Forest Service 'borrowed' from panoply of programs since '02

Shortfalls in wildfire funding have hampered the Forest Service's ability to repair the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail, maintain grazing fences and protect bats from white-nose syndrome, but they've had relatively little effect on the agency's ability to thin hazardous trees that could fuel the next mega-fire, according to budget data obtained by Greenwire. The data reveal which programs suffered the most as a result of wildfire "borrowing" over the past 13 years and which are most at risk of future borrowing if Congress is unable to overhaul the agency's wildfire budget. But the data also seem to undercut a key talking point of the Obama administration, lawmakers and conservationists that wildfire borrowing has impeded the agency's ability to make forests less fire-prone. Since 2002, the Forest Service has transferred $3.2 billion from non-suppression accounts to help it combat wildfires, but only $10 million of that came from the wildland fire hazardous fuels program used to thin dense trees and brush from the forest, according to data. Over a dozen years, the agency has transferred to its wildfire program nearly half a billion dollars from the National Forest System, the account that funds everything from timber sales to invasive species control on 193 million acres of forests and grasslands, according to the data. It has also borrowed $382 million from an account to maintain recreation sites, roads and research facilities; $300 million from accounts to acquire new lands for wildlife and recreation; and more than $130 million from a program that provides technical and financial aid to private forest owners...more