Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today gave a speech on the Senate Floor, expressing sympathy with those who have lost loved-ones and homes as a result of the wildfires sweeping across Southern California. Senator Feinstein also called on the Senate to approve bipartisan legislation that would reduce the chance of catastrophic forest fire. The following is the prepared text of Senator Feinstein's statement:

"Mr. President, I rise to speak of a tragedy that is befalling my State, the wildfires in Southern California. My heart goes out to the families who have suffered so much from this disaster. The wildfires are still burning, but already they have claimed at least 13 lives, destroyed at least 1100 homes, and burned over 400,000 acres – nearly two-thirds the size of Rhode Island. There are actually at least 10 large fires burning right now, and let me describe them to you in more detail.

1. CEDAR FIRE, San Diego County:

9 people dead
150,000 acres burned
528 homes destroyed
Started Oct. 25, apparently by lost hunter setting a signal fire. Air traffic nationwide was disrupted when flames forced evacuation of a Federal Aviation Administration control center. No containment.

2. DULZURA FIRE, San Diego County:

No deaths
34,800 acres burned
Started Oct. 26, cause under investigation. No containment. Briefly burned across border into Tijuana, Mexico.

3. PARADISE FIRE, San Diego County:

2 people killed
57 homes destroyed
15,000 acres. Started Oct. 26, cause under investigation
No containment.

4. GRAND PRIX FIRE, San Bernardino County:

No deaths
77 homes destroyed
56,474 acres
Started Oct. 21, blamed on arson.
25 percent contained

5. OLD FIRE, San Bernardino County:

2 people killed
450 homes destroyed
26,000 acres
Started Oct. 25, cause suspicious.
5 percent contained

6. SIMI VALLEY, Ventura County:

No deaths
6 homes destroyed
85,000 acres
Started Oct. 25, cause under investigation
5 percent contained.
Blaze moved past Ronald Reagan Library without causing damage.

7. VERDALE FIRE, Los Angeles County:

No deaths
9,000 acres
Started Oct. 24, cause under investigation
85 percent contained.

8. CAMP PENDLETON, San Diego County

No deaths
4,695 acres
Started Oct. 21 on the Marine base, cause under investigation
55 percent contained.

9. PIRU FIRE, Ventura County:

No deaths
25,000 acres
Started Oct. 23, cause under investigation
5 percent contained
Damaged small corner of Sespe Wilderness and Sespe Condor Sanctuary, but no condors are currently in the refuge.

10. -MOUNTAIN FIRE, Riverside County

No deaths
Six homes damaged or destroyed
10,000 acres
Started Oct. 26, cause under investigation
25 percent contained.

My deepest condolences go to the families who have lost loved ones in these fires. I want to assure those who have lost their homes that I am doing everything in my power to obtain federal assistance for you.

I spoke last night to Mike Brown, the Undersecretary of Homeland Security who directs the Federal Emergency Management Agency. I urged him to convey to President Bush the urgency of declaring the counties devastated by the wildfires federal disaster areas as soon as possible so those people who have lost their homes or have been driven away from their homes can get the assistance they need. Just afternoon the President did declare San Bernardino, San Diego, Ventura, and Los Angeles Counties to be federal disaster areas. I am grateful for this decision. A State declaration of disaster has already been called by Governor Davis.

Federal disaster assistance will now include:
aid to individuals and households;
aid to public agencies for emergency services and repair or replacement of disaster-damaged public facilities; and
funding for measures designed to reduce losses to property.

The federal government has already provided fire management assistance grants for at least 8 wildfires in Southern California. These grants reimburse the State for 75% of the cost of fighting the fire.

The Fires Will Return
My sadness and concern about these wildfires is only deepened by the reality that they were entirely predictable and new ones will burn across my state. We MUST take steps NOW to reduce their harm. The dangerous conditions are familiar to us all:

Drought.

Densely packed forests unhealthily crowded with little trees. For decades we have put out the groundfires that would otherwise clear out the brush. The result is huge fuel loads of small trees and brush that is the perfect kindling for a catastrophic fire.

In areas like San Diego County where there is more brush than forest, fire suppression has likewise created such a tangle of brush that fires often cannot be stopped.

Santa Ana winds. These hot dry winds blow often in the fall. And they don't just occur in Southern California – the 1991 fire in the Oakland and Berkeley was fanned by similarly devastating winds.

Hundreds of thousands of dead and dying trees from insect infestations such as the bark beetle.

It needs to be said that the devastation of the bark beetle is not just random chance. Instead, the densely overcrowded forests that we have created by fire suppression are the perfect victims for the bark beetle. Insects that might make little headway in a healthy forest devastate hundreds of square miles of our unhealthy forests.

With all these conditions for disaster in place, I feared that California could face a devastating season of wildfires. Sadly, that seems to be happening now.

No Time to Escape
We need to take action NOW not just to correct our mismanagement of the forest and the brush, but for a more basic reason. We need to act in advance because of the terrible fact that most of the deaths that occurred in these fires did so because people had too little time to escape.

At least 7 people died as they tried to escape the Cedar fire in the narrow Wildcat Canyon area near the Barona Ranch Indian Reservation in San Diego County. People died on foot, people died in their cars, people died still trapped in their homes. At least two children died while trying to escape with their parents.The fires travel just too quickly, and hillside roads are too narrow and too winding, to count on people getting out.

The story of Violet Ingrum, who lived in San Diego's Scripps Ranch neighborhood, gives you some idea of how unpredictable these fires are. She went to bed Saturday night worried mainly about her daughter, who lives in Hollywood, and the danger of potential wildfires to her daughter's home. Only a few hours later she woke up to a howling wind and the horrifying sight of flames beyond her back fence, and debris falling into her swimming pool. She had time only to grab her two cats and her two photo albums – and one of her cats jumped out of her car before she could get away.

Preparing for the Fire Next Time

We need to act now to reduce the threat from these wildfires and to give our firefighters a better chance to defend our communities. We were able to get Congress to approve $30 million last month in fiscal year 2003 funds to help battle the bark beetle and I am urging the Forest Service to put those funds to work immediately.

This is an important steps forward, but we need broader measures to reduce the threat from our forests. There are more than 57 million acres of federal land at the highest risk of catastrophic fire, including 8.5 million in California. In the past five years alone, wildfires have raged through 26.9 million acres, including 2.1 million acres in California. In response to these threats, an agreement has been reached by a bipartisan group of 10 U.S. Senators to protect our forests from catastrophic fire by expediting the thinning of hazardous fuels and at the same time provide the first legal protection for old-growth trees in our nation's history.

Those who have participated with me in the lengthy negotiations leading up to this agreement include Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Larry Craig (R-ID), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Pete Domenici (R-NM), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Blanche Lincoln (D-AK), John McCain (R-AZ), and Max Baucus (D-MT). Legislation implementing the agreement as a proposed substitute amendment to Title I of HR 1904, the Healthy Forests bill, was filed by Senator Cochran, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, on October 2. Yet there have been objections raised to proceeding with this bipartisan substitute amendment.

I urge my colleagues in the strongest possible terms to support this legislation so we can defend our communities and protect our forests.

Summary of Legislation
Let me describe what the legislation would do.

Critically, it would establish an expedited process so the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior can get to work on brush-clearing projects to minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire.

Up to 20 million acres of lands near communities, municipal watersheds and other high-risk areas can be treated. This includes lands that have suffered from serious wind damage or insect infestations, such as the bark beetle.

A total of $760 million annually for hazardous fuel reduction is authorized by the legislation, a $340 million increase over current funding.
At least 50 percent of the funds would be used for fuels reduction near communities.

The legislation also requires that large, fire-resilient, old-growth trees be protected from logging immediately. And it mandates that forest plans that are more than 10 years old and most in need of updating must be updated with old growth protection consistent with the national standard within 2-3 years. Without this provision in the amendment, we would likely have to wait a decade or more to see improved old-growth protection. And even then there would be no guarantee that this protection – against the threat of both logging and catastrophic fire – would be very strong. In California, the amendment to the Sierra Nevada Framework that is currently in progress will have to comply with the new national standard for old-growth protection.

Administrative process
Let me explain how the agreement improves and shortens the administrative review process and makes it more collaborative and less confrontational. It is critical that the Forest Service can spend the scarce dollars in the federal budget in doing vital work on the ground, rather than being mired in endless paperwork.

The legislation fully preserves multiple opportunities for meaningful public involvement. People can attend a public meeting on every project, and they can submit comments during both the preparation of the environmental impact statement and during the administrative review process. I guarantee you the public will have a meaningful say in these projects.

The legislation changes the environmental review process so the Forest Service still considers the effects of the proposed project in detail, but can focus its analysis on the project proposal, one reasonable alternative that meets the project's goals and the alternative of not doing the project, instead of the 5-9 alternatives now often required.

The legislation replaces the current Forest Service administrative appeals with an administrative review process that will occur after the Forest Service finishes its environmental review of a project, but before it reaches its decision. This new approach is similar to a process adopted by the Clinton Administration in 2000 for review of forest plans and amendments to those plans. The process will be speedier and less confrontational than the current administrative appeal process.

Judicial Review

Next, I want to turn to judicial review. I want to emphasize that cases will be heard more quickly under the legislation and abuses of the process will be checked, but nothing alters citizens' opportunity for fair and thorough court review.

Parties can sue in federal court only on issues raised in the administrative review process. This is a common sense provision that allows agencies the opportunity to correct their own mistakes before everything gets litigated.

Lawsuits must be filed in the same jurisdiction as the proposed project.

Courts are encouraged to resolve the case as soon as possible.

Preliminary injunctions are limited to 60 days, although they can be extended if appropriate. This provision sends a signal to courts not to delay important brush-clearing projects indefinitely unless there really is a good reason to do so.

The court must weigh the environmental benefit of doing a given project against its environmental risks, as it reviews the case.

The House bill

I deeply believe that this amendment to Title I of HR 1904 is balanced legislation that is a significant improvement on the House-passed bill, which I cannot support. There are many ways in which this amendment improves on the House-passed bill. I will just mention three of them:

First, this bill is focused on the highest priority lands where we need to undertake brush-clearing projects to restore forest health. These lands include the wildland-urban interface as defined by the communities needing protection; lands where fires would significantly threaten municipal water supply; lands significantly harmed by insects, disease or windthrow, and endangered species habitat.

Second, we have protected both old growth stands, and large trees across the landscape. The projects expedited by this Act will truly restore forest health.

Finally, the Senate agreement removed a provision of the House-passed bill that could have threatened the fair and impartial judicial review of Forest Service actions. This provision would have tilted the playing field in forestry litigation by requiring a court to defer to the federal agency's views in deciding whether to issue an injunction.

For these reasons, I believe our bipartisan amendment to Title I significantly improves the bill, which I otherwise could not support.

Conclusion

In closing, I want to say that my colleagues and I have been trying to come to an agreement on a forest bill for over two years. We finally broke through the deadlock. I am urging President Bush to signal loud and clear that he would support this legislative compromise in the Senate and in a Conference Committee with the House. It is critical that the careful balance which has taken so long to reach not be disrupted, or it will lose the bipartisan support it has. We must enact this legislation to give the residents of Southern California and elsewhere a better chance against the fires that will come next time. Thank you."

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