House approves bill to help West fight wildfires, drought

The House on Friday approved broad-ranging legislation aimed at helping communities in the West cope with increasingly severe wildfires and drought — fueled by climate alter — that take caused billions of dollars of damage to homes and businesses in recent years.

The measure combines 49 separate bills and would increase firefighter pay and benefits; boost resiliency and mitigation projects for communities affected by climate change; protect watersheds; and brand information technology easier for wildfire victims to get federal assist.

"Across America the impacts of climate change proceed to worsen, and in this new normal, celebrated droughts and record-setting wildfires have become all likewise common,'' said Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., the beak's primary co-sponsor. Colorado has suffered increasingly devastating wildfires in contempo years, including the Marshall fire last year that caused more than $513 million in damage and destroyed nearly one,100 homes and structures in Boulder Canton.

"What one time were wildfire seasons are at present wildfire years. For families across the land who take lost their homes due to these devastating wildfires and for the neighborhoods impacted by drought, we know that nosotros demand to apply a whole-of-authorities approach to support customs recovery and eternalize environmental resiliency," Neguse said. "This is a bill that we believe meets the moment for the West."

The bill was approved, 218-199, equally firefighters in California battled a blaze that forced evacuation of thousands of people most Yosemite National Park and crews in North Texas sought to comprise another fire.

Ane Republican, Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, voted in favor of the bill, while Oregon Rep. Kurt Schrader was the only Democrat to oppose it.

The pecker at present goes to the Senate, where Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has sponsored a like measure.

U.South. & World

Both the Business firm and Senate bills would permanently boost pay and benefits for federal wildland firefighters. President Joe Biden signed a measure last calendar month giving them a hefty raise for the next two years, a motility that affects more than 16,000 firefighters and comes every bit much of the West braces for another difficult wildfire flavour.

Pay raises for the federal firefighters had been included in last yr's $1 trillion infrastructure pecker, but the money was held up equally federal agencies studied recruitment and retention data to decide where to evangelize them. The raise approved by Biden was retroactive to Oct. 1, 2021, and expires Sept. xxx, 2023.

The House bill would make the pay raises permanent and sets minimum pay for federal wildland firefighters at $20 per hour, or nigh $42,000 a year. Information technology as well raises eligibility for hazardous-duty pay and boosts mental health and other services for firefighters. The nib is named afterward smokejumper Tim Hart, who died fighting a wildfire in New Mexico last year.

"The West is hot — hotter than ever — it is dry and when it is windy, the West is on burn down,'' said Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Wash. "And we are seeing this every year because of climatic change. That'due south why this bill is and so important.''

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the bill "a major victory for Californians — and for the land.'' The Oak Fire, the largest wildfire so far this twelvemonth, "is ravaging our state,'' she said. "At the same time, countless of our communities regularly suffer lack of rainfall that can impale crops and farther fuel fires."

The House bill would deliver "urgently needed resource" to combat fires and droughts, "which will but increase in frequency and intensity due to the climate crisis,'' Pelosi said. The bill includes $500 million to preserve water levels in key reservoirs in the drought-stricken Colorado River and invest in water recycling and desalination.

Republicans denounced the measure as "political messaging," noting that firefighters' hourly pay has already been increased above $20 in nearly cases. The House neb does non appropriate boosted money for the Forest Service or other agencies, and without such an increase, the Wood Service says it would have to lay off nigh 470 wildland firefighters.

Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, the pinnacle Republican on the Business firm Natural Resources Committee, called it "egregious" that Democrats would seek to enact provisions that could lead to fire-eater layoffs in the midst of a devastating wildfire season.

"Democrats are finally waking up to the wildfire and drought crises, exacerbated by years of forest mismanagement and a lack of long-term h2o storage. Unfortunately, Democrats' proposals are anything but solutions,'' Westerman said. He accused Democrats of declining to follow science showing the need to manage forests before fires begin, and said Democrats "fail to construct the kind of long-term infrastructure needed to make communities resilient to drought'' while prioritizing "liberal talking points" about climate change.

Neguse called that accusation outrageous and noted that many of the bills included in the wildfire/drought legislation are Republican proposals.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the beak was important to the whole state — not only the West, where wildfires and drought are a daily reality.

"We are ane nation indivisible and if one function of us is called-for, nosotros are all burning," Hoyer said.

As well boosting firefighter pay, the nib enhances forest management projects intended to reduce chancy fuels such as small trees and underbrush that can make wildfires far more dangerous. Information technology also establishes grant programs to help communities afflicted by air pollution from wildfires and amend watersheds damaged by wildfire.

Republicans called the thinning projects — which also include prescribed burns and removal of vegetation — meaningless without waivers of lengthy environmental reviews that can filibuster forest treatment by years.

The White Business firm said in a statement that it supports efforts to accost climate change, wildfires and drought, but wants to "piece of work with the Congress to ensure the many provisions in the (bill) avoid duplication with existing government and administration efforts.″

Source: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/house-approves-bill-to-help-west-fight-wildfires-drought/3801707/

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