New government
report criticizes current wildfire suppression budget practices
Washington, DC – U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Larry Craig (R-ID) and several colleagues today released a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) report blasting current wildfire suppression budget practices. The report, commissioned by Wyden, Craig and other members of Congress, identifies problems created by the practice of transferring funding from one project to another within agencies when those agencies have insufficient budgets for fighting wildfires. For the last two years, Federal agencies charged with preventing wildfires have been forced to borrow funds from other, unrelated projects to pay for firefighting. This shell game leaves vital fire prevention projects – such as hazardous fuels reduction and watershed restoration - underfunded and undone, which contributes to continuing fire dangers. The GAO report, titled WILDFIRE
SUPPRESSION: Funding Transfers Cause Project Cancellations, Strained Relationships,
and Management Disruptions, states (in part): Wyden and Craig have consistently sought to sufficiently fund both wildfire prevention and suppression efforts. “Year in and year out, we
fight for adequate resources for fighting and preventing wildfires; year
in and year out, those resources are cut out of the budget,” Wyden
said. “This report makes clear, in terms no one can misunderstand,
that the cost of business as usual is far too high and that we must truly
and fully fund both wildfire prevention and suppression efforts.” The report cites that neither the Forest Service nor the Department of the Interior have adequate data or tracking mechanisms for the effect of continued interagency borrowing for fire fighting. It also recommends setting aside off-budget funding specifically for emergency purposes, either in agency-specific accounts or in a government-wide account. Wyden and Craig, along with U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and U.S. Representatives Charles Taylor (R-NC) and Norm Dicks (D-WA), requested the report from the GAO, which is a nonpartisan and independent investigative arm of Congress. The full report will be available at http://www.gao.gov tomorrow.
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