Washington, D.C. – In a PBS NewsHour segment yesterday, Senator John Curtis (R-UT) appeared alongside Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) to discuss their bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act, transparency in government, and how Senators can work on bills across the aisle.
The bipartisan legislation would combat catastrophic wildfires, restore forest ecosystems, and make federal forest management more efficient and responsive. The comprehensive bill reflects months of bipartisan negotiations to find consensus on how to best accelerate and improve forest management practices, streamline environmental reviews, and strengthen partnerships between federal agencies, states, tribes, and private stakeholders.
Click here for more background.
Below are select remarks from the segment:
On wildfire prevention and coordination:
“The beauty of the bill is it is not just focused on one thing. It’s focused on everything — from starting early to prevent them, to deal with them while they’re happening, and also deal with them afterwards.”
“One of the problems we’ve had is interagency coordination… This bill addresses that and tries to get us out of our silos so that we’re actually working together and pulling in the same direction.”
On federal funding:
“If we’re successful in what we’re doing, we’ll save the taxpayers massive amounts of money.”
“We have asked for all the appropriations needed… and still stayed within the limits that we’re trying to target financially.”
On keeping politics out of disaster response:
“We’ve tried to build a bill that will last through many administrations — whether they’re Republican or Democrat.”
On the cause of wildfires:
“We all know that it is drier and less rain and less moisture than we’ve had before. We all know that the seasons are longer and hotter. That is not a debatable thing.”
On transparency and the Epstein files:
“This isn’t only a Trump administration issue. All of these files existed with the previous administration, and they also chose not to release them.”
“This really points out how desperate the American people are for transparency… Let’s give the American people some transparency.”
“Let’s also not make this a major distraction. We have important things to do… I think we can do both.”
On bipartisanship and compromise:
“Let’s begin with realizing that [other Senator’s] they’re genuine and they see things differently than I do. And just because they’re different, it doesn’t mean that they’re not genuine.”
“Compromise gets a bad rap… If we can sit down and find those areas of intersection where we actually agree, that’s a different kind of compromise — and in my experience, is the best work.”
Senator Curtis concluded the segment with a reflection on the opportunity this bill represents:
“Fix Our Forests is a really good example of where I don’t think either one of us feel like we have abandoned our principles — but we actually found some areas of overlap that are really important to this country and to our constituents.”
For the full interview, visit: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/senators-highlight-importance-of-working-across-the-aisle-in-mission-to-fight-wildfires