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1 (2025-09-15)

handle is hein.congrecreports/crptxahqp0001 and id is 1 raw text is: AUT-ENTICATED US. GOVERNMENT INFORMATION GPO 119TH CONGRESS REPT. 119-276 1st Session HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Part 1 POST-DISASTER REFORESTATION AND RESTORATION ACT OF 2025 SEPTEMBER 15, 2025.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed Mr. WESTERMAN, from the Committee on Natural Resources, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany H.R. 528] The Committee on Natural Resources, to whom was referred the bill (H.R. 528) to require the Secretary of the Interior to carry out a program for Post-Disaster Reforestation and Restoration Pro- gram, and for other purposes, having considered the same, reports favorably thereon without amendment and recommends that the bill do pass. PURPOSE OF THE LEGISLATION The purpose of H.R. 528 is to require the Secretary of the Inte- rior to carry out a program for Post-Disaster Reforestation and Restoration Program, and for other purposes. BACKGROUND AND NEED FOR LEGISLATION There is an urgent need to restore landscapes damaged by wild- fire and other natural disasters. Since 2000, the United States has lost an average of 7 million acres per year to catastrophic wildfires, more than double the annual average lost during the 1990s.1 Worse still, many of these catastrophic wildfires burn so severely that nat- ural regeneration of the forest becomes impossible.2 If these lands are not artificially regenerated (i.e., by planting trees), they will 'Anne A. Riddle, Wildfire Statistics, Congressional Research Service, June 1, 2023, https:// www.crs.gov/Reports/IF10244?source=search&guid=b82a4d954677449b918a65ece823396f& index=0. 2Associated Press, Wildfires have decimated forests. Here's why replanting trees is a chal- lenge, October 2, 2024, https://www.fastcompany.com/91200307/wildfires-forests-replanting- trees-restoration-challenges. 59-006