This week, millions of Americans woke up to hazy skies and scratchy throats under air quality alerts, not because of anything happening in their own local communities or states, but because smoke from the hundreds of wildfires burning in Canada drifted across the border. Across the Atlantic seaboard to the Midwest, Americans were told to stay indoors. Seniors and people with respiratory conditions faced increased health risks. Kids enjoying their summer break watched their outdoor plans get cancelled. Families on vacation were stuck inside.
America’s own regulatory system allows forests to grow dangerously overgrown, letting dead trees and dense underbrush pile up for years while environmental reviews drag on before a single chainsaw ever starts. Meanwhile, drought intensifies conditions and one lightning strike, or a careless spark, can turn into an inferno. This is the opposite of environmental stewardship and neglect dressed up as caution.
Americans deserve policies that help prevent catastrophic fires before they start, protect our communities when fires do occur, and ensure our environmental laws actually improve the environment instead of burying commonsense solutions in years of bureaucratic delay.
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Under the Clean Air Act (CAA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established regulations for six critical air pollutants, the majority of which are found in wildfire smoke.
We passed two pieces of legislation on a bipartisan basis to support states in their efforts to mitigate, respond to, and recover from wildfires.
The Fire Improvement and Reforming Exceptional Events (FIRE) Act rests on a simple truth: preventing catastrophic wildfires is itself an environmental win. Prevention beats response every time, and waiting for disaster to strike is almost always the most expensive, and most dangerous option on the table. The FIRE Act allows states to perform prescribed burns, the most effective tool to mitigate wildfires and their emissions, without being penalized for those mitigation efforts. It also directs the EPA to conduct regional analyses when multiple states are affected by the same wildfire or event, which will reduce regulatory burden and streamline federal action. This bill rewards proactive forest management while protecting public health, and is a commonsense solution to a problem that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.
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The Foreign Emissions and Nonattainment Clarification for Economic Stability (FENCES) Act clarifies that states should not be held accountable for foreign emissions beyond their control and excludes foreign emissions when the EPA determines whether a state complies with air quality standards to ensure states aren’t penalized for emissions originating outside of the United States. The FENCES Act protects states, energy producers, and manufacturers from costly and unnecessary compliance requirements. When Canadian wildfire smoke degrades air quality in American communities, it’s an injustice to hold those states accountable for outside pollution and does nothing to solve the underlying cause of the air emission.
The Senate already has what it needs. The FIRE Act clears the way for states to manage their own forests, the best tool we have to address wildfires, without years of bureaucratic sign-off and fear of facing extreme economic sanctions. The FENCES Act makes sure no state foots a federal penalty for emissions it never created. Passing both isn’t optional anymore.
Canadian researchers themselves have noted that wildfire smoke is becoming a recurring feature of Canadian summers. It is simply unacceptable for American communities and businesses to continue being punished and burdened by wildfires raging outside of our own borders.
Our states know the cost of catastrophic wildfires firsthand. We’ve watched communities lose homes, businesses, treasured public lands, and, tragically, lives. We’ve seen tourism suffer, infrastructure damaged, watersheds contaminated, and local economies disrupted. Even after the flames are extinguished, the impacts linger for years through erosion, flooding, degraded wildlife habitat, and diminished water quality. To hold states accountable for pollution originating from another country is just salt in the wound.
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The smoke currently blanketing much of the United States offers a powerful reminder that poor forest management doesn’t stay contained within political boundaries. Air pollution doesn’t ask whether you’re a Democrat or Republican before affecting your family. It doesn’t stop at state lines or international borders. It impacts millions of Americans regardless of where the fire started.
The best way to improve air quality across the country is to prevent these catastrophic events from happening, and legislation like the FIRE Act and FENCES Act ensure that a future without these disasters and their lasting negative impact to our environment and communities is possible. That’s why these bills matter, and why we’re urging our colleagues in the Senate to pass this legislation quickly. Every day we wait is another day that preventable risks are allowed to grow. We can’t control every wildfire, but we can make it easier to reduce their frequency, severity, protect our communities, and restore healthier forests.
We didn’t start the fire. We’re just done punishing American communities for our neighbors to the north’s mess.
Gabe Evans represents Colorado’s eight congressional district.
