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Senate hearing spotlights Fix Our Forest Act, debates NEPA changes and a national fireshed center
Summary
A Senate Agriculture subcommittee hearing brought bipartisan support for HR 471 (the Fix Our Forest Act) and detailed proposals to expand categorical exclusions, create a fireshed center and spur wildfire technology — while senators and witnesses warned the bill must preserve community input and legal review.
Chairman Marshall opened a Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry hearing to consider HR 471, the Fix Our Forest Act, saying the House passed the measure earlier this year and calling wildfire risk a national priority.
The bill would expand categorical exclusions for fuels-reduction projects, create a national fireshed center to coordinate risk assessment and technology deployment, strengthen Good Neighbor Authority, and adopt litigation and permitting reforms aimed at speeding treatments on the ground. “MegaFire is solvable, and therefore policymakers have an obligation to do more to solve it,” Matt Weiner, founder and CEO of the nonprofit MegaFire Action, told the committee.
Why it matters: witnesses and senators said catastrophic wildfires increasingly threaten…
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