The legislation, introduced by Reps. Scott Peters (D-CA) and Bruce Westerman (R-AR), passed 279-141, with the support of 64 Democrats.

The bill comes as Democrats and Republicans have clashed over how to handle the wildfires in the Los Angeles area, which is on track to be the costliest natural disaster in United States history.

Congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump have floated putting conditions on disaster aid to California by tying it to forest management reforms or the debt ceiling — a situation Democrats have blasted as “completely inappropriate.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had told reporters last week that there needed to be a “serious conversation” regarding disaster aid, pointing to “water resource mismanagement, forest management mistakes, all sorts of problems,” as reasons for the wildfires.

The Fix Our Forests Act is just one of several forest management pieces of legislation that are likely to arise in Congress in the wake of the wildfires. The bill, if signed into law, seeks to ease permitting hurdles and limit litigation against forest thinning projects intended to prevent wildfires.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) was one of several California Democrats who opted not to vote in favor of the Fix Our Forests Act on Thursday. He told the Washington Examiner ahead of the vote that he didn’t think people should be “politicizing the disaster” in California and aid should come before forest management policy.

“We need to focus on the recovery right now, having the aid be unconditional, and then we can have a discussion about the right policies going forward,” Khanna said. “But right now, we have to focus on getting the unconditional aid.”

He like more opportunities to get additional experts’ opinions on how to reshape forest management policy and integrate technology, “not just have one view.”

“This is a bill that I don’t think is going to be balanced in getting all the viewpoints across,” Khanna said.

Westerman told E&E News last week that he was not in favor of using disaster aid as a bargaining tool to pass his bill, but he did believe the legislation could have helped address the level of vegetation in the Santa Monica Mountains that allowed the flames to spread rapidly.

“I would rather focus on policy that’s going to fix forest management and not make that some necessary part of disaster relief,” he said, adding that Congress should “take this lesson and go to other places and do everything we can to prevent these disasters from happening the next time.”

How disaster aid ropes into reconciliation, a process that allows legislation to bypass the filibuster in the Senate, remains to be seen. House Republicans are still engaging in conversations and “listening sessions” as the conference navigates conflicting approaches on how to implement Trump’s agenda.

Trump told reporters on Wednesday he thinks the California wildfires might give Republicans leverage when it comes to reconciliation talks, in the event that the package — be it one “big beautiful bill” or two — may need Democratic support to push it over the edge.

“I think we have a good situation,” Trump said. “Now, it’s been in some ways, made simpler by Los Angeles, because they’re going to need a lot of money. And, generally speaking, I think you find that a lot of Democrats are going to be asking for help. So I think maybe that makes it more one-sided.”

The president is headed to Southern California on Friday to tour the devastation, after criticizing former President Joe Biden, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for the response to the wildfires leading up to and during his inauguration.