On Thursday, Robin M. Nazzaro, Director of the Government Accounting Offices’ Natural Resources and Environment section, testified before the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, Committee on Appropriations. The entire text, badly titled Actions by Federal Agencies and Congress Could Mitigate Rising Fire Costs and Their Effects on Other Agency Programs is HERE, but below is a summary from the document:
As GAO has reported, there are several steps the agencies could take, and actions Congress could consider, that could mitigate the rising costs of wildland fire management and its effect on the agencies’ other programs.
- Although the agencies have, among other actions, improved decision-support tools for helping officials select appropriate strategies for fighting individual wildland fires, the agencies continue to lack both an agencywide strategy for containing fire suppression costs and a broader long-term wildland fire management strategy that identifies options, along with associated funding, for reducing excess vegetation and responding to fires—what GAO has termed a cohesive strategy.
- The agencies could develop a better method of estimating the suppression funds requested, as GAO recommended in 2004. Better estimates in a given year could reduce the likelihood that the agencies would need to transfer funds from other accounts, yet the agencies continue to use an estimation method with known problems. The Forest Service told GAO it analyzed alternative methods for estimating needed suppression funds but determined that no better method was available. Because the agencies had to transfer funds in each of the last 3 years, however, a more accurate method for estimating suppression costs may still be needed.
- In addition, Congress may wish to consider establishing a reserve account to fund emergency wildland firefighting, which could reduce the need for the agencies to transfer funds. The advantages and disadvantages of several alternative funding approaches were discussed in GAO’s 2004 report. Congress considered at least two bills in 2008 proposing establishment of a reserve account, but neither bill passed. One of those bills was reintroduced in March 2009.
