I’ll never forget driving more than 600 miles up and down Oregon during the 2020 Labor Day fires. I saw towns destroyed and never once broke free from the thick smoke. I was deeply moved by that heartbreaking experience.
May is Wildfire Awareness Month, so I want to make sure you’re aware of how I’m working to protect Oregon’s communities from wildfire threats.
In April, I led Oregon’s entire Congressional delegation in a letter urging the Secretary of the Interior and the director of the Bureau of Land Management to renew the Western Oregon Operating Plan, known as WOOP. This effective, century-old fire management system expires at the end of June, so we’re pushing to extend it another five years to continue critical fire response preparedness and coordination for western Oregon.
As chair of the subcommittee that directly oversees the budgets for these agencies, and as the only Oregonian on the spending committee, I made sure that the government funding bills we passed in March made big investments in wildfire management. They included $4 billion for wildfire suppression operations across the country, $7 million for smoke mitigation through the program I created at the Environmental Protection Agency, and $31 million for the national Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program, which includes five collaboratives across Oregon that are proven models for forest management.
In addition, I’ve introduced the Wildfire Resilient Communities Act to provide $30 billion to increase federal wildfire reduction projects and triple funding, up to $3 billion, for the Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program. And I worked across the aisle to save the Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers, which operate three locations in Oregon, including one in Yachats, training young people for conservation careers, like wildland firefighting.
We also need to invest in our firefighters. Between 2017 and 2022, Oregon received more than $43 million in Assistance to Firefighter Grants to purchase needed equipment, protective gear, emergency vehicles, and trainings. That’s in addition to more than $33 million awarded to Oregon over the same period to recruit and retain trained frontline firefighters. This month, I once again led a bipartisan group of Senators calling for additional funding to train National Guard members to fight wildfires. And I support making permanent the pay increases for federal wildland firefighters provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
You don’t have to be near a wildfire to be harmed by it, so I’ve introduced two bills to support Oregon families and businesses from smoke and heat hazards.
The first is the Smoke and Heat Ready Communities Act to help communities develop new tools to protect the public during extreme smoke and heat events, like creating cool spaces with clean air that can be a safe refuge in dangerous conditions.
The second is the Wildfire Smoke Emergency Declaration Act, which would empower the President to declare a “smoke emergency” and mobilize the federal government to aid states and local communities, establish emergency shelters, and assist with relocation efforts, just like for a flood or storm.
It also would allow small businesses to access federal resources to recover from what can be a huge financial hit, from grape growers in the Willamette Valley to the furniture store owner in Southern Oregon who told me about how their entire stock had been ruined by smoke. Our communities deserve the same recovery assistance for natural disasters as other regions, even if our emergencies look different out West.
Wildfires, severe smoke, and extreme heat aren’t going away anytime soon, so I’ll keep fighting for the resources to ensure that Oregon’s communities and forests are safe and prepared.
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