{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.curtis.senate.gov/press-releases/icymi-senators-curtis-and-padilla-join-pbs-newshour-to-discuss-wildfires-and-bipartisanship", "ICYMI: SENATORS CURTIS AND PADILLA JOIN PBS NEWSHOUR TO DISCUSS WILDFIRES AND BIPARTISANSHIP", "2025-07-30", "2025", "2025-07", "Republican", "Senate", "UT", "John R. Curtis", "C001114", "www.curtis.senate.gov", "curtis", "https://www.curtis.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "Washington, D.C. \u2013 In a PBS NewsHour segment yesterday, Senator John Curtis (R-UT) appeared alongside Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) to discuss their bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act, transparency in government, and how Senators can work on bills across the aisle.\n\nThe bipartisan legislation would combat catastrophic wildfires, restore forest ecosystems, and make federal forest management more efficient and responsive. The comprehensive bill reflects months of bipartisan negotiations to find consensus on how to best accelerate and improve forest management practices, streamline environmental reviews, and strengthen partnerships between federal agencies, states, tribes, and private stakeholders.\n\nClick here for more background.\n\nBelow are select remarks from the segment:\n\nOn wildfire prevention and coordination:\n\n\u201cThe beauty of the bill is it is not just focused on one thing. It\u2019s focused on everything \u2014 from starting early to prevent them, to deal with them while they\u2019re happening, and also deal with them afterwards.\u201d\n\n\u201cOne of the problems we\u2019ve had is interagency coordination\u2026 This bill addresses that and tries to get us out of our silos so that we\u2019re actually working together and pulling in the same direction.\u201d\n\nOn federal funding:\n\n\u201cIf we\u2019re successful in what we\u2019re doing, we\u2019ll save the taxpayers massive amounts of money.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe have asked for all the appropriations needed\u2026 and still stayed within the limits that we\u2019re trying to target financially.\u201d\n\nOn keeping politics out of disaster response:\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve tried to build a bill that will last through many administrations \u2014 whether they\u2019re Republican or Democrat.\u201d\n\nOn the cause of wildfires:\n\n\u201cWe all know that it is drier and less rain and less moisture than we\u2019ve had before. We all know that the seasons are longer and hotter. That is not a debatable thing.\u201d\n\nOn transparency and the Epstein files:\n\n\u201cThis isn\u2019t only a Trump administration issue. All of these files existed with the previous administration, and they also chose not to release them.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis really points out how desperate the American people are for transparency\u2026 Let\u2019s give the American people some transparency.\u201d\n\n\u201cLet\u2019s also not make this a major distraction. We have important things to do\u2026 I think we can do both.\u201d\n\nOn bipartisanship and compromise:\n\n\u201cLet\u2019s begin with realizing that [other Senator\u2019s] they\u2019re genuine and they see things differently than I do. And just because they\u2019re different, it doesn\u2019t mean that they\u2019re not genuine.\u201d\n\n\u201cCompromise gets a bad rap\u2026 If we can sit down and find those areas of intersection where we actually agree, that\u2019s a different kind of compromise \u2014 and in my experience, is the best work.\u201d\n\nSenator Curtis concluded the segment with a reflection on the opportunity this bill represents:\n\n\u201cFix Our Forests is a really good example of where I don\u2019t think either one of us feel like we have abandoned our principles \u2014 but we actually found some areas of overlap that are really important to this country and to our constituents.\u201d\n\nFor the full interview, visit: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/senators-highlight-importance-of-working-across-the-aisle-in-mission-to-fight-wildfires", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:48:13Z"]], "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.curtis.senate.gov/press-releases/icymi-senators-curtis-and-padilla-join-pbs-newshour-to-discuss-wildfires-and-bipartisanship"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9329940658062696, "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"}