ICYMI: Senator Marshall Delivers Opening Statement as Chairman of Conservation, Forestry, Natural Resources, and Biotechnology Subcommittee

Washington – U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), Chairman of the Conservation, Forestry, Natural Resources, and Biotechnology Subcommittee, today delivered opening remarks for the hearing regarding the Fix Our Forests Act.

This legislation is especially important in the wake of several catastrophic fires in Southern California and the Hawaiian island of Maui. Senator Marshall also highlighted the importance of grassland management and the need to address wildfires in Kansas. The Fix Our Forests Act will provide common-sense deregulation that streamlines fire prevention – both reactively and proactively.

Click here or on the image above to watch the opening statement, or read Senator Marshall’s full remarks below:

“Good morning and welcome everybody.

“It is my privilege to call this hearing to order. I would like to thank our witnesses for taking time out of your busy schedules to come share your expertise and perspectives on the Fix Our Forests Act (H.R. 471), which the House passed – for the second time – by an overwhelming vote of 279-141 in January 2025. Just a month or so ago.

“We know wildfires are indifferent to federal, state, tribal, and private property jurisdictions, and we have all seen the destruction catastrophic wildfire can cause on our rural and urban communities. 

“Just this week we are witnessing fires threatening lives and property in the Carolinas, and unfortunately, recent history is replete with incidents illustrating the devastating impacts fires have on our communities from the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California to the 2023 Lahaina fires in Maui, Hawaii, to the 2025 Southern California fires as well.

“In order to treat an issue, first we must identify the symptoms, diagnose the root cause of the problem, and implement scientifically sound treatments. The loss of human life and property from these fires is an acute and painful symptom of a system that is not working. The causes come from misguided policies one could argue goes all the way back to the Forest Service’s 1930’s so-called “10 AM Policy,” which required all fires to be extinguished by 10 AM the day after they were discovered. 

“These causes have been compounded by the federal government’s inability or unwillingness to treat the right acres at the right time at the right scale over numerous administrations. Treating this problem comes in the form of an all-of-the-above approach to modernizing the federal technological toolbox for assessing and identifying wildfire risk, facilitating early response and suppression, and updating the public-private partnership model for federal, state, tribal, county, and private landowners to address fire risk rather than jurisdictional or political subdivision boundaries.

“Every fire is unique – my dad was chief of a fire department for years before becoming Chief of Police, and indeed, he would tell me that every fire was very unique. But the most catastrophic fires all have similarities. Proper management of our nation’s forest lands can help prevent a small spark from turning into a raging fire with devastating consequences.

“My own state of Kansas is not immune to wildfire. In 2021, strong winds and dry air combined to create ideal conditions for wildfires in the grasslands of Western and Central Kansas in the Four Counties Fire. That fire was clocked at over 180 miles per hour on the wind turbines as it sailed through those prairies.

“Not all management methods for the grasslands of Kansas mirror what the science tells us should be conducted on forested acres, but the important role of proper management on our landscapes rings true for both.

“The Fix our Forests Act (FOFA) is a rare bipartisan opportunity for Congress to provide the United States Forest Service, the Department of the Interior, states, tribes, counties, and private partners with a modernized and streamlined toolbox to fight fire. 

Regardless of our respective views on the appropriate use of federal lands and resources, we all need to help mitigate the frequency and intensity of catastrophic wildfires while ensuring the scientifically sound and sustainable stewardship of our federal lands.

“The Fix our Forest Act provides agencies with critically needed and appropriately calibrated increases in the acreage limitations for Categorial Exclusions available to forest managers and increases which agency analysis has shown will help provide the flexibility to better address forest management.

“To be clear, Categorical Exclusions are not a free pass for an agency to go in and clear-cut forests as some are lead to believe. They are one way for federal agencies to comply with NEPA based upon extensive uses of prior Environmental Assessments that show no significant effect and are still subject to scoping before moving forward.

“FOFA instructs the federal government to identify at the fireshed scale, the top 20 percent of firesheds that are at risk of fire exposure over the next five years in order to better focus limited resources. FOFA permanently fixes, in statute, the disastrous Ninth Circuit’s “Cottonwood” decision, which the Obama administration petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn, has led to delays in management projects through unnecessary and duplicative scoping in an attempt to avoid frivolous litigation. 

“FOFA also adopts litigation reforms used by past Republican and Democratic administrations in statute to limit litigation delays to essential projects, and FOFA strengthens Good Neighbor Authority, a critical and overwhelmingly successful program that has allowed local and state partners the ability to supplement the work the Forest Service is not able to do on their lands.”