1. United States
2. Ore.
3. Letter

Congressman Cliff Bentz, I live in Myrtle Creek, in your district. Two of the largest wildfires in Oregon this year, the Rowe Creek Fire Complex and the East Evans Creek Fire, both burned inside OR-02. Both were recently denied FEMA Fire Management Assistance Grants by the Trump administration. FEMA approved three other Oregon fires for the same funding. Your constituents are now left to cover firefighting costs and suffer financial hardship unnecessarily. Senator Ron Wyden and Senator Jeff Merkley didn’t wait to find out how bad this would get. They sent FEMA a joint letter calling the denials a significant departure from the agency’s own criteria, and they demanded answers about when and why the policy changed. That is what elected officials do when the federal government fails their state. What did you do? Next to nothing. Instead of demanding those funds, your office’s response was to defend FEMA! You told reporters the denied fires “could have become major disasters without speedy intervention,” and then noted that, “sadly”, they had indeed “become” major fires. You had the facts in front of you and used them to excuse the agency that failed your own district, instead of demanding it explain itself. This isn’t an isolated failure. You voted for H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which rescinded funding for forest restoration and wildfire risk reduction projects under Section 10201. You also support the Trump administration whose cuts have reduced the Forest Service size by 16%, stripping away wildland firefighting capacity right before one of the worst fire seasons in state history. You cannot vote to gut wildfire prevention funding, defend FEMA when it abandons your district’s fires, and then act surprised when Oregon burns. This isn’t anything new for you either because you’ve spent years standing in the way. You led the 2019 Oregon Senate walkout specifically to kill a cap-and-trade bill aimed at reducing the emissions driving the climate crisis. You were the GOP's lead negotiator on climate policy and instead of leading you fled to Idaho to deny the chamber a quorum. When you made it to Congress you made it your mission to vote to block funding for climate change from executive orders in the Biden administration. You say climate change “needs to be addressed.” Your voting record says otherwise. Every year you delay serious action, the fires get bigger and the seasons get longer. We are almost out of time for that kind of hedging. I am tired of watching you protect this administration’s standing instead of your constituents’ interests. The Rowe Creek Complex alone has burned past 200,000 acres. Hundreds of families were under Level 3 evacuation orders in both fires. These are your voters. They deserve a representative who will hold FEMA accountable and take climate change seriously, not one who runs interference for Washington because the criticism might reflect on Donald Trump. I’m asking you directly: will you join Senators Wyden and Merkley in demanding FEMA explain this policy shift and reverse these denials? Will you support restoring the wildfire prevention funding you voted to cut? Oregon’s entire congressional delegation should be aligned on this. Right now you are the outlier, and your own district is the one paying for it.