
• Provide a holistic framework – which does not exist today – for local communities to participate early and often in project planning and implementation; and 
• Give fire departments clarity about when and how much they will be reimbursed for wildfire costs. 

Additional information: 

FOFA would support more effective and responsible forest management backed by science. Experts have found that fires were significantly less severe in areas where larger-scale projects were implemented. It would not amend any underlying environmental laws, ensuring that strong protections are left in place.

Community engagement is critical to a national wildfire strategy. This bill encourages communities to participate early and often in the process instead of engaging at the tail end when their voices are less likely to be heard. Fireshed assessments pursuant to this legislation are done with the collaboration of local communities and tribes through shared stewardship agreements and technical and financial assistance are made available to help communities build resilience and strengthen their wildland-urban interface. This is a comprehensive framework for engaging communities that does not exist today. 

• Over the past decade, 80% of projects challenged under the National Environmental Policy Act were won on appeal by the government and moved forward without any changes to the review. 
• Just 10 groups filed 67% of the challenges to forest management projects, winning less than a quarter of cases. These lawsuits delayed projects an average of nearly four years for the 77% of lawsuits they lost. 
• These lawsuits do not change the agency's decision, the implementation of the project, or the effect of the project on the community. They simply delay projects to starve them of resources and investment until it becomes infeasible. 

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