Fix Our Forests for Affordable and Reliable Water and Power Supplies
House Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries
2026-01-08
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Source: Congress.gov
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The Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries will come to order. Good morning, everyone. I want to welcome members, witnesses and our guests in the audience at today's hearing. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the subcommittee at any time. Under Committee Rule 4F, any oral opening statements at hearings are limited to the chair and the ranking 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 Committee Rule 3O. Without objection, so ordered. I also ask unanimous consent that the Congressman from Montana, Mr. Downing, be allowed to participate in today's hearing. Without objection, so ordered. We are here today to hold an oversight hearing titled Fix Our Forests for Affordable and Reliable Water and Power Supplies. I now recognize myself for a five minute opening statement. Today, the Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries will hear from non-federal experts in water and power management on how a century of fire suppression and decades of mismanagement have created a perfect storm of overstocked, unhealthy and fire-prone national forests, resulting in a destabilized water supply and negative impacts on our ability to provide power across the West. Decades of deliberate policy choices, however, have handcuffed our forest managers, substantially restricting their ability to implement much needed and site specific on the ground treatment activities to protect this incredible resource. These DC mandated policies have created unnaturally dense forests and resulted in greater incidences of catastrophic forest fires, overwhelming insect infestations, and a dramatic decrease in overall forest health. They have also had real and demonstrable impacts on water availability, as well as their ability to produce affordable and reliable power.
Taken by General Custer during his mid-19th century expedition to South Dakota, the photo to the right of me on the left side, for those of you looking out there, show a forest in its natural historical condition with gaps in its canopy, fewer trees per acre, and variability in the age of the stand. By contrast, the photo next to it reveals the contemporary state with a dense canopy being overstocked and monolithic in age. I can show you photo after photo after photo showing the same thing. For anyone who would like to look at this book during the course of the hearing today, you can see what I'm talking about. The historical photos show what forests in their natural state were like, and the modern day photos show overgrowth and unhealthy density. This increased tree density intensifies competition for water, reduces downstream flows, and turns forests into time bombs that can ignite with a single spark. Wyoming is ground zero for these threats. The elk fire in the Bighorn National Forest last year is a cautionary tale for all of us, but most specifically for the policymakers in Washington, D.C., and the environmental NGOs who, for too long, have fought every effort to properly manage our national forests. Just to give you a taste of what we experienced, in a matter of three hours, three hours, that fire burned 25 thousand acres in three hours prior to that and in the last 100 years the largest fire on the forest had been a total of 18 000 acres and it took a month to get to that size by the time that the snow finally came in late october the elk fire had consumed over 98 000 acres which is five times larger than anything on the record books What was one of the most significant causes of such a large and fast moving blaze?
Dense stands and dead and downed timber. Years of study, historical knowledge and understanding of hydrology, the recognition that trees consume a massive amount of water, and common sense have together proven time and time again that by engaging in active forest management, we can protect homes and critical infrastructure, avert costly disruptions and negative air and water quality impacts to local communities, as well as increase water availability for downstream users. I will share just a few statistics that illustrate the point. Snowpack is the West's largest reservoir, but an overgrown forest Tree canopies capture up to a third of snowfall. In fact, studies in the Sierra Nevada range have shown that active forest management increases downstream flows by up to 9% with the potential to add as much as 2.2 million acre feet to California's water supply. Nearly 180 million acre feet of the nation's water supply, approximately 46.3% originates on national forest system lands. Just imagine the water supply benefits of a healthy federal forest system. A recently published study by the Forest Service found that in 2014, one year after a wildfire in Colorado's Front Range, A single flood event resulted in the erosion of 35 years worth of sediment. While each system is different, this is happening all over the West. The Fix Our Forest Act, led by Chairman Westerman, addresses many of these challenges facing utilities by equipping forest managers with the tools to restore forest health, improving reliable water supplies, and protecting our power infrastructure rate payers. The House has done its part in passing this critical legislation, and it is now incumbent upon the Senate to act. With that, I want to thank all of our witnesses, especially my constituent, Iman O'Toole, for joining us today. Thank you all for being here to testify, and I look forward to a robust discussion.
Thank you, Madam Chair. First, I just want to make a comment on a great loss for this committee with the death of Congressman LaMampa. He is unassuming, authentic, committed to his constituents and natural resources, and was willing to work with anyone whenever he could. He had a great sense of humor and a breadth of knowledge of many things. We used to talk about music all the time.
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