Video of Bennet’s Remarks Available HERE
Washington, D.C. — Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Conservation, Forestry, Natural Resources, and Biotechnology, delivered remarks on the urgent need for more resources and staff to protect our forests, water resources, and communities from increasingly devastating wildfires across the country. Bennet’s remarks were delivered during a subcommittee hearing to review the Fix Our Forests Act and other options to reduce catastrophic wildfires.
“My message is simple, if we are committed to the health of our forests and our watersheds, the federal government must be a more reliable partner for communities and local governments,” said Bennet.
“In Colorado, our national forests underpin our economy and our way of life. Our forests and watersheds protect our water supplies, support agriculture, drive outdoor recreation, and sustain diverse wildlife habitats. But today, they’re facing unprecedented threats, drought and wildfire, of course, are at the top of the list. In the West, wildfire season is no longer a season, but a year-round reality for all our communities.
“These wildfires don’t just burn trees; they endanger lives, they devastate communities, and they destroy critical infrastructure. And the effects of Western wildfires aren’t just felt in Colorado but across the entire country.
“Colorado’s national forests and their watersheds supply water to 19 states and parts of Mexico, they are the source of water for tens of millions of people, farmers, and ranchers from the Mississippi Delta to California. Water is our lifeblood in the West, and our national forests are the source of their supply. Without that water, there’s not a single town or city in my state that would exist. There’s not a county that would exist. There’s not a farm or a ranch that would exist. And the health of our watersheds and the health of our forests are exactly the same thing. You cannot have one without the other.
“We need to be thoughtful about our approach to managing our forests, a one-size-fits-all approach will not work.
“Top-down management without the input of local communities and forestry experts risks harming our economy, our sensitive habitats, and the water supply that we are trying to protect in the West. As we’ll discuss today, Colorado has a long track record of successful collaborative forest management projects that bring together local and federal partners, including the timber industry, local government, scientists, tribes, and conservationists.
“As wildfire risk increases across the West, the federal government should empower those types of partnerships to make their work easier, not harder. Unfortunately, taking a chainsaw to the Forest Service workforce and funding makes life harder for Coloradans, makes life harder for citizens in the West, and it does nothing to advance local forest management and partnership.
“Axing the dedicated public servants who manage our national forests isn’t just short-sighted, it is downright dangerous.
“Much of Colorado is already in drought months before summer has even started. Right now, snowpack is below average in all but one of our major watersheds, and temperatures have hit record highs over the weekend, reaching 10 to 15 degrees above the historical average. Whether it’s the Fix Our Forests Act or any other piece of legislation, it won’t matter what we do here in Congress if the administration is simultaneously undermining our land management agencies and withholding the resources they need to do their jobs. I appreciate the goals of the Fix Our Forests Act, which we will discuss more today. I really, I really do.
“If done thoughtfully, reducing wildfire risk through active management is an important goal, and by the way, we’re running out of time. But, I worry that the bill, as it’s currently written, places an unreasonable burden on communities and ties the hands of local governments, potentially undermining the collaborative approach needed to move forest management projects forward.
“I recognize that the wildfire crisis affects us all, and we have a responsibility to find a bipartisan solution. I’m ready to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to advance legislation that includes the forest policy challenges and investments that are needed to reduce wildfire risk and improve the federal government’s work with states’ local and tribal partners. After all, they’re called national forests for a reason.
“Over the last decade, we have spent $6 billion on wildfire risk reduction work and $38 billion, six times that much on wildfire response and recovery. It just makes sense, Mr. Chairman. It takes $50,000 an acre to fight a fire. It’s a lot cheaper to be able to do it on the front end than that.
“If we do not invest now in wildfire mitigation and watershed restoration, and the federal workforce tasked with doing that work, it will cost us hundreds of billions of dollars a year in firefighting and recovery costs in the coming decade, to say nothing of the damage to our infrastructure, to our way of life.
“I’ve told Chuck Schumer over and over and over again, Mr. Chairman, these national forests are more important to us from an infrastructure perspective than the Lincoln Tunnel is to New York. He doesn’t necessarily agree with that, but it’s true. Don’t tell him I said it.
“So we have to get serious about this. No level of government can tackle this alone. I am very grateful, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing today, and I look forward to hearing from our excellent witnesses and working with my colleagues of both parties to protect our forests, our communities, and our future.”