WASHINGTON (July 9, 2008) - The U.S. House of Representatives today passed new legislation designed to help the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior address the escalating cost of suppressing wildfires. It thereby promises to relieve the damage done to other vital programs and services when the agencies pull money away from them to fight fires. By a unanimous voice vote, the House approved the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement (FLAME) Act - HR 5541 - which provides a stand-alone source of funding for those truly emergency fires.
"The FLAME Act's passage is an important first step toward addressing the growing financial crisis of suppressing wildfires and managing our national forests and other public lands," said Cecilia Clavet, a national forest program associate with The Wilderness Society (TWS).
The cost of suppressing fires has grown enormously in recent years and projections indicate that this trend will only increase as a result of climate change and increasingly populated wooded areas. For example, the Forest Service has spent over $1 billion per year in five of the last seven years to extinguish fires. Wildland fire management activities (the largest component of which is suppression) rose from 13 percent of the agency's budget in fiscal year 1991 to a staggering 48 percent projected for fiscal year 2009.
Clavet commended the FLAME Act's key sponsors: House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-WV), Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Chairman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), and Subcommittee on Interior Appropriations Chairman Norm Dicks (D-WA). The bill has received broad, bipartisan support from 56 members of Congress. H.R. 5541 was endorsed by the five former Chiefs of the Forest Service, the National Association of State Foresters, the National Association of Counties, the National Federation of Federal Employees, the Western Governor's Association, and nearly 40 other conservation and community-based forestry organizations.
"With longer fire seasons on the horizon, we cannot continue to bankrupt the agencies every year at the expense of protecting and promoting the values all Americans have come to expect from their public lands," added TWS wildfire program coordinator, Tom Fry. He cited campground maintenance, land acquisition and watershed restoration as examples of the kinds of services that currently suffer from the booming costs of wildfire suppression.
The act has two key provisions. The first provides fire suppression funding relief. The second requires the agencies to develop a cohesive strategy for managing wildland fire. Elements of that strategy include systems to ensure agencies are assessing risks to communities, prioritizing hazardous fuel reduction treatments accordingly, and providing the appropriate management response to all fire starts.
As the bill makes its way to the Senate, The Wilderness Society will work toward improving the bill to reduce the funding constraints on the Forest Service budget.
"While this act promises funding reform, it is not a panacea," Fry said. "With relief comes responsibility - the responsibility of Congress to provide the necessary funding to fulfill the intent of the act and the responsibility of the agencies to spend taxpayer money in the most efficient and effective manner possible."
