Senate Energy Chair Landrieu Holds Budget Hearing on Wildfires

On July 15, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a hearing, “Wildfire Preparedness & Forest Service 2015 Fiscal Year Budget.”  During the hearing, Senators discussed several possible wildfire funding mechanisms.  One possibility is the bipartisan Wildfire Disaster Funding Act (S. 1875), introduced by Senators Wyden (D-OR) and Crapo (R-ID) with 15 co-sponsors, and a companion bill in the House, with 104 co-sponsors (HR 3992). Another possibility discussed was the newly introduced FLAME Act Amendments (S. 2593), by Senators McCain (R-AZ), Barasso (R-WY), and Flake (R-AZ).

On July 8, President Obama requested $615 million in emergency funds to cover FY2014 budget shortfalls for wildfire fighting in a package for emergency border control management.  Both the President’s proposal and the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act (S. 1875) would create a separate emergency disaster fund, to be administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  This fund would  address the very worst wildfires, or about 1 percent of fires, whereas the McCain-Barrasso-Flake proposal  would require that firefighting budgets be fully funded through the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI).  Additionally, in the FLAME Act Amendments, 50 percent of wildfire fighting costs would go towards forestry management practices, such as thinning. 

Much of Tuesday’s discussion centered on the practice of ‘fire borrowing ‘ wherein funds are re-programmed from other programs mid-year, to cover wildfire fighting deficits.  Senator Murkowski (R-AK) commented that with fire suppression costs growing from 13 percent to 43 percent of the Forest Service budget in a ten year period, it “certainly appears that the situation is getting worse, not better.” While the two proposals appear to be different sides of the same coin, several Republicans repeatedly distanced themselves from the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act during the hearing.  Unclear on her own position, Chairwoman Landrieu (D-LA) asked if the creation of a separate emergency management fund would be akin to “writing a blank check” to the Department of Interior and Forest Service, as many of the bills’ detractors have claimed. Instead, the McCain-Barrasso-Flake Wildfire bill would fund the total cost of firefighting through the DOI and the Forest Service. Emergency funds could only be tapped when a given year’s budget was completely exhausted.  According to Senator McCain, “There are similar proposals in Congress that support suppression spending but don’t as clearly guarantee funding for forest treatment programs, put an end to fire-borrowing or promote the utility of private timber industry. We need to rethink the current practice of throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at wildfires year after year and begin aggressively treating our forests.”

While the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, as well as the President’s request for emergency funding do not specifically allocate money towards hazardous fuel reduction practices, creating a separate emergency management fund for wildfires would free up dollars to existing programs that are already prepared to address thinning and forestry management needs.  The FEMA funds would be tapped once wildfire treatment costs had passed a benchmark of 70 percent of a 10 year average, similar to how other disaster recovery efforts are funded.  According to the Partner Caucus on Fire Suppression Funding Solutions (EESI is one of the 234 supporting organizations), “Critical landscape management activities are often postponed or canceled as a result of fire transfers from non-suppression agency accounts once annual wildfire suppression funds are depleted.”  Yet, according to the McCain-Barraso-Flake Wildfire bill, these measures are not enough to ensure forest health going forward.  Instead, their Bill would require that 100 percent of expected wildfire costs be funded through the Forest Service and DOI, and 50 percent of these suppression costs must go to hazardous fuel reduction projects.  Additionally, it “Requires Forest Service to treat 7.5 million acres of federal land designated as ‘Forest Management Emphasis Areas’ within 15 years under an expedited environmental review process…. [and] promotes the use of private industry to help the Forest Service to thin our forests by enhancing existing forest stewardship contracting law.” 

It has already been proven that the current budgeting model is broken, when 8 of the last 10 wildfire budgets have exceeded the 10-year average.  Planning the Forest Service budget solely on this model sets forestry management up for more fire fighting borrowing.  While the timber industry, forest stewardship and other management practices are an important piece of reducing wildfire risk and creating climate resilient forests, forecasting the severity and cost of each forest fire season is virtually impossible, as Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell pointed out during the hearing.  While improvements in modeling can address this partially, an increase in the length of the wildfire season due to a changing climate, an increasing number of homes in the urban-wild interface, and delayed forestry management make it even more difficult to predict with accuracy the amount of money that will be needed to address wildfires each year.  Conversely, the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act would free up precious dollars at the Forest Service to do what it is already well-equipped to do -- manage forests through thinning, controlled burns, public-private forestry partnerships and other stewardship practices.  As Senator Udall pointed out, the current mode of funding has crippled the Forest Service’s ability to do its job – and fighting wildfires is not the only job of the Forest Service.  

For more information see: 

Wildfire Preparedness & Forest Service 2015 Fiscal Year Budget, U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Treating wildfires like other natural disasters, The Denver Post 

Obama Seeks 615 million to fight wildfires, The Hill

GOP Senators introduce bill to boost wildfire funding, The Hill

Senators McCain, Barasso and Flake Introduce Legislation to Fully Fund Wildfire Supression and Boost Proactive Forest Management, Senator McCain