Border supplemental to include forest fighting request for USDA
July 08, 2014 | 01:29 PM
President Barack Obama’s emergency supplemental budget request for resources to deal with the increase in migration of Central American children at the Texas border will include a request for $615 million for the Agriculture Department’s U.S. Forest Service to suppress forest fires and to deal with the issue of long term financing of fighting forest fires, a White House official said in a call to reporters today.
The current financial system for fighting forest fires is “dysfunctional,” and the cost of fighting forest fires this year is already projected to exceed appropriated funds, which would require USDA to shift funds from wildfire treatment, protection and land management accounts, the White House official said.
This would result in a delay or suspension of key fire preparedness, forest maintenance, research, and other activities, undermining long-term land management and potentially increasing the risk of catastrophic wildfires in future years, the official added.
USDA has been shifting money from long-term suppression to fighting fires each year for several years. Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget called for a change in the system of financing fire fighting, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has repeatedly testified before Congress that shifting funds from suppression to firefighting makes the problem worse in the long run.
Obama is also asking that Congress enact a discretionary cap adjustment to change how wildlfire activities are funded in the future, the White House official said.
The proposal, which is the same one that was included in the president’s budget and is modeled on bipartisan proposals in both houses of the Congress, “would break the cycle of transferring from other priorities by budgeting for the most extreme fires just as we do for other natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes. It would do so in a fiscally responsible way that would not increase the total amount of discretionary resources available to spend,” the official said.
▪ President’s FY 2015 Budget — USDA: Wildland Fire Management and FLAME Wildfire Suppression Reserve Fund
▪ Senate Energy Committee — Wildfire Disaster Funding Act Summary
▪ U.S. Forest Service — Fire Transfer Impact by State
The current financial system for fighting forest fires is “dysfunctional,” and the cost of fighting forest fires this year is already projected to exceed appropriated funds, which would require USDA to shift funds from wildfire treatment, protection and land management accounts, the White House official said.
This would result in a delay or suspension of key fire preparedness, forest maintenance, research, and other activities, undermining long-term land management and potentially increasing the risk of catastrophic wildfires in future years, the official added.
USDA has been shifting money from long-term suppression to fighting fires each year for several years. Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget called for a change in the system of financing fire fighting, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has repeatedly testified before Congress that shifting funds from suppression to firefighting makes the problem worse in the long run.
Obama is also asking that Congress enact a discretionary cap adjustment to change how wildlfire activities are funded in the future, the White House official said.
The proposal, which is the same one that was included in the president’s budget and is modeled on bipartisan proposals in both houses of the Congress, “would break the cycle of transferring from other priorities by budgeting for the most extreme fires just as we do for other natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes. It would do so in a fiscally responsible way that would not increase the total amount of discretionary resources available to spend,” the official said.
▪ President’s FY 2015 Budget — USDA: Wildland Fire Management and FLAME Wildfire Suppression Reserve Fund
▪ Senate Energy Committee — Wildfire Disaster Funding Act Summary
▪ U.S. Forest Service — Fire Transfer Impact by State
