During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing before the congressional recess, Rep. Vince Fong (R-CA) questioned witnesses about Sequoia forest protections.
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00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the witnesses for being here. Unfortunately,
00:05megafires are not new to me, nor my community. In 2021, in the Central Valley of California,
00:11the KNP Complex Fire testimated some of the last remaining giant sequoia groves
00:16in and around the sequoia in Kings Canyon National Park. These trees thrive with fire,
00:22but the sheer force and unnatural scale of this megafire proved to destroy even the most resilient,
00:27oldest trees in the world. So building off the Fix Our Forest Act, I introduced the Save Our Sequoias
00:33Act to spur the aggressive forest management we need to protect our remaining forests. One of the
00:38main sections of this bill declares an emergency to streamline resources. If I could ask Mr. Wiener,
00:43how would more expanded emergency declarations help spur forest management, and are there other
00:48creative ways to achieve our forest treatment goals in an expedited manner? Yes, I mean, I think we can
00:53read the writing on the wall here and see that Governor Newsom and President Trump, both within
00:59the same weekend, announced new emergency authorities to do landscape scale treatments, because executives
01:05who are in charge, regardless of party, understand that they need to cut through red tape to get at
01:09this problem. And Sequoias is a really good example of how we've been able to yield results very quickly.
01:15They were able to treat about 50 percent of the groves in the three years now since emergency authorities were
01:21announced to help them move forward, right? And that's something that is absolutely replicable
01:27elsewhere and is a real success story. Thank you for that. To Mr. Wright, the Burrell Fire
01:36was the largest fire in Kern County's history, and I'm proud to represent that area, and devastated
01:42wildland urban interface communities in my district in the summer of 2024, including the complete destruction
01:49of the town of Havilah. Because these communities are small and rural, they did not meet the minimum
01:55damage threshold for FEMA aid. At the same time, insurance rates in California are not attainable,
02:01which I'm sure you're aware of. With more and more companies eliminating policies or leaving the
02:05state altogether, it leaves our residents with little options besides the California fare plan,
02:10which is extremely expensive and lacks the true coverage needed for homeowners. If I can ask you for
02:17states like California and probably other states who hopefully will not follow our path, where
02:21the insurance market is struggling, how do we motivate insurance companies to re-enter the state
02:28and re-enter the market and create more sustainability in the insurance space?
02:33As you well know, Prop 103 in California created more complexities in the property insurance market
02:40than any other place in the country. While I'm hopeful that what Commissioner Lara, the insurance
02:46commissioner, has announced, he'll be able to follow through and meet those pieces, ultimately,
02:51there needs to be a reset in the market and to bring more folks back, and then we also need to help
02:58the homeowners take the actions on their homes so that they are more attractive risk.
03:03I understand that California is the last state to kind of allow for reinsurance and cash traffic
03:13modeling. Can you elaborate on that?
03:17Yes. California, for various reasons that I won't go into the minutia of, didn't allow the price
03:23of reinsurance. I have limited on what could be done on modeling. Commissioner Lara made some
03:28announcements and they're starting to begin the implementation. It's ironic that as many things
03:33as California might lead the country on this front, it's been at the back of the train.
03:39I appreciate that. Mr. Muncy, during the Burrell fire, many others that have impacted,
03:45along with other fires that have impacted our communities over the last few years,
03:49we've seen that the Forest Service has been hamstrung with its aerial firefighting capabilities
03:56by requiring firefighting aircraft to be monitored by another spotter aircraft. I wanted to get your
04:03perspective on how the Forest Service could be better in enacting safety measures that would allow
04:09for more successful deployment of aerial resources for fire suppression.
04:14Aviation is probably the most dangerous thing that occurs on a wildfire, and aviation coordination is
04:20critical. And so I'm not against having a lead plane or an air attack. I think these are very important
04:31concepts. Specifically, I think where you hear the objective from local government is the ability to use
04:36night flying helicopters on federal instances. This past year, the Vista fire is a great example where we had
04:43night flying helicopters that were available, but because we didn't have a helicopter coordinator
04:49that was a state or federal employee, these nighttime critical resources were not able to fly.
04:58We did have a local government qualified, carded, HELCO, and they weren't being used. I called the U.S.
05:06Forest Service, our local forest, and I volunteered to pay out of my local budget to have that HELCO
05:11coordinator that could fly to take action on federal land or keep that fire small so it wouldn't spread to our
05:17local communities. It took three days in order to fill that position. Ultimately, they didn't charge
05:23me. They did the right thing, but that was very frustrating to us.
05:26I appreciate that. I know in seeing in my community, time is of the essence in terms of addressing
05:31these, so I'd love to partner with you and get more information. My time has run out, so I certainly
05:37will yield back to the chairman.
05:38Thank you very much. I got a quick question for you. Federalism. You know, we are supposed
05:44to have consultation with local governments, county supervisors.