With razor-thin GOP majorities in the House and Senate, many federal lawmakers are retreating to their political corners rather than seeking out compromise in the middle.

But one bipartisan duo is bucking the trend.

Arguing their disaster prevention proposal can overcome Congress's political dysfunction and is necessary amid worsening wildfire seasons nationwide.

I recently sat down with Republican Senator John Curtis of Utah and Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California on Capitol Hill to discuss their bill and working across the aisle.

Senator Curtis, Senator Padilla, welcome to the News Hour. Thank you for joining us.

Thanks for having us. Absolutely. Good to be here. So I want to begin with this effort that you are both

working on together. It's worth reminding people. It's been months since those wildfires that we cover

that ravaged L.A. County in California. We know communities are still struggling to come back.

We've seen currently in Utah as well, there's a number of active fires burning right now.

So this is something that clearly impacts both of your states and so many others.

How did this bill, as a bipartisan effort, how did it come together? Who went to whom?

This is one of those things. It's impossible to say it started here, started there. It's been

bubbling for a long time. And some of these ideas have been bubbling for a long time,

and it was great to have them crystallize and come together. Right. It's the dynamic and the

challenge of wildfires is not new, not to Utah, not to California,

but it has been progressively building bigger and bigger over the course of the last decade.

More frequent fires, more devastating and larger wildfires, and given I think the scale of the damage in Southern California back in January,

it just underscored the urgency with which we need to better prepare to mitigate and prevent

fires when we can, or at least keep them from getting as big as they do.

So it did provide the impetus for putting a lot of the proposals, bills that had been discussed

in previous sessions together and sort of take advantage of the proposals, bills that had been discussed in previous sessions together and

sort of take advantage of the momentum that we had.

...