Jeff Merkley

Mr. President, Reasoning · 24 wordsthey say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and that is certainly true when it comes to wildfires and smoke. Claims · 142 wordsAnd as climate chaos makes the fire season longer and hotter and more dangerous, wildfires are ravaging States across our country, certainly including my home State of Oregon. This year, at the beginning of fire season, the risk maps showed that the State of Oregon was the epicenter of the highest risk for the most time anticipated.¹ Unfortunately, that crystal ball prepared by the experts turned out to be right. We had a record 2.5 million acres burn this summer.² Well, we broke the 2 million acres last summer and the 2.5 million acres this summer.³ It wasn’t that long ago when 1 million acres would have been an extraordinarily horrific fire year. Forests burning, grasslands burning, more lightning strikes, more wind, more drought, more dryness, hotter temperatures--all of it combined to create that extraordinarily destructive summer we have just gone through. Anecdote · 168 wordsI will never forget 6 years ago the Labor Day fires, at the beginning of September, when we had a combination of lightning strikes and wind that brought, basically, a force up from the east, wind over the top of the Cascade Mountains and down every valley, ⁴and every valley was burning. We had six cities burn to the ground, ⁵and we had another six that were badly scorched.⁶ When you saw those cities, it looked like a bomb had gone off. I mean, everything was reduced to ashes, with maybe a cast-iron tub over here, with maybe a metal staircase or a pipe dangling over here, then on the ground a pool of metal when the wheels on cars would melt and run across the ground. It was just devastating to go to the fairgrounds--where thousands of refugees were headed--and hear of their harrowing escapes. Sometimes their cars were starting to melt and smoke as they drove through the fire. Others were seeking refuge in the streams.Anecdote Claims · 31 wordsThese fires? They are terrible, and they fill the air with toxins-- toxins from the burning buildings and the burning homes and burning vehicles that are filled with plastics and electronics. Positioning · 8 wordsWho knows what else is in that smoke?Positioning Claims · 55 wordsThat smoke is incredibly dangerous as well. That is why we need to pass the bipartisan Wildfire Emissions Prevention Act on which I am so pleased to partner with my colleague Senator Curtis from Utah.⁷ This bill prepares our communities in two different ways. First, it makes it easier for communities to do prescribed burns.⁸ Procedure · 1 wordsNow, ProcedureAnecdote · 129 wordsif I turned the clock back about 16 years, communities would say to me: We don’t want those prescribed burns. We don’t want that day or two of smoke. But after the 2020 Labor Day fires, communities are like: We want to do the prescribed burns. We want them carefully monitored so that they do not escape and cause a larger fire, which has happened on rare occasions. We want to make sure they are done on days when there is enough humidity and so little wind and so little risk of wind that they can’t possibly become something other than the prescribed burns. They have to be meticulously planned, carefully controlled, and then they reduce so much fuel on the ground and provide a lot of protection thereafter.Anecdote Claims · 125 wordsSo prescribed burns are--along with thinning and mowing-- significant ways to reduce the fuel load and reduce the devastation when there is a fire. But here is the thing: a prescribed burn produces smoke, and that smoke may become a penalty under the Clean Air Act for our communities. So this bill solves that problem so that smoke from a prescribed fire does not create a penalty under the Clean Air Act.⁹ Second, this bill helps communities prepare for smoke, to have locations that are safe for people, particularly people with lung problems, with asthma or emphysema or so forth or people who are particularly allergic to the content of the smoke to be able to get to places that have clean air through filtering. Reasoning · 4 wordsSo that is essential. Claims · 37 wordsAnd this bill incorporates the Smoke-Ready Communities Program based on the Smoke and Heat Ready Communities Act that I introduced before.¹⁰ It gives communities the tools and the resources to prepare for wildfire smoke and unhealthy air. Reasoning · 12 wordsThey say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Claims · 31 wordsThat is a pretty good foundation for a bill--a bill, the Wildfire Emissions Prevention Act, that will give our communities the tools they need to prepare for wildfires and smoke pollution, The ask · 10 wordsand I would encourage that we adopt this bill today. Procedure · 7 wordsI yield to one of my colleagues.Procedure