Representative Mike Garcia (CA-25) made the following statement following the U.S. House of Representatives’ vote on H.R. 5118, a partisan bill that fails to rise to the challenge of addressing wildfire response and other related issues:

“Addressing wildfire prevention has been one of my top priorities since I got to Congress. That’s why just this past year, I introduced H.R. 5010, the FIRE Act, and invited my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come together and deliver a solution to fight wildfires. But the majority flat-out refused to negotiate on the bill because partisan politics to them matters more than delivering a real solution to fight wildfires,” said Garcia. “It seems that as this bill came to the floor, the partisanship of the past came with it, as the Majority blocked the vast majority of amendments offered by Republican members. Of the 77 amendments that were submitted to this bill, just 3 were considered. Because of this broken process that led to a bill that provides inadequate prevention to wildfires, I voted no. I encourage my colleagues in the majority to work in a bipartisan manner to deliver on an issue we all want to see resolved: preventing wildfires.”

Garcia has introduced and co-sponsored numerous bills that address wildfire prevention including H.R. 4516, the PROTECT Act; H.R. 8168, the Save our Sequoias Act; H.R. 5010, the FIRE Act; and H.R. 4614, the Resilient Federal Forests Act.