WASHINGTON, D.C. — While thousands of acres of wildfires continue to burn and degrade air quality across the U.S., President Joe Biden has told Western governors that his infrastructure plan will provide relief.
“It includes billions of dollars to strengthen wildfire preparedness, resilience and response. It includes funding for prevention efforts like forest management and to restore millions of acres of high-risk areas to protect homes and public water sources for drinking,” Biden said during a call with governors from the Western states of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, California, Oregon and Washington.
Biden attributed this season’s wildfires to the ongoing climate crisis.
He explained that environmental disasters as such emphasize “the necessity to successfully confront climate change.”
On Friday, Biden’s nearly $1 trillion infrastructure plan cleared a key vote and continues to move through the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, state leaders requested from Biden to see a shift among federal agencies in terms of year-round mitigation and faster response times when these disasters unfold.
“We ask that our federal partners join us in doing what needs to be done year-round to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires,” said Gov. Greg Gianforte of Montana, where currently 19 large-scale wildfires are burning.
Gianforte expressed the need for federal assistance citing how 60 percent of Montana’s nine million acres at high risk for wildfire are on federal land.
Furthermore, California Gov. Gavin Newsom explained how the U.S. Forest Service’s “wait-and-see” approach may need revision. Recently, the approach led to a California wildfire spreading to Nevada because of a slow response from that agency.
Additionally, Newsom argued that an aggressive method is necessary to combat these wildfires.
“Greg was making an oblique point here. I want to be a little bit more explicit. We need your help to change the culture in terms of the suppression strategies in this climate, literally and figuratively, to be more aggressive on these federal fires,” Newsom said.
