Debt/shutdown deal has $636 million in money for wildfire operations

Legislation that President Barack Obama signed into law early Thursday didn't just end the 16-day-old partial government shutdown and keep the country from potentially defaulting on its $17 trillion debt. It also paid back $636 million to the U.S. Forest Service and the Interior Department -- the combined amount they transferred from other accounts in their budgets to battle wildfires in the 2012-2013 season. The lion's share -- $600 million -- would go to the Forest Service, which transferred an equivalent amount from other accounts to its fire-suppression account in August to make it through the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. The Interior Department, which transferred $36 million, oversees the U.S. Park Service and Bureau of Land Management...more