Resilient Forest Act Hovering In Senate As Western States Scorched

At least 8.8 million acres of forest have burned this year, and U.S. Forest Service emergency fire spending is at $700 million and counting. President Barack Obama called on Congress recently to address the Forest Service’s exhaustive “fire borrowing,” the transfer of funds from operating budget to emergency fire spending. In August, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the Forest Service was now spending more than half of its budget on fire suppression for the first time in its 110-year history. The Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2015, authored by U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Hot Springs, and passed by the House this summer, is expected to be discussed by the Senate Agriculture Committee in the coming days to address the Forest Service’s rising costs for fighting wildfires. While climate change is viewed as a culprit for the wildfires raging in the west and northwestern states, Westerman also points to a lack of forest management as having created larger wildfires. With no logging allowed in many places, excessive undergrowth has created more devastating “crown fires” that rise to the top of the trees and spread more easily by embers in the wind. “Scientific thinning prevents forest fires,” Westerman said on the House floor Thursday. “We must change the way wildfire response is paid for, but we must also focus on prevention. At a time when the western United States is seeing catastrophic wildfires, it is clear that failed policies and bureaucrats in Washington are the problem.”...more