Position on H.R. 8790 – Fix our Forests Act
The Federation of American Scientists supports H.R. 8790, the Fix our Forests Act, commends the House of Representatives for passing of the bill on strong bipartisan margins in September, and urges the Senate to consider this legislation.
“In particular, we strongly supported and advocated for Section 102 and the creation of the Fireshed Center, with its proposed center of governance within the U.S. Geological Survey,” said Dan Correa, Chief Executive Officer of the Federation of American Scientists. “The Fireshed Center would provide decision support across the entire wildfire lifecycle of prevention, suppression, and recovery efforts, thereby minimizing inequalities between different jurisdictions and allowing stakeholders to retain their autonomy while holistically addressing the wildfire crisis.
We are proud to have worked to include important provisions of this bill, including the Community Wildfire Risk Reduction Program (Sec. 201 & 202), Biochar Innovations and Research (Sec. 301), and Reporting on the Effectiveness of Hazardous Fuels Reduction Treatments (Sec. 302). Additionally, three FAS supported amendments made it into the final bill including incentivizing the use of proactive animal grazing for fuels mitigation, public-private partnerships for low earth orbit satellites, and addition of artificial intelligence support tools to the Fireshed Center.
FAS would have strongly preferred to see this bill passed with funding attached and the controversial litigation reform pieces, including restrictions on public comment, removed. However, building bipartisan solutions takes compromise, and given the urgency of this crisis, FAS applauds Congress for taking action on this important issue.”
Western states functionally manage trillions in global climate risk (permafrost, forest carbon, etc.) and can do so in ways that drive state economic development.
Implementation will not be easy. Several of the plan’s critical strategies challenge established utility business models.
We won’t solve the cost-of-living crisis without improving the capacity of state public utility commissions to protect customers, find and implement new solutions to meet rising demand, and realign broken utility incentives.
Public service commissions should require utilities to quantify avoided healthcare costs, reduction in pollution exposure, and improvements in population health alongside traditional metrics.