Pelosi, local legislators discuss climate, wildfires
SANTA ROSA >> More than 75 residents, first responders and community members gathered during a foggy, hazy Saturday in a rebuilt portion of a Sonoma County neighborhood, following the devastating fire emergencies of recent years, to welcome local legislators including Rep. Mike Thompson, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-san Rafael) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as they discussed legislative advances in wildfire prevention, climate resiliency and bipartisan investments in infrastructure.
Among the local leaders present at the event were Bruno Sabatier, chair of the Lake County Board of Supervisors, members of the Santa Rosa Fire Department, Shana Jones, Cal Fire Unit Chief, Sonoma-lakenapa Counties, Supervisor Diane Dillon from the Napa County Board of Supervisors and Annie Barbour, Coffey Park resident who spoke about the rebuilding as well as emotional challenges her neighborhood and community faced as a result of the 2017 Tubbs fire which destroyed over 5,600 structures and killed 22 people.
Thompson (D-ST. Helena) highlighted some of the benefits of the infrastructure bill including $1.2 trillion dollars worth of funding. The Congressman said the bill will create 2 million jobs per year over a 10-year period. Twenty-five billion has been earmarked for highways, $4 billion has been allocated for bridges, $100 billion for transit improvements and $100 billion for broadband expansion.
“This is money for federal firefighters to make sure they finally get a living wage,” added Thompson. “It’s funding to convert part-time firefighters to year-round firefighters, for hazardous mitigation and community Firewise defense programs.”
“We all know how important this is,” said Thompson. “It’s not by chance that we are meeting here today. We’ve experienced some tremendous fires and it’s been tragic for our area, for all the people who live here.”
Thompson said that climate change also plays a large part in these devastating fire emergencies and that is why Pelosi had returned and continued to promise to help.
Pelosi (D-san Francisco) said she was also there to congratulate the people for all their recovery efforts and what they had accomplished which she called a model for the nation of national significance.
The Speaker of the House added that the bill’s bipartisan structure is part of its strength but added that when President Joe Biden was advocating for the law he said, “This is great, it’s bipartisan but I will not confine my vision for the country to that bill.’ Pelosi said there’s so much more in the Build Back Better legislation that is currently being negotiated in the Senate, adding that “it will imminently become the law of the land and more will spring for that.”
Sabatier said that his heart went out to all the residents of Coffey Park who experienced the unfortunate situation all Northern California residents have experienced. “Time for a change. We’ve been proactive in trying to make that change happen, but it’s difficult, it takes a lot of money to make those changes, the infrastructure bill changes that for us.”
Will the Build Back Better Act pass through the Senate?
Thompson acknowledged that there’s a math problem with the bill, with a 50-50 tie in the Senate which makes it tougher to get tough bills passed. He said he was also confident the bill would eventually get passed in the Senate.
Despite Democratic leadership’s claims that the bill will become law soon, Senator Joseph Manchin (Dwest Virginia) announced on “Fox News Sunday” that he would vote “no” on the social spending bill.
President Joe Biden noted, “My team and I are having ongoing discussions with Senator Manchin; that work will continue next week. It takes time to finalize these agreements, prepare the legislative changes, and finish all the parliamentary and procedural steps needed to enable a Senate vote,” continued Biden through a White House press release. “We will — we must — get Build Back Better passed, even in the face of Republican opposition.”