They Voted While the Ashes Were Still Falling

Next week, the House Natural Resources Subcommittee will hold yet another hearing on the ‘Fix Our Forests Act’ (FOFA, H.R.471) titled: “Fix Our Forests: The Need for Urgent Action One Year After the L.A. Wildfires.”

Setting aside the fact that the L.A. fires were not forest fires, the bigger question is this: Why is the House still holding hearings on H.R. 471 at all? FOFA passed the House last January — rushed to the floor before the ashes had even settled — using tragedy as political cover for a bill built on wildfire misinformation.

A year later, instead of moving on, House leadership is still trying to sell it.
Still defending it.
Still centering it.
Still pretending logging is the solution to wildfire.

This is at least the fifth House committee hearing related to FOFA since passage — some directly on the bill, others using its branding or tied to related forest/wildfire policy. When a bill has to be re-litigated in hearing rooms for a year after passage, it’s a sign the case for it was never solid to begin with.

This isn’t standard procedure. FOFA has already passed the House and moved to the Senate, yet House committees keep holding hearings to promote it. That’s a clear signal the case for the bill isn’t strong, and leadership feels they need to keep selling it.

Meanwhile, actual community-focused wildfire bills are sitting untouched:

• H.R. 582 — Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act: Empowers communities to plan and fund wildfire resilience measures where people live, including home hardening, defensible space, and emergency communication upgrades.
• H.R. 948 — SAFE HOME Act: Provides a tax credit for homeowners to make their homes more fire-resistant, covering expenses like fire-resistant roofing, defensible space, and smoke mitigation equipment.

Those bills address the real drivers of wildfire disaster:

• home ignition vulnerability
• evacuation failures
• lack of retrofits and defensible space

H.R. 471 does not. Yet Congress keeps dragging the public back to a logging bill that already passed in the House — while ignoring solutions that actually protect lives.

Extraction over safety.

With our powers combined, we can kill this bill in the Senate.

Americans deserve wildfire legislation that defends people, not smoke-filled headlines. While tragedies like the LA fires rightly drew attention, the political narrative used them to push policy rather than reflect the broader reality.

If the Fix Our Forests Act were truly about safety, it wouldn’t need to be sold for a year straight. And if Congress were serious about wildfire, they’d be holding hearings on the bills that actually protect communities.

Call your Representative

Ask them:

• Why hasn’t the House moved on from H.R. 471?
• Why are hearings still being held to promote it?
• Where are the hearings for H.R. 582 and H.R. 948?
• Why is logging treated as wildfire policy while community safety bills stall?

Call your Senators

Tell them:

• Vote NO on S. 1462 if it reaches the Senate floor.
• Wildfire policy must be grounded in independent evidence, not fear.
• Logging forests does not protect communities.

We don’t need more theatrics. We need Congress to stop confusing headlines with science — and stop using wildfire grief to push destructive policy.