WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the House Committee on Natural Resources passed by voice vote Representative Scott Peters’ (D-CA-50) and Chairman Bruce Westerman’s (R-AR-4) Fix Our Forests Act, comprehensive bipartisan legislation that will restore forest health, reduce catastrophic wildfires that contribute to pollution and climate change, and increase community resilience to fire threats. It is now eligible for consideration by the whole House of Representatives.

“So far in 2024, 20,176 wildfires have burned 2,223,801 acres across the United States,” said Rep. Peters. “Climate change, prolonged drought, and over a century of poor land management have led us to this catastrophic point. Thankfully, today the House Natural Resources Committee took the first step in confronting this problem by passing Chair Westerman’s and my Fix Our Forests Act. There is still a long road ahead for this legislation, but I look forward to working with colleagues on both sides to get this bill passed by the House.”

Original cosponsors include Representatives Tony Cardenas (D-CA-29), John Curtis (R-UT-3), Ami Bera (D-CA-6), Pete Stauber (R-MN-8), Jimmy Panetta (D-CA-19), Tom McClintock (R-CA-5), Jim Costa (D-CA-21), Tom Tiffany (R-WI-7), John Duarte (R-CA-13), and James Moylan (R-GU).

The Fix Our Forests Act is supported by the National Congress of American Indians, Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Bipartisan Policy Center, the National Association of Counties, the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), American Forests, the Evangelical Environmental Network, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Sempra, Edison Electric Institute, Pacific Gas & Electric, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, MegaFire Action, the American Conservation Coalition Action, the National Wild Turkey Federation, the American Forest Resource Council, the American Loggers Council, the Arkansas Forestry Association, Associated California Loggers, the Boone and Crockett Club, the Dallas Safari Club, the Forest Landowners Association, the Forest Resources Association, the Hardwood Federation, Potlach Deltic, and Rayonier.

Rep. Peters and Chair Westerman are also co-authors of the Save our Sequoias Act, a bill to give land managers the tools and funding needed to save California’s iconic giant sequoias.

Background:

The Fix Our Forests Act will encourage active forest management and support community resiliency for wildfires by expediting environmental analyses, reducing frivolous lawsuits, and increasing the pace and scale of forest restoration projects. 

The bill will:

1. Simplify and expedite environmental reviews for forest management projects in the highest risk areas
2. Promote federal, state, tribal and local collaboration on wildfire mitigation while encouraging engagement with landowners and communities
3. Recognize the role that natural fire plays in healthy ecosystems – which is backed by the best available scientific information – while acknowledging Tribal sovereignty in providing for practices like cultural burning
4. Support wildfire resiliency for local communities by focusing on the built environment, innovative technologies and modernized standards
5. Deter frivolous litigation that delays essential forest management projects
6. Create a framework for interagency collaboration to advance wildfire and land management R&D, provide technical and financial assistance to communities, and support efforts by tribes and other governments to address the effects of wildland fire on communities, including property damages and degraded air and water quality
7. Create a federal-state-tribal framework for prioritizing projects in forests at highest risk of catastrophic wildfire
8. Encourage the adoption of state-of-the-art, science-backed approaches for federal land managers, including innovative methods to sequester carbon dioxide
9. Ensure that utilities are able to better work with federal partners to harden their rights-of-way while mitigating hazards
10. Strengthen tools like Good Neighbor Authority – which presently excludes Tribal Nations – and Stewardship Contracting 

One-pager here.

Full bill text here.

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