Washington, D.C. - Today, Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee Peter DeFazio (D-OR) blasted Republican leadership for wasting time on legislation to undermine the Endangered Species Act while neglecting to address the funding crisis facing federal agencies tasked with fighting wildfire disasters. The Forest Service anticipates it will run out of money to fight fires later next month, forcing the agency to raid funds designated for fire prevention to contain fires.
“In case the Republican leadership hasn’t noticed, the west is going up in flames. Yosemite is burning, but they have turned a blind eye to continue this political, partisan ESA sideshow. And the majority’s refusal to acknowledge the wildfire funding crisis means that in the next few weeks the Forest Service may run out of money to fight these fires-- as Congress is away on recess. We should have dropped this charade and done something real-fixed wildfire funding before our agencies run out of money. There is no excuse for inaction," said DeFazio. See his floor speech here.
DeFazio criticized Republicans for failing to sign a discharge petition that would force a vote on the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act-- bipartisan, bi-cameral legislation which is supported by the Administration and would provide immediate funding to fight wildfires and ensure that agencies can continue to perform other important activities including fire prevention and restoration. The Wildfire Disaster Funding Act currently has 104 co-sponsors, including 57 Republicans. If 22 of the 57 Republican co-sponsors had signed the petition, the legislation would have come up for a vote before the August work period. The petition has 196 Democratic signatures.
Instead, Republicans chose to ignore the wildfire funding crisis and waste one of the last legislative days before the August recess on legislation to undermine the Endangered Species Act. This legislation will die in the Senate.
WILDFIRE BACKGROUND
The Wildfire Disaster Funding Act (H.R. 3992), introduced by Reps. Mike Simpson (R-ID) and Kurt Schrader (D-OR) and co-sponsored by DeFazio, would end the cycle of fire-borrowing by treating catastrophic wildfires like similar major disasters such as floods and hurricanes. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) are the original sponsors of the Senate legislation (S. 1875).
Under the bill, routine wildland firefighting costs, which make up about 70% of the cost of wildfire suppression, would be funded through a normal budgeting process. The true emergency fire events, which represent about 1% of wildland fires but eat up 30% of the budgeted funds, would be treated like similar major natural disasters. An analysis released by House Natural Resource Democrats found that the Forest Service from 2008-2012 spent the most fighting the largest wildfires in California ($888 million), Arizona ($162 million) and Oregon ($148 million). The full analysis is here.
The proposal would immediately free up as much as $412 million, which could be used for a variety of programs to reduce fire risk and remove hazardous fuels.
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