Fire Budget
Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson continues to push for a broadly supported legislative fix to the broken wildfire suppression budget. Simpson’s Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, H.R. 167, is cosponsored by nearly 150 Members of Congress and supported by a coalition of over 300 organizations and would end the destructive cycle of fire borrowing and treat catastrophic wildfires like similar natural disasters. The Center for Western Priorities recently issued a report finding that H.R. 167, the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, is the most bipartisan and broadly supported natural resources bill currently before Congress.
“This brutal fire season has underscored the importance of changing the way we budget for wildfire suppression,” said Simpson. “To date nearly 9 million acres have burned, and the U.S. Forest Service has gone $700 million over budget. Common sense says that wildfires should be treated like every other natural disaster. That is reflected in the broad support this bill has both in Congress and from a wide range of organizations that understand the importance of this issue.”
Today the Forest Service spends over half of its budget and the majority of its time putting out fires instead of managing our nation’s public lands. Wildfire suppression funding is based on an historical average of suppression costs over the past ten years, but because these costs have been steadily rising over the past two decades, suppression is regularly underfunded. As a result, agencies must borrow from other accounts, including timber harvest, trail maintenance, and hazardous fuels removal, in order to fight fires. The Simpson bill ends the practice of fire borrowing and budgets for catastrophic wildfires similarly to hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters.
“Fire borrowing undercuts all our efforts to implement good land management policies, undermines the Forest Service’s ability to collaborate with states, local communities, and interested parties, and chips away at efforts to reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfires,” said Simpson. “When you think about the fact that the Forest Service has had to transfer around $700 million from other accounts during this fire year, you can see how it impacts the agency’s ability to carry out its mission. This is why the status quo is not acceptable. And this is why such a large coalition of Members of Congress, state and federal agencies, and interest groups are supporting my legislation to fix our broken wildfire suppression budget.”
