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Wyden calls for full wildfire prevention funding for Healthy Forests
Restoration Act
Wyden amended the budget in March to
fully fund the law, but Budget conference committee may now be
poised to cut $343 million
May 7, 2004
Washington, D.C. – Speaking
from the floor of the U.S. Senate today, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden
called on the House-Senate Budget conference committee to fully
fund hazardous fuels reduction projects under the Healthy Forests
Restoration Act (HFRA). Wyden successfully spearheaded a $343
million budget amendment in March to fully fund the law, but rumors
circulating on Capitol Hill suggest that the Budget conference
committee plans to eliminate this funding, even though it received
unanimous approval in the Senate.
“With an above-average
fire risk in parts of Oregon this year and fires already scorching
parts of the West, now is not the time to scrimp on the wildfire
prevention budget,” Wyden said. “It’s disturbing
that there is even talk of cutting funding for wildfire prevention.”
Wyden’s amendment increased
the Budget Authority for hazardous fuels projects and the Healthy
Forests Restoration Act by $343 million to reach the $760 million
authorization of Title I in HFRA. Prior to Wyden’s amendment,
the Administration’s proposed budget slashed funds from
other vital Forest Service programs and moved those dollar amounts
into HFRA without providing real new funds for the law.
# # #
NOTE: The complete text of Wyden’s
prepared remarks follows:
Floor Statement on funding the
Healthy Forests Restoration Act Budget Amendment
May 7, 2004
M. President, I come to the
floor today to comment on some distressing news I have heard.
It appears that the Healthy Forests Restoration Act Budget Amendment,
which I offered with Senators Johnson, Feinstein, Daschle, Bingaman,
and Dorgan, and which the Senate accepted UNANIMOUSLY by voice
vote, will NOT make it out of the conference with the House of
Representatives.
Let me review for you what Senate
Amendment 2717 would do. This amendment increased the budget authority
to boost investments in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act to
benefit national forests, the environment, local communities and
local economies. The amendment would add $343 million to last
year’s $417 million enacted level for hazardous fuels reduction
to reach the $760 million authorization in Title I of Healthy
Forests. The amendment had an offset: a very small across the
board cut in Function 920 of administrative costs. Let me note
that a virtually identical amendment, which I also sponsored,
was adopted in last year’s Budget Resolution and was also
kicked out in that Conference.
Now, my colleagues may get tired
of me coming to the floor to talk about the need to adequately
fund hazardous fuels reduction projects - in the Budget, in Appropriations,
in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act and anywhere else that
asking for funding would be appropriate.
But for every member of Congress
who finds it onerous to deal with this subject year in and year
out there are thousands, literally thousands, of people who have
to deal with chores that are far worse. Every year that hazardous
fuels projects go under funded or unfunded is a year that with
little to no warning, thousands of people in fire-prone communities
must toss everything they can fit into their cars and flee from
their homes without knowing if anything will remain when they
return. The Forest Service’s inability to do all the hazardous
fuels reduction projects that need to get done leads to real-life
danger on the ground, in people’s backyards, in their recreation
areas, and in the places they gather as communities.
Two years ago, in July, 2002,
the AP reported that 17,000 people faced evacuation in Oregon.
I want to read a bit of their report to you: “Firefighters
went door-to-door deciding which homes they could save [in Cave
Junction, Oregon] as an explosive 68,000 acre wildfire nearby
fed off heat, wind and timber.” Those folks were evacuated,
and a month later they were still evacuated, and another article
from the Medford Mail Tribune noted the very personal nature of
this disruption. It said the Josephine County Sheriff’s
office was beginning to reunite an estimated 400 evacuated animals
including livestock and family pets with evacuated owners.
The AP reported just yesterday
that an early fire season is expected in Eastern Oregon.
Also from the San Francisco
Chronicle just yesterday: “California's fire season, off
to an ominously early start, could be exacerbated by increasing
numbers of dead trees, frozen funding for fuel- reduction projects
and the implacable expansion of the suburbs into wildlands. Federal
officials moved Wednesday to address one of those concerns, freeing
$240 million for removal of dead trees in San Diego, San Bernardino
and Riverside counties, after Sen. Dianne Feinstein complained
about restrictions on the funds. Still, state and national officials
say the trend in recent years of extremely destructive wildfires
in California and throughout the West is likely to continue this
season. “
From the CBS / Associated Press
story entitled: Early Start For Calif. Fires dateline CORONA,
Calif., May 5, 2004: “As acrid smoke from more than 18,000
acres of charred brush curled skyward, California officials feared
the earlier-than-usual start of the summer wildfires season could
make it the most dangerous ever. Just months after the most devastating
wildfires in state history … thousands of acres from San
Diego to Santa Barbara are ablaze. Thousands of firefighters are
on the line, and once again residents are fleeing advancing flames.”
From a story of the same day
by the Associated Press “It’s like gasoline”:
“More than 1,000 people were evacuated in the northeastern
Lake Elsinore area as the Cerrito Fire was whipped up by winds.”
And from the Tuesday LA Daily News: “It was the explosive
end to the state's worst fire season, from which the region still
hasn't recovered. And this year, authorities say, could be worse.
Much, much worse. "It's been hot and dry early this year.
... We are gearing up for what could be a long, difficult season,"
state Fire Chief Jim Wright said last week upon declaring the
opening of fire season in three Southern California counties three
weeks earlier than usual.”
To those thousands of folks
across the country, Congress’ bickering and delaying on
fully funding forest projects isn’t theoretical. It isn’t
a policy discussion. It is a danger to their families and affects
how they live their lives each day.
By working in a bipartisan manner
after more than 25 years Congress passed a landmark piece of wildfire
legislation, signed into law by the President on December 3, 2003,
that will protect communities from catastrophic forest fires,
preserve old growth forests, restore unhealthy forests, and protect
public involvement. My Senate colleagues and I were able to get
the U.S. Senate to pass a balanced compromise on healthy forests
legislation that authorizes $760 million annually for hazardous
fuels reduction projects AND get a Budget amendment that would
have provided the funding room necessary for this land mark legislation.
But without the help our budget
amendment provides, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act may not
begin to live up to the expectations or even the needs of folks
in places like Cave Junction, Oregon or Corona, CA. The amendment
on the Budget Resolution would have taken us a step closer to
fulfilling those folks’ vision of this law – and they
deserve something approximating an adequate response from the
Federal government, starting now.
This body agreed that hazardous
fuels reduction projects, the National Fire Plan, and the Healthy
Forests Restoration Act should be given complete support. I was
hopeful that the Budget Conferees would see the importance of
keeping intact the unanimously accepted Senate position. Perhaps
my faith in the process was misplaced, but it’s not important
if I’m disappointed again. What matters is that Oregonians’
faith and other Americans’ faith is being eroded. How can
they possibly believe, after several years of this, that Congress
really intends to save their homes and safeguard their lives?
When they have to evacuate again this year and next year, families
in fire-prone areas will know that despite some bi-partisan work
on forest policy, political barriers continue to block the money
needed for preventative hazardous fuels reduction forest treatments.
That should shame us as much as it disappoints and disheartens
them – even more.
M. President, I yield the floor.
