Today, Ranking Republican Rob Bishop (R-Utah) spoke on the House floor in opposition to H.R. 2546, a package of partisan lands bills from House Democrats that will worsen America’s wildfire crisis.  If enacted into law, H.R. 2546 will unquestionably lead to greater catastrophic wildfire risk, military readiness burdens, and other negative impacts on the rural communities who live closest to these public lands and American taxpayers.  

“Now what the Democrats want to do is add more problems… This puts military training at risk. This has concerns for private property and doesn’t even address the local consensus. This is a bill the Senate will not pass and that the President has already said he will reject. What we should be doing is realizing that instead of creating more problem areas, we should be trying to solve the problems on land we already own.”   

Watch the floor speech HERE.

Bishop highlighted H.R. 1225, the Restore Our Parks and Public Lands Act, which would address the deferred maintenance backlog that currently stands at roughly $20 billion for all public land. These needed repairs are wreaking havoc on agency budgets and jeopardizing access to, and the safety and quality of, visitors’ enjoyment of public lands. H.R. 1225 has garnered broad bipartisan support and passed Committee by a vote of 36-2.   

“We all talk a big game about how much we revere our National Parks, and yet when we have the opportunity to do something about it with a bill that has 330 cosponsors, we don’t. For some reason, the Democrats don’t… Instead, they bring packages like this up here that create more wilderness, more problems, more cost without having solved any underlying problems.    

“I’m calling on my friends from the other side, put that bill on the floor so we can vote for something that solves our problems and saves our parks.”