Key Takeaways
- •The hearing urged the Senate to pass the bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act, already approved by the House, to implement urgent reforms for wildfire prevention and community protection after the devastating L.A. fires.
- •Mayor Steven Crowder (Witness) highlighted Paradise's resilience efforts and strongly supported FOFA for proactive forest management, while John Mills (Witness) stressed the need for early, actionable wildfire alerts.
- •Rep. McClintock (R-CA-5) pressed Mayor Crowder (Witness) on environmental laws hindering forest management, with Crowder agreeing that current practices and lawsuits prevent necessary fuel reduction.
- •Republicans advocated for the Fix Our Forests Act and active forest management, while Democrats criticized the Trump administration's alleged political retaliation in disaster aid and agency budget cuts.
- •The immediate next step emphasized was the Senate's passage of the Fix Our Forests Act to enact reforms, with calls for continued investment in community preparedness and addressing legal system abuse.
Read the full transcript
Starting at $350/mo
- Full hearing transcripts
- Speaker timestamps with video verification
- Organization & competitor mentions
- Same-day delivery
- Personalized summaries
30-day money-back guarantee on all paid plans.
Hearing Analysis
Overview
On February 3, 2026, the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Federal Lands held an oversight hearing titled "Fix Our Forests: The Need for Urgent Action One Year After the L.A. Wildfires." The hearing served as a retrospective on the devastating 2026 Los Angeles fires—which claimed 31 lives and caused an estimated $131 billion in losses—and as a platform to advocate for the "Fix Our Forests Act" (FOFA). Acting Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR-4) opened the session by emphasizing that catastrophic wildfires are no longer just an environmental issue but a primary driver of economic hardship and housing unaffordability. He argued that active forest management, including thinning and prescribed burns, is the only way to provide communities with "defensible space" against wind-driven fires.
Key Testimony
The witness testimony provided a multi-faceted view of the wildfire crisis, spanning local governance, emergency technology, risk science, and the insurance industry. The Honorable Steven Crowder, Mayor of the Town of Paradise, California, recounted the trauma of the 2018 Camp Fire and detailed how his community has rebuilt using the most stringent local building standards in the state. Mayor Crowder noted that while Paradise achieved 90 percent compliance in local defensible space, the town remains at risk because the surrounding federal lands are not managed with the same urgency. He urged Congress to treat forest health as a "life safety issue."
John Mills, CEO and Co-founder of Watch Duty, provided a critical assessment of government failure in emergency communications. He testified that during the L.A. fires, his nonprofit app became the most downloaded in the country because official government alerts were fragmented, slow, and lacked context. Mills argued that the current bureaucratic system for alerts is "crippled" and called for the integration of real-time, multi-source intelligence into the proposed Wildfire Intelligence Center. Dr. David Calkin, Principal at Calkin Wildfire Consulting LLC, offered a scientific perspective, distinguishing between the problem of "community destruction" and "landscape health." He argued that while forest management is vital for watersheds, preventing home loss requires a focus on "home hardening" and the reintroduction of "good fire" to reduce fuel loads.
The economic impact of the wildfire crisis was a central theme, particularly regarding the collapsing insurance market in fire-prone states. Mr. Robert Gordon, Senior Vice President at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA), testified that wildfire losses over the last decade have been five times higher than any previous decade. He noted that insurers are increasingly unable to offer affordable coverage in California due to unmitigated risks on adjacent federal lands and what he termed "legal system abuse" or "tort hellholes." Gordon specifically endorsed FOFA’s provisions for a "Fire Shed Center" to coordinate federal, state, and private data to prioritize mitigation resources.
Overview
The hearing was marked by sharp partisan divisions regarding the Trump administration’s management of federal agencies. Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-CA-2) and Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO-2) accused the administration of "environmental scapegoating" and hollowing out the agencies responsible for land management. Rep. Huffman alleged that funding for forest resilience was being redirected to "unaccountable" immigration enforcement efforts. Rep. Neguse and Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-OR-3) raised concerns about political bias in disaster relief, claiming the administration was withholding disaster declarations for fires in "blue states" like Colorado and California while prioritizing "red states." Rep. Neguse cited the Pine Gulch Fire in Colorado as an example of a major disaster declaration sitting unsigned on the President’s desk.
In contrast, Republican members focused on the failures of existing environmental laws. Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA-5) argued that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) have made active management "all but impossible," effectively allowing nature to "burn out" the excess growth. He advocated for a return to widespread grazing, mechanical thinning, and timber harvesting to reduce fuel loads. Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN-8) and Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR-2) echoed these sentiments, framing forest management as a direct solution to the housing affordability crisis by lowering insurance premiums and rebuilding costs.
Policy Proposals
Specific policy proposals discussed included the various sections of the Fix Our Forests Act, such as Section 102 (Fire Shed Center), Section 106 (fuel and firebreaks), and Section 201 (public-private partnerships). There was also mention of the "Padilla bill" and other bipartisan efforts to provide direct funding for community resilience. Witnesses and members alike discussed the need for "biomass utilization" to create an economic market for non-merchantable timber, though Dr. Calkin cautioned that such efforts often require ongoing subsidies to be viable.
Key Testimony
The hearing concluded with a consensus among the witnesses that the status quo is unsustainable, though they differed on the primary cause. While Republican members and industry witnesses emphasized the need for streamlined regulations and increased logging/grazing, Democratic members focused on climate change, agency staffing levels, and equitable disaster funding. Chairman Westerman and Subcommittee Chairman Thomas Tiffany (R-WI-7) closed by urging the Senate to pass FOFA immediately to ensure the new authorities are in place before the next wildfire season. No specific follow-up hearings were scheduled, but the record remains open for additional testimony regarding FEMA staffing and the implementation of fire-safe building codes.
Transcript
[Gavel sounds.] The Subcommittee on Federal Lands will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the subcommittee at any time. The subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on Fix Our Forests: The Need for Urgent Action One Year After the L.A. Wildfires. I ask unanimous consent that the following members be allowed to participate in today's hearing from the dais: the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Neguse, and the gentlelady from California, Ms. Lee. Without objection, so ordered. Under committee rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at hearings are limited to the chairman and the ranking minority member. I therefore ask unanimous consent that all other members' opening statements be made part of the hearing record if they are submitted in accordance with the committee rule 3(o). Without objection, so ordered. I'm pinch-hitting for subcommittee chairman Tiffany this morning, and now I will recognize myself for an opening statement. As we sadly see each passing year, wildfires are growing larger, more destructive, and more fatal. Catastrophic wildfires are causing widespread economic hardship and driving up costs for American families. The need to drastically change our approach to this crisis is more urgent than ever. Perhaps nothing highlights that urgency more than the fact that it has now been one year since the devastating Los Angeles fires. These fires tragically claimed 31 lives and became the costliest wildfire event in not just U.S. history, but world history. It's hard to comprehend the level of devastation caused by these fires, which were so deadly and destructive that one local law enforcement official compared the aftermath as looking like an atomic bomb dropped on these communities. As you can see from the poster behind me, which shows a satellite image taken the day after the fires ignited, that description really is not far off. Homes, schools, churches, businesses, playgrounds, and restaurants were all gone in the blink of an eye. Photographs, memories, cherished belongings, everything that makes a house a home, all reduced to rubble and ash. One survivor of the Palisades fire remarked, "You wake up one morning and everything is normal, and you go to bed that night and you have nothing." While the news cycle may have moved on to the latest headlines, I can assure you that the people and families directly affected by these fires have not. Every day, survivors of these catastrophic wildfires must live with the fact that their communities will never be the same again. Take schools for example. 700,000 children were displaced from their schools after the L.A. fires, and many will never return. The same was true of Paradise, California. Before the Camp Fire, their school districts had 3,500 enrolled students. Today, the school district has less than half of that number. And that's to say nothing of how these wildfires have affected home affordability. More than 70 percent of displaced residents have not returned to their homes, and many never will as the cost of rebuilding is too high. Prior to the L.A. fires, insurers dropped nearly 70 percent of policyholders in the Pacific Palisades, deeming them too much of a risk to insure. Those who weren't automatically dropped from their policies had to choose between foregoing home insurance or seeing their premiums rise to as much as 300 percent in some instances. And if somebody was lucky enough to overcome all of these obstacles and still get insurance, these policies still barely scratch the surface of the true cost it takes to rebuild. When you consider all of this, it's not surprising to hear that one L.A. survivor said, "The American dream is not that affordable anymore." This shouldn't be the case, and we must do better. As the only licensed forester in Congress, I have often talked about how active forest management not only protects communities, but provides clean air and drinking water, abundant wildlife habitat, and it supports rural communities. The picture behind me illustrates the consequences when we don't manage our federal forests. On one side, you can see the Freeman Creek Grove of giant sequoias located in Sequoia National Forest. Decades of fire suppression and a lack of active management made the grove overstocked, with these trees becoming unhealthier as they competed for sunlight, water, and basic nutrients. This created the perfect storm when in 2020, the Castle Fire decimated this grove, turning it into the moonscape that you see on the other side of the poster. What's alarming is that we're now exporting this model into our communities. Behind me is a side-by-side comparison of the devastation of one neighborhood in Altadena faced after the Eaton Fire. This portion of Altadena, which directly abuts the Angeles National Forest, was once a vibrant community and now has become its own moonscape. The reality is, no firefighter can stop a wildfire in the face of a 100-mile-an-hour wind. But we can and should be doing more to give communities a better fighting chance by creating more defensible space around communities and actively managing our fire-prone landscapes. And that's where FOFA comes in. If the Fix Our Forests Act had been in place years ago when the Angeles National Forest tried to complete an 8,600-acre fuels reduction project, they wouldn't have faced years of delay. Under FOFA's emergency authorities, work could have been immediately taken on, and instead of using three separate categorical exclusions for the project, they would have needed only one. And maybe that would have made all the difference when the Eaton Fire ignited on Forest Service land. Maybe it would have allowed the Forest Service to start the work when it mattered, when there was still a chance to protect the thousands of homes in Altadena that ultimately went up in flames. We foresters like to say that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. The best time to have these authorities in place was years before the L.A. fires ever occurred. But the second best time is to enact these reforms now so that communities in the future don't have to suffer the same consequences. I appreciate the bipartisan support this bill has received in both the House and the Senate. It's time for us to get this legislation over the finish line and send the bill to President Trump's desk. I stand willing to work with any of my colleagues across the aisle and across the Capitol to make sure no community has to experience what L.A. had to undergo last year. Before I yield back, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. I look forward to hearing your testimony and discussing ways that we can prevent wildfires and fix our forests. With that, I yield back and recognize ranking member Huffman for an opening statement.
Read the full transcript
Starting at $350/mo
- Full hearing transcripts
- Speaker timestamps with video verification
- Organization & competitor mentions
- Same-day delivery
- Personalized summaries
30-day money-back guarantee on all paid plans.
Not ready to subscribe?
Get a free daily digest with hearing summaries ranked by relevance.
Already have an account? Log in
