{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.crapo.senate.gov/media/newsreleases/release_full.cfm?id=348102", "An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure: Crapo, Bennet Introduce Amendment to Increase Resources for Wildfire Mitigation", "2013-11-21", "2013", "2013-11", "Republican", "House", "ID", "Michael Crapo", "C000880", "www.crapo.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "November 21, 2013\n\t\t\t An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure: Crapo, Bennet Introduce Amendment to Increase Resources for Wildfire Mitigation \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t \n\t\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n        \n\t\t\t\t Amendment Would Reduce Future Recovery Costs with Pre-Disaster Mitigation Competitive Grants \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tWashington, D.C. - According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO),\r\n\u00a0every $1 in\u00a0fire\u00a0mitigation funding saves $5 in future losses. \u00a0To take advantage of these potential savings,\u00a0U.S. Senators Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) have\u00a0filed their\r\n\u00a0Prepare, Ready, Equip, and Prevent Areas at-Risk of Emergency (PREPARE)\u00a0Wildfires Act as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, which\u00a0the Senate is currently considering.\r\nIntroduced in August, the deficit-neutral PREPARE Act would create a competitive grants program\u00a0to provide targeted investments\u00a0\r\nto state and local officials\u00a0\r\nfor mitigation and preparedness\u00a0\r\nprojects.\u00a0 The pilot program would be part of FEMA's Pre-Disaster Mitigation fund.\u00a0\r\n\"Despite this year's fire season coming to a close, Senator Bennet and I are moving forward to help mitigate and prepare for the 2014 fire season and beyond,\" Crapo said.\u00a0 \"Instead of waiting until more towns are evacuated, homes threatened and our firefighters lives put at risk, the U.S. Senate has an opportunity to pass the PREPARE Act amendment to help states like Idaho reduce and prevent catastrophic fires.\u00a0 Analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office shows that fire mitigation projects financed through the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program yield some of the greatest returns in preventing future losses when compared to mitigation activities for other natural disasters.\u00a0 Promoting a program that delivers positive, measurable results is a commonsense approach to reducing future threats posed by wildfires.\"\u00a0\r\n\"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.\u00a0 By directing more resources toward fire mitigation\u00a0on the front-end,\u00a0we can not only\u00a0help\u00a0prevent\u00a0and\u00a0reduce\u00a0the severity of future disasters,\u00a0we can also save millions of dollars in recovery costs\u00a0in the long-run,\" Bennet said. \"Large devastating fires are unfortunately\u00a0becoming a\u00a0fact of life\u00a0for Coloradans and\u00a0others\u00a0throughout the west, and we need to ensure that states are adequately equipped to face this threat. \u00a0This\u00a0common-sense\u00a0bill\u00a0does that.\"\r\n\r\n  \r\n    The\u00a0PREPARE Act:\r\n  \r\n\r\n \r\n  Would provide\u00a0$20-$30 million per year for a five-year wildfire mitigation pilot program\r\n  FEMA would carry out the program\u00a0in consultation with the U.S. Forest Service\r\n  States and local governments would provide matching funds, leveraging federal dollars for maximum efficiency.\u00a0\r\n  Recognizing the reality that wildfires don't respect jurisdictional boundaries, local officials\u00a0would be able\u00a0to use the mitigation dollars for priority projects on federal, state, or private land.\r\n \r\n\r\n  \r\n    Background on Senators Bennet and Crapo's work on wildfire issues:\r\n  \r\n\r\nThis year Bennet and Crapo teamed up to\u00a0\r\nsecure a provision in the Senate Homeland Security appropriations\u00a0directing FEMA to detail its efforts to mitigate wildfires and identify any funding obstacles for current mitigation programs.\r\nBennet has worked\u00a0tirelessly\u00a0to attract critical\u00a0federal resources to help combat wildfires and mitigate their effects.\u00a0 Earlier this month, he\u00a0\r\nchaired a Senate subcommittee hearing\u00a0on the importance of allocating mitigation resources up front to prevent the risk of destructive wildfires and reduce the cost of fighting them in the long run.\u00a0 Bennet has\u00a0also\u00a0called for the\u00a0\r\nmodernization\r\n\u00a0of our air tanker fleet\u00a0to fight wildfires, led efforts to\u00a0\r\nsecure Emergency Watershed Protection resources\u00a0to help Colorado communities recover from last year's Waldo Canyon and High Park fires,\u00a0and\u00a0\r\nauthored key forest health and wildfire prevention provisions in the Senate Farm Bill.\u00a0He also led efforts to bring federal assistance to Colorado following last year's High Park and Waldo Canyon fires.\u00a0\r\nThroughout his career in Congress, Crapo has worked to reduce the risk and severity of large-scale wildfires. \u00a0In the U.S. Senate in particular, Crapo helped enact legislation, including the Healthy Forest Restoration Act and the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Act, that have provided land managers with more tools to counter unhealthy conditions in our nation's forests and other lands to reduce the fire threat. \u00a0Crapo recently joined a bipartisan group of senators in urging President Obama not to reduce timber sales on Forest Service lands, as he called for in his 2014 budget. \u00a0The letter stressed the serious consequences reductions could have on communities across the nation and the need for increased timber harvests to help mitigate raging wildfires and help create jobs in our forests.\r\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\t  \n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t \n\t\t\n\t\t\tPrint\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tEmail\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tTweet\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t \n\t\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n    \n\t\n\t\n    \n    \n    \n    \t\n    \t\n\t    \t  \n\t\t    \n\t\t    \tNext Article", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.crapo.senate.gov/media/newsreleases/release_full.cfm?id=348102"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5074508264660835, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}