Dear Friend,

Oregon is on fire. We must act now to help our communities rebuild and recover. In Washington, D.C., I’m doing everything I can to make sure communities across the state have the resources and manpower they need to fight these fires now, and to recover after they’re extinguished.

Last week, we got our first, important step forward after I was able to secure funding to cover the cost of fighting wildfires, included in the disaster and government spending package that passed in the Senate. The agreement will ensure that the Forest Service and other agencies will have access to emergency funding to cover the remaining costs of fighting fires for the 2017 fire season, which is on track to reach $300 million beyond the previously set firefighting budget for 2017.

Passing this wildfire funding is a huge step forward, but there’s much more to do. We need to help our communities and our lands recover from these catastrophic fires and I'm pushing for disaster assistance. Senator Wyden and I have also joined our colleagues from the West, on both sides of the aisle, to push for a long-term fix that would fund the cost of fighting the largest wildfires in the same way that we respond to other natural disasters. This would permanently end the practice of “fire borrowing,” and ensure that the biggest wildfires are appropriately treated like natural disasters.

Please know I’ll keep fighting until Oregon has all of the resources it needs to confront and recover from this ongoing disaster.

All my best,
Jeff
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