Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
Western lawmakers whose constituencies have long dealt with wildfires are using last week’s smoke crisis to propel new legislation, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: The smoke that enveloped much of the northeastern United States revealed to some in Congress that climate change is turning what was once a regional problem into a national one.
- "For the first time, non-western members are proactively engaging us on wildfire policy," Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) told Axios in a statement.
- “Coloradans are all too familiar with the wildfire smoke that engulfed communities across the East Coast last week – it’s a reality that we have long dealt with in our state and across the West," Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said in a statement.
Driving the news: Peters, Bennet and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) plan to introduce legislation to help establish public clean air centers and distribute air filtration units to certain households in areas affected by wildfires.
- The Cleaner Air Spaces Act, a copy of which was obtained by Axios, directs the Environmental Protection Agency to provide grants of up to $3 million to state and local air pollution agencies and community organizations.
- Each cleaner air program would be required to provide a minimum of 1,000 filtration units to low-income households with vulnerable residents.
- The programs would also be required to provide educational materials on setting up clean air rooms and to advertise the public centers during wildfires.
By the numbers: Among the bill's 11 House co-sponsors are several East Coasters: Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) and Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.), as well as a Midwesterner: Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.).
- The bill's Senate co-sponsors include Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
The legislation is just one of a raft of wildfire and forest management-focused bills being pushed in the wake of the smoke crisis, Axios Pro reports.
- The Republican-led House Natural Resources Committee is marking up two bills on Tuesday aimed at improving forest management – reducing the amount of brush that serves as fuel for the blazes.
- Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) is also reintroducing legislation aimed at strengthening local wildfire evacuation and resilience planning.
Zoom in: Wildfire smoke from Canada last week shattered poor air quality records throughout the Northeast, affecting 60 million Americans.
- Among the affected cities were New York and Washington, D.C., the nation’s centers of finance, media and government.
Zoom out: The West has seen a marked increase in the area burned by wildfires in recent decades due in large part to the effects of climate change, which has caused a dangerous combination of higher temperatures, lower humidity and high winds to occur more frequently.
- That dynamic is impacting other parts of the country: The National Interagency Fire Center's four-month fire risk forecast highlighted the Great Lakes and Northeast as having an above average likelihood of large wildfires this summer.
What we're watching: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who previously collaborated with Peters on wildfire-focused legislation, will be the key to whether this bill gets a vote in the House.
- Peters is projecting optimism: "I think you will see a big push going forward on bills like this to deal with the consequences of fires and on commonsense bipartisan forest management solutions," he said.
- McCarthy's office did not respond to a request for comment.
Go deeper: America's most powerful get a close-up of climate change
Axios' Andrew Freedman contributed to this story.
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