Western Governors Association, including governors from Colorado, Utah, California, Montana, endorse legislation
Senate Agriculture Committee to hold markup of Fix Our Forests Act tomorrow
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper highlighted growing support from western governors, the Southern Ute Tribe, leading western water managers, and more for his bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act, which Hickenlooper introduced alongside U.S. Senators John Curtis, Alex Padilla, and Tim Sheehy. The bill works to strengthen wildfire resilience by improving forest management, supporting fire-safe communities, and streamlining approvals for projects that protect communities and ecosystems from extreme wildfires.
The comprehensive bill reflects months of bipartisan negotiations to find consensus on how to accelerate forest management projects, promote safe and responsible prescribed fire treatments, expand public input in assessments of wildfire resilience needs, and enhance collaboration between federal agencies, states, tribes, and stakeholders.
“As governors of Western states, we experience firsthand the increasing forest health and wildfire crises that directly impact our communities and citizens,” wrote Governors Polis, Gianforte, Cox, and Newsom in a joint, bipartisan letter of support for the Fix Our Forests Act. “The Senate-proposed version of the Fix Our Forests Act has been thoughtfully and thoroughly developed, drawing support from a diversity of key western constituencies and stakeholders coming from multiple perspectives. This fire season has already reiterated to our states and communities that state, local and federal leaders must continue to urgently prioritize lowering wildfire risk and intelligently growing the tools at our disposal and efficiency of those tools with respect to wildfire mitigation, suppression, detection, forest and watershed health, and recovery.”
“Western Governors are encouraged by the development of bipartisan legislation to improve forest management and mitigate wildfire risk. As the wildfire crisis has worsened in recent years, Western Governors have developed and advocated for a range of policy recommendations to promote healthy western forests that can continue to provide our communities with jobs, recreation, quality of life, and important ecosystem services. S. 1462, the Fix Our Forests Act, advances many of our recommendations, and we are eager to continue to work with the Committee to support critical forest management reforms through the legislative process,” wrote Chair Spencer Cox and Vice Chair Josh Green of the Western Governors’ Association in a letter of support for the Fix Our Forests Act. “We appreciate your bipartisan efforts to address the wildfire crisis through a holistic set of substantive forest management reforms. We look forward to working with you as the bill moves through the legislative process and stand ready to serve as a resource.”
“Like much of the southwest, wildfire risk is consistently high on the Southern Ute Indian Tribe’s Reservation (“Reservation”), and the Tribe is familiar with long and challenging fire seasons. The Act aims to directly confront these challenges by expediting forest management and restoration, enhancing community resilience, and improving wildfire prevention through new programs, innovations, and partnerships. The Tribe strongly supports these efforts,” wrote Chairman Melvin J. Baker of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe in a letter of support for the Fix Our Forests Act. “The Tribe sincerely appreciates your ongoing commitment and willingness to work across the aisle to help mitigate the significant risk of catastrophic wildfires – a constant threat in our region – and to ensure the Tribe receives adequate consultation on these efforts.”
“Healthy, resilient forests are essential to the reliability of the Colorado River system, which supplies water to 40 million people across the American Southwest. In fact, nearly 65% of the Colorado River’s natural flows above Lee Ferry originate within our District’s boundaries, mostly on forested federal lands. Unfortunately, increasing wildfire frequency and post-fire flooding in these high-elevation watersheds threaten the quality, quantity, and timing of water deliveries throughout the Basin,” wrote the Colorado River District in a letter of support for the Fix Our Forests Act. “The Fix Our Forests Act provides the tools needed to address these challenges by improving interagency coordination, modernizing wildfire intelligence, expanding water-source protection programs, and streamlining project implementation in high-risk firesheds—all while maintaining necessary environmental safeguards. We particularly appreciate provisions that recognize the connection between forest health and watershed resilience, priorities that directly affect water users on Colorado’s western slope and throughout the Colorado River Basin.”
“The improvement of pre-fire interagency collaboration and the significant environmental permitting efficiencies set forth in the FOFA would minimize the impacts of future fires and their subsequent impacts to critical source watersheds. As U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service lands compose the large majority of Northern Water’s approximately 2-million-acre source watersheds, passage of the FOFA is needed to facilitate the timely implementation of the large-scale forest health treatments required to significantly improve watershed health and fire resiliency,” wrote the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District in a letter of support for the Fix Our Forests Act. “Passage of the FOFA is critical for Northern Water to achieve watershed resiliency, protect critical water supplies, and effectively steward the environment. Northern Water greatly appreciates this bi-partisan legislation and hopes to see quick passage of the bill.”
“It is critical that we work to improve the health of our forested lands in southwest Colorado and protect our communities and watersheds where wildfires have become increasingly devastating and destructive. This legislation outlines a comprehensive approach to improving forest and
watershed health by helping to foster a collaborative partnership between federal agencies and local communities, authorizing common-sense environmental streamlining, and expanding important research initiatives,” wrote the Southwestern Water Conservation District in a letter of support for the Fix Our Forests Act.
“As wildfires become more frequent and more devastating, electric cooperatives must implement extensive wildfire mitigation plans to provide reliable power and maintain a resilient power system for the rural communities we serve, all while facing high liability risks and an inability to acquire necessary insurance coverage,” wrote Tri-State Generation and Transmission, Inc. in a letter of support for the Fix Our Forests Act. “This bill is a key step towards finding solutions in the risky wildfire environment that utilities operate in today. Tri-State and electric cooperatives across the country will benefit from this legislation as it will allow us to complete necessary wildfire mitigation efforts in a more efficient manner and bolster our ability to maintain a resilient power system.”
“As wildfires increasingly degrade the forests, rangelands, and watersheds that America’s sportsmen and women depend on for hunting and fishing access, the need to improve how our public lands are managed, in collaboration with other landowners, is paramount. To that end, the Fix Our Forests Act seeks to corner the wildfire crisis by establishing a more proactive management approach through reforms that facilitate increasing the pace of science-based forest restoration work at the landscape-level to improve forest health and resilience to protect communities, conserve fish and wildlife habitat, and improve access for hunters and anglers,” wrote the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation in a letter of support for the Fix Our Forests Act.
“NRECA applauds introduction of a Senate Fix Our Forests Act, which will help co-ops better address wildfire hazards on utility rights-of-way and protect the communities they serve. Bureaucratic hurdles and red tape fall particularly hard on electric co-ops as they work to maintain their infrastructure on public lands. The Fix our Forests Act streamlines and strengthens existing federal processes for essential electric grid maintenance activities on public lands. We thank Sens. Sheehy, Curtis, Hickenlooper and Padilla for working to ensure that co-ops can protect the nation’s natural resources while providing affordable and reliable power to America’s rural communities,” said the National Rural Electric Co-Op Association.
The legislation has also picked up support from Trout Unlimited, Xcel Energy, Denver Water, and Greeley Water Utilities, in addition to support from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources; Colorado State Forest Service; American Property Casualty Insurance Association; California Natural Resources Agency; Climate and Wildfire Institute; Utah Farm Bureau Federation; The Nature Conservancy; Association for Firetech Innovation and Convective Capital; Federation of American Scientists; National Audubon Society; Berkshire Hathaway Energy; Arnold Ventures; Utah Department of Natural Resources; The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC); Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership; National Wild Turkey Federation; National Wildlife Federation; Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions; American Forests; Colorado Rural Electric Association; Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation; Western Governors’ Association; National Association of State Departments of Agriculture; National Association of State Foresters; United Power; Rocky Mountain Elk; Citizen’ Climate Lobby; Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control; Bipartisan Policy Center Action; International Association of Fire Chiefs; Alliance for Wildfire Resilience; Wildfire Alliance; Tall Timbers; Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition; The Stewardship Project; Megafire Action; California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection; Hispanics Enjoy Camping, Hunting, and the Outdoors; Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society; State of Utah; Environmental Defense Fund; Rural County Representatives of California; Salesforce; Central Valley Water Reclamation Facility; C2ES; U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Colorado State Fire Chiefs Wildland Section; Colorado Water Congress; and National Water Resources Association.
For a full list of all the quotes from supportive parties, click HERE.
BACKGROUND:
The West has long been prone to wildfires, but climate change, prolonged drought, and the buildup of dry fuels have increasingly intensified these fires and extended fire seasons. Wildfires today are more catastrophic – growing larger, spreading faster, and burning more land than ever before.
Colorado has seen four of the five largest fires in our state’s history since 2020, including this summer’s Lee Fire. The 2021 Marshall fire was Colorado’s most destructive on record, burning over 1,000 homes. The Cameron Peak and East Troublesome fires in 2020 together burned more than 400,000 acres, the two largest fires in the state’s history. Nationwide, total acres burned rose from 2.7 million in 2023 to nearly 9 million in 2024, a 231% increase.
Forest health challenges are also increasing in frequency and severity due to climate stressors like drought and fire, and biological threats like invasive species – all of which the West is particularly vulnerable to. From 2001 to 2019, total U.S. forest area declined by 2.3%, with the Intermountain West experiencing the largest losses by area.
To address these challenges, the Fix Our Forests Act would:
- Establish new and updated programs to reduce wildfire risks across large, high-priority “firesheds,” with an emphasis on cross-boundary collaboration.
- Streamline and expand tools for forest health projects (e.g., stewardship contracting, Good Neighbor Agreements) and provide faster approvals for certain hazardous fuels treatments.
- Create a single interagency program to help communities in the wildland-urban interface build and retrofit with wildfire-resistant measures, while simplifying and consolidating grant applications.
- Boost reforestation with the inclusion of Hickenlooper’s Reforestation, Nurseries, and Genetic Resources (RNGR) Support Act to support reforestation capacity of state, tribal, and private nurseries.
- Strengthen coordination efforts across agencies through a new Wildfire Intelligence Center with the inclusion of Hickenlooper’s bipartisan Wildfire Intelligence Collaboration and Coordination Act of 2025, which would streamline federal response and create a whole-of-government approach to combating wildfires.
- Support prescribed fire activities on both federal and non-federal lands – prioritizing large, cross-boundary projects, strengthening the prescribed fire workforce, and facilitating coordination on air quality protections.
- Expand research and demonstration initiatives – including biochar projects and the Community Wildfire Defense Research Program – to test and deploy cutting-edge wildfire prevention, detection, and mitigation technologies.
- Enable watershed protection and restoration projects to include adjacent non-federal lands; establish new programs for white oak restoration; and clarify policies regarding wildfire-related litigation.
A one-pager can be found here, and a section-by-section can be found here.
The Fix Our Forests Act was originally introduced in the House of Representatives by Representatives Bruce Westerman and Scott Peters.
Hickenlooper has been an active supporter of wildfire resilience, including sponsorship of legislation to restore land management agency staffing and pushback on the firings of the federal employees that support wildfire resilience on our public lands. The Fix Our Forests Act provides the tools necessary to accelerate wildfire resilience, which will work alongside Hickenlooper’s sustained efforts for the funding and staffing necessary for land management efforts.
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