Today the House voted to pass the Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency Act, a package shaped by Rep. Greg Stanton to protect communities in Arizona and throughout the West from the devastating effects of wildfires and prolonged, severe drought.
“We are in the midst of a crisis,” Stanton said on the House floor before the vote. “After decades of severe drought, the Colorado River—which supplies water to 40 million people across seven states—is on the brink of collapse. The future of Arizona—and the entire American Southwest—depends on how we respond. Bold action to protect our water supply has never been more important, and the federal government needs to act with the urgency before it’s too late.” Video of Stanton’s remarks is available HERE.
The package includes two bills introduced by Stanton:
H.R. 8435, the Colorado River Drought Response Act, will provide $500 million for the Department of the Interior to take immediate action to prevent Lake Mead and Lake Powell from declining to critically low levels, and expedites water reuse, recycling and watershed health programs established by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
H.R. 8516, the Wildfire Response Improvement Act, will allow states and local governments to use federal funds to recover from wildfires in a way that is already permitted for other kinds of natural disasters. Today, federal support for fighting wildfires ends as soon as the fire is extinguished. But post-fire risks are immense: Burn scars from the blazes can lead to life-threatening mudslides and flooding, which create serious public safety risks and can cause significant property damage, and currently Arizona’s state and local governments currently must bear the entire cost of post-fire expenses.
The package also includes H.R. 8434, the Facilitating Large-Scale Water Recycling and Reuse Projects Act, a Stanton-backed bill which will provide an additional $700 million to the Competitive Grant Program for Large-Scale Water Recycling included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to get projects off the ground quickly.
Climate change has made drought more severe and persistent, with parts of the western United States experiencing their driest conditions in over 1,200 years. As of mid-July, nearly half of the United States are in drought. Wildfires are now a year-round threat, burning larger areas with greater intensity, as climate change reduces soil moisture and converts living forest vegetation into dry fuels. Together, the effects of drought and wildfire cost the United States roughly $20 billion in 2021 alone.
The package now heads to the Senate.