House OKs bill to help West fight fires, drought
WASHINGTON » The House on Friday approved wideranging legislation aimed at helping communities in the West cope with increasingly severe wildfires and drought — fueled by climate change — that have 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 make it easier for wildfire victims to get federal assistance.
“Across America the impacts of climate change continue to worsen, and in this new normal, historic droughts and record-setting wildfires have become all too common,” said Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., the bill’s chief co-sponsor. Colorado has suffered increasingly devastating wildfires in recent years, including the Marshall fire last year that caused more than $513 million in damage and destroyed nearly 1,100 homes and structures in Boulder County.
“What once were wildfire seasons are now wildfire years. For families across the country who have lost their homes due to these devastating wildfires and for the neighborhoods impacted by drought, we know that we need to apply a whole-ofgovernment approach to support community recovery and bolster environmental resiliency,” Neguse said. “This is a bill that we believe meets the moment for the West.”
The bill was approved, 218-199, as firefighters in California battled a blaze that forced evacuation of thousands of people near Yosemite National Park and crews in North Texas sought to contain another fire.
One Republican, Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, voted in favor of the bill, and Oregon Rep. Kurt Schrader was the only Democrat to oppose it.
The bill now goes to the Senate, where Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has sponsored a similar measure.
Both the House and Senate bills would permanently boost pay and benefits for federal wildland firefighters. President Joe Biden signed a measure last month giving them a hefty raise for the next two years. Raises for the federal firefighters had been included in last year’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill, but the money was held up as federal agencies studied recruitment and retention data to decide where to deliver them.
The House bill would make the pay raises permanent and sets minimum pay for federal wildland firefighters at $20 per hour, or nearly $42,000 a year.
It also raises eligibility for hazardous-duty pay and boosts mental health and other services for firefighters. The bill is named after smokejumper Tim Hart, who died fighting a wildfire in New Mexico last year.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, called the bill “a major victory for Californians — and for the country.” The Oak fire, the largest wildfire so far this year, “is ravaging our state,” she said.
“At the same time, countless of our communities regularly suffer lack of rainfall.”
The House bill would deliver “urgently needed resources” to combat fires and droughts, “which will only 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 most cases. The House bill does not appropriate additional money for the Forest Service or other agencies, and without such an increase, the Forest Service says it would have to lay off about 470 wildland firefighters.
Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, the top Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee, called it “egregious” that Democrats would seek to enact provisions that could lead to firefighter layoffs in the midst of a devastating wildfire season.