110 Groups Urge Congress to Fix Wildfire Funding This Year

A large coalition of forestry, environmental, outdoor, hunting, and conservation groups are circulating a letter in support of wildfire funding in the FY2016 omnibus budget bill. The Partner Caucus on Fire Suppression Funding Solutions (of which EESI is a member) has been urging Congress to address wildfire funding since 2009.  Year after year, the wildfire budget issue worsens.  At the close of the 2015 wildfire season, more than 50 percent of the U.S. Forest Service budget had been used to fight wildfires over 9 million acres across the Western United States.

The Partner Caucus supports the bipartisan Wildfire Disaster Funding Act (WDFA) (S. 235, H.R. 167), which would create a separate emergency disaster fund for wildfires, to be administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  This fund would address the very worst 1 percent of wildfires. WDFA has broad bipartisan support and is also supported by the White House.  Proponents say it would free up the Forest Service to do its job – manage forests.

According to the Partner Caucus, a solution to the funding issue should “1) allow access to disaster funding; 2) eliminate the negative impacts of transfers; and 3) address the increasing costs of suppression over time.”

Currently, there are 144 cosponsors of WDFA in the House, and 20 in the Senate. In the House, the Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2015 (H.R. 2467), has passed along party lines, and is awaiting consideration by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. H.R. 2467 would block fire borrowing unless the Forest Service exceeded projected outlays, but would allow the Forest Service to more expeditiously timber federal lands.

Supporters of H.R. 2467, including the timber industry and a political coalition consisting primarily of Republicans, claim increased timbering in forests will make them less susceptible to forest fire. In a statement of administrative policy, the White House sharply opposed the bill, stating that it would "undermine collaborative forest restoration, environmental safeguards, and public participation."

Too add your organization to the letter, visit here.  

For more information:

The Partner Caucus on Fire Suppression Funding Solutions