FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – As Southern California continues to battle wildfires, relief could soon be on the way to prevent future fires. Central Valley Congressman David Valadao helped pass the Fix Our Forests Act through the House of Representatives. “I think this time we've got a real opportunity to get this bill to the president's desk and actually get it signed,” Congressman David Valadao said. A major hurdle to fight wildfires was overcome in the House of Representatives. The Fix Our Forests Bill, co-sponsored by Valadao, passed on a 279-141 vote. “If you had a tree or an area that was a specific risk to fire, the amount of bureaucratic red tape that our forestry folks had to go through to get any sort of cleanup done was just too much,” Valadao said. Under the new legislation, the US Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management would have the power to remove dead trees from power lines without a timber sale. “This legislation's key parts are to make sure that it expedites the process of allowing permitting to happen quicker so that if there's a tree that's growing or a group of trees in an area that creates a real fire risk that needs to be addressed,” Valadao said. Currently, utility companies are required to keep trees and branches away from powerlines on federal land, but fallen or dead trees weren’t able to be cleared without finding a buyer. “Some of those past fires that we've had, we've had the air quality situation just gotten dramatically worse,” Valadao said. This was on the eve of President Donald Trump’s visit to Southern California. “I see it as a positive. It's the opportunity for the president to see it. And us in Congress, we've known about this issue for a number of years and our ability to pass legislation, get it to the president's desk, has to be our number one priority to prevent these types of fires from ever happening again,” Valadao said. Valadao said it will take months to assess all of the damage left behind by the Southern California wildfires.