While testifying during a June 11, 2019 hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jon Stewart (at lower left) turns away for a second from the empty Senators’ chairs to look at the first responders in the audience. Screen grab from CNN video. Click to enlarge.
Since at least 2010 Jon Stewart, formerly of the Daily Show, has been striving to get Congress to provide adequate health care for the firefighters and other first responders that fought the fires and assisted victims after the World Trade Center towers were attacked by terrorists in 2001.
This morning he appeared again before the Senate Judiciary Committee to encourage Senators to approve the bill that will be voted on tomorrow, June 12. Every few years the legislation that funds health care for the 9/11 first responders suffering from cancer and other diseases expires, and the fight to do the right thing must be reintroduced and refought. The bill now pending will make health care for the 9/11 first responders permanent.
You will see in the video how strongly Mr. Stewart feels about this issue.
Here are some quotes from Mr. Stewart’s testimony:
This hearing should be flipped. These men and women should be up on that stage and Congress should be down here answering their questions as to why this is so damn hard and takes so damn long.
Setting aside, no American should face financial ruin because of a health issue.
Certainly 9/11 first responders shouldn’t have to decide whether to live or to have a place to live.
They responded in 5 seconds. They did their job with courage, grace, tenacity, humility — 18 years later, DO YOURS.
Below is an excerpt from an article at The Sun, published September 11, 2018:
In the following days [after the attacks on 9/11], people from every state – and almost every single district – of America helped at Ground Zero – rescuing casualties, digging up bodies, cleaning up and rebuilding.
Now they are paying a high price for their selflessness – while most of the world remains oblivious to their suffering.
Over 2,000 first responders – anyone who helped out at Ground Zero, including building workers, electricians, doctors and paramedics – have died from illnesses caused by breathing in the toxic fumes that engulfed the site in the weeks after the terror attack.
As thousands more currently battle 9/11-related diseases such as cancer or severe respiratory disease, shockingly, it’s predicted that by the end of this year the number of first responders who have died since the tragic event will overtake the number who died on the day…
Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen testified about the White House’s proposed budget for FY2020 on May 15, 2019.
A Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee, the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, held a hearing May 15 to receive testimony from Vicki Christiansen, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, about the administration’s proposed budget for next year, FY2020. In response to some of the questions related to recommended cuts by the White House, the Chief politely mentioned the fact that the administration ordered an overall five percent cut in the Forest Service budget.
One of the first topics of discussion were the large reductions in two programs. This fiscal year the Volunteer Fire Assistance program was funded at $11 million and State Fire Assistance program at $66 million. These programs provide assistance to states and local fire departments for wildland fire prevention, detection, and suppression. In Fiscal Year 2019, the programs were funded at $17 million and $81 million respectively.
I made two of the three clips below to highlight the sections when the committee was discussing fire-related issues. In the first one Chief Christiansen is asked to defend the cuts in the Volunteer Fire Assistance and State Fire Assistance programs.
Today in a Senate Committee hearing Forest Service Chief Christiansen was asked to defend cuts to the Volunteer Fire Assistance State Fire Assistance programs https://t.co/Keufs1ETIu
In the next Clip Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico asks Forest Service Chief Christiansen if the proposed funding amounts for next fiscal year can help restore forests and reduce the need for fire suppression.
Today in a Senate Committee hearing Forest Service Chief Christiansen was asked if the funds proposed for the FS in FY20 can restore forests and reduce fire suppression. https://t.co/VnNntwOonO
At 56:30 in the video Washington Senator Maria Cantwell asked Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen about the $545 million that was appropriated for fuel management in the recent omnibus legislation but was not mentioned in the administration’s proposed budget for FY 2020 which begins October 1. The Senator asked for assurances that the funds would still be available and would be used for that purpose. The Chief would not commit to the funds still being available, saying, “We will use whatever resources are given to the agency”.
The Chief reminded the Senator that the White House directed the Forest Service to cut its overall budget by five percent.
Senator Cantwell also mentioned very briefly at 59:00 in the video the availability of CL-415 water scooping air tankers but the issue was not discussed. The Forest Service, even though funds are available and a vendor offered the aircraft at a greatly reduced rate this year in a meeting with Chief Christiansen and Fire Director Shawna Legarza (according to our sources), the agency does not plan to have any scoopers on exclusive use contracts for the second year in a row. Historically the FS does not hold scoopers in high esteem even though they are used extensively in Canada and Europe. The 2012 Rand Study, which the agency attempted to keep secret (and did so successfully for two years), recommended a heavy emphasis on water-scooping air tankers and fewer conventional air tankers, which would have been a monumental shift in the paradigm.
Senator Murkowski said (at 1:39:30 in the video) that during a hearing a year ago the committee was told that results from the Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness (AFUE) study would be released “soon”. The study, launched in 2012, is supposed to quantify the effectiveness of the various types of fixed and rotor wing aircraft when they are used on wildfires, in order to better justify the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the Forest Service on firefighting aircraft. In FY 2017 for example, the most recent year with exact numbers available, the agency spent over half a billion dollars on fire aviation; $507,000,000. If ever completed and the results implemented, the study could make it possible to answer the question: “What are the best mixes of aircraft to do any fire suppression job?” Data collected from this study and other sources would be used to inform decisions about the composition of the interagency wildland firefighting aircraft fleet — to use the best, most efficient tools for the job.
However, to date no detailed reports have been released from the AFUE.
The Senator asked about the results of the study, now entering its eighth year. The data is being collected by four “observation modules,” each comprised of three qualified firefighters and a dedicated aircraft, to collect ground and aerial data at wildfires throughout the nation during fire season. In addition to the 12 firefighters, 3 analysts/managers evaluate the data. Christine Schuldheisz, a spokesperson for the USFS, has said the annual cost of the project is approximately $1,300,000.
Chief Christiansen, referring to the lack of any detailed results being released, said, “I absolutely share your concern and your question….. I am low on patience as well, Senator. This is a complex and labor intensive endeavor.”
Senator Murkowski: “But should it really require seven years to get a report like this?”
Chief Christiansen: “To have enough, when you have to take these assessment teams and have to be on the fire scene and to get enough data to get what the trend line is, it does take some time.”
The Chief then referred to a very small amount of preliminary data that was released in a two-page document in March which in a vague manner referred to the probability of success of direct vs. indirect attack by aircraft. This was was reported by Fire Aviation April 8, 2019.
Senator Murkowski asked the Chief to have more details from the AFUE study when the Committee holds their annual fire outlook hearing in about a month.
Since after seven years the Forest Service has not released any significant data about the study, a person has to wonder what have they found that is so embarrassing, controversial, or perhaps critical of specific models of aircraft, retardant products, or vendors?
Some people think the Forest Service will never release the full results of the AFUE study.
The Committee might have to subpoena the data.
Later in the hearing (at 1:43:30) Colorado Senator Sen. Cory Gardner referred to the study, saying in his rapid-fire speaking style: “There is a technical term I want to use to describe the length of time it is taking to get that study done, and it is Bunk! I’m sorry, it’s just a bunch of Bunk that it has taken seven years to get this done. We fought a world war in four years, we built the Pentagon in 16 months, we can’t do a study in 2 years, 1 year, 3 years, 4 years, maybe 5 years? It has taken seven years to do this? In the meantime we have western states that have had significant and catastrophic fires. I understand it’s important to get the information right. But doggonnit, someone needs to get a fire lit underneath them to get something done on this study.”
New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich expressed concern that the Administration intends for both the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (part of the Forest Service) and the Land and Water Conservation Fund (under the Department of the Interior) to be unfunded beginning in October. Again, the Chief mentioned that the White House directed the Forest Service to cut its overall budget by five percent.
Referring to the fact that the “fire fix” has reduced the necessity for the Forest Service to borrow funds from unrelated accounts to pay for fire suppression, Senator Heinrich said, “We’re giving you the tools, you’re not using the tools we are giving you.”
Senator: “Making sure we have good policies in place doesn’t make a difference on the ground unless and until that culture is changed.”
Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen testified April 9, 2019 before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
In a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee today the only witness, Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen, was there to defend and answer questions about the administration’s proposed budget for the agency in the fiscal year that begins October 1, and to address any other topics introduced by the senators.
In this article we will cover the six and a half minute portion of the hearing in which harassment and an unhealthy working environment was discussed. And we have the reaction from Abby Bolt, a former Battalion Chief on the Sequoia National Forest in California, who sent an open letter to Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture, and Vicki Christiansen, Chief of the Forest Service, saying her resignation was effective immediately due to these issues.
In a separate article we will address other topics discussed in the hearing, including an overall five percent reduction in the Forest Service budget, defunding the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program and the Land and Water Conservation Fund, what happened to $545 million appropriated for fuel reduction, and the results from the Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness (AFUE) study.
After opening statements from Senator Lisa Murkowski, Senator Joe Manchin, and Chief Christiansen, the first two questions were about the article which was published on Wildfire Today 15 minutes before the hearing started that was about the Battalion Chief on the Sequoia National Forest, Abby Bolt, who resigned.
At 37:00 in the video, Senator Murkowski read passages from the article.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, Chair of the Committee
“The headline is, “Forest Service Battalion Chief resigns in open letter to the Secretary of Agriculture”.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, April 9, 2019 in a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing.
“It details that a woman who has been serving for 22 years in the U.S. Forest Service has resigned because in her words, she said Forest Service leaders have “failed to demonstrate moral courage by adhering to high ethical standards, and choosing the difficult right over the easy wrong helped me in determining my decision to resign.”
“You’ve indicated that things have changed within the Service. This is obviously a current event here, and so the question to you is why is this continuing to happen? Have the reforms that you have just briefly touched on [in your prepared statement] not yet been put in place? What is causing a continual deterioration within the workforce there?”
(From Bill: Chief Christiansen appeared to be prepared for the question and occasionally referred to notes as she responded.)
Chief Vicki Christiansen:
“Thank you Madam Chairman. I’m unable to speak directly about individual cases, and I assure you, things of the past we are looking at closely and we are learning and we are making corrections at every turn of the way. What we have done in the last year is I have set up a Work Environment and Performance Office with our most senior executives overseeing this work. This is a best practice in both private and government sectors. We are committed to results. It is a three-prong approach. First about accountability. Second is about prevention. Third is about a sustainable change in behavior and and agency culture.
“Many things we are doing. We are continuing to listen to our employees, we are revising our anti-harassment policy. We are holding supervisors accountable that do not report within a 24-hour period. We have increased our resources for followup and investigation, and we aggressively addressed many incidents of harassment with 23 removals, 5 demotions, 42 suspensions, and 166 other actions. We’ve added case managers and we’re working with OIG to identify and implement the best practices for measuring success, because all agencies really want to know what are the true measurements of success.
“In the prevention, we have instituted a no alcohol in any Forest Service seasonal housing starting this field season. We’ve increased our conflict management and prevention center resources, and we are delivering bistandard intervention training. When our employees spoke to us they said we need better skills in how we speak up early in when someone feels offended or when they feel there is inappropriate behavior. And we are improving organizational behavior and culture by having an ethic to stop the silence. If we can’t talk about it then we can’t fix it. And we are asking folks to be empowered to listen and learn and have incorporated employee advisory groups at the national level and across the service.
“We’ve incorporated our first ever code of conduct and agency core values. This is in every supervisor’s performance standards, and they will be held accountable in how we are reshaping the culture of the Forest Service.”
Senator Murkowski:
“Well Chief I appreciate what you have detailed. I am concerned, though, that even given the many steps that is is clear that you have put in place, when you have a 22-year veteran, someone who has achieved a position as Battalion Chief, when you have someone like that saying enough is not being done we still have a failure within your system. We still have a level of harassment or assault that clearly is not acceptable. So I would do more than urge you, as a Chairman of a Committee and as an American, I would tell you making sure we have good policies in place doesn’t make a difference on the ground unless and until that culture is changed. And I don’t want to pin everything just on one story that has appeared today but I think you know that internally the agency remains troubled. So put the policies in place as you are, but when you say there is accountability there has to be strict accountability because you can’t continue to have these levels of wrongdoing within our agency.”
Chief Christiansen:
“We have more to do Senators and I am absolutely committed with urgency.”
After Abby Bolt, the Battalion Chief who resigned, saw a video of the hearing, we asked for her reaction. She wrote:
“I was not aware of the hearing that was scheduled for today until after the Wildfire Today article. As I watched the senator quote my letter it brought tears to my eyes knowing that people at all levels across the nation are truly listening. When I heard Chief Christiansen respond I was overcome with a deep pain in my heart. I have been reaching out to her since she became Chief, offering solutions for our agency including a strong social media effort to inspire and motivate all federal employees to improve their work environment. I actively requested, formally and informally, to not be forced to remain in a proven hostile work environment as I worked through the processes in place meant to deal with harassment and discrimination. Nothing was ever done to improve my toxic work environment and I strongly feel Chief Christiansen could have made a difference. The administrative harassment only continued.
“Since speaking to the media last year and revealing an assault that happened on a fire assignment in more than one interview, no one from my agency officially reached out to me in any way, not even to ensure they weren’t liable or to find out how to prevent anything in the future. They did not seem to care or be interested in learning from the incident. I was worried that a landslide of inquiries would be required and prepared myself for the stress. However, I felt zero support just as I feared I would back when it happened which drove me to push forward in silence. The administrative harassment only continued. Vicki was aware of everything, yet she did nothing, at least not that I was made aware of.”
In a hearing Tuesday morning about the Forest Service budget for FY 2019 before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Senators asked the interim Chief of the Forest Service, Vicki Christiansen, about the reduction in the number of large air tankers on exclusive use contracts and the agency’s plans to rely on call when needed aircraft to fill the void.
Ms. Vicki Christiansen, Interim Chief, U.S. Forest Service, testifies April 24, 2018.
Lisa Murkowski (AK), Chair of the committee, mentioned the issue during her opening remarks. Senators Maria Cantwell (WA) and Cory Gardner (CO) asked questions about what could be a shortage of air tankers, with most of the discussion centering around call when needed vendors. The Senators appeared to be concerned about the higher daily and hourly costs of CWN aircraft, and referred to the 48-hour time frame for them to mobilize after notification.
Ms. Christiansen tried two or three times to explain how activating CWN air tankers works and how the USFS makes decisions about when to bring them on board. Her descriptions were rambling as she talked about predictive services, but it was a little too ambiguous for some of the senators who asked for clarification.
Senator Gardner mentioned that this year there are 13 exclusive use large air tankers compared to 20 last year, and talked about how call when needed aircraft are more expensive than exclusive use aircraft. He said, “What is the rationale for that again?”
Ms. Christiansen: “Senator, we really look hard and do our analysis on the right balance between the exclusive use which is for an extended period of time and the call when needed. We take this very seriously and we will evaluate each year and adjust for the balance of these contracts. These next generation aircraft are more expensive than the legacy aircraft we had operated for the last two decades. So we have to be fiscally prudent and responsible in finding that right balance. We are confident that we have the aircraft we need when we need it through the combination of exclusive use, the call when needed, the military MAFFS, and then when we can call our partners down from Alaska and Canada.”
Senator Gardner continued: “Do you think you’re providing industry with enough certainty, private industry with enough certainty, to replace some of the contracts in the past that were coming out of the Forest Service in terms of the air tankers that were in use since the 2014 passage of the Defense Authorization Act?”
Ms. Christiansen: “Senator Gardner we are doing everything we can to be a good partner with the industry and exercise our fiscal responsibility.”
No one acknowledged the elephant in the room, the reason there are fewer air tankers. The budget that Congress approved and the President signed forced the reduction. Ms. Christiansen, a member of the administration, apparently feels that she has to be a good soldier and say, everything is fine, there’s nothing to see here: “We are confident that we have the aircraft we need”.
And the Senators don’t want to admit that they approved legislation which caused the number of EU air tankers to be cut by one-third. So they asked mild-mannered questions and didn’t follow up when the administration’s representative insisted that everything is going to be OK.
During a discussion about budget reductions on a different issue, Senator Joseph Manchin (WV) said, “Have you been able to push back on the administration, saying you can’t cut me this deep, I can’t do my job?”
Ms. Christiansen: “Senator, we have prioritized what we can do within these constraints…”
Senator Manchin: There’s a lot of us that will go out and …..”
Ms. Christiansen: “Our priority is on the National Forests, but I look forward to working with you on additional priorities.”
Meanwhile, John Hoven, the Senator from North Dakota, spent most of his allotted time presenting what was basically an infomercial about his state.
Near the end of the hearing Senator Maria Cantwell, the ranking member, asked Bryan Rice, the Department of Interior’s Director of the Office of Wildland Fire, about using devices that can track the location of firefighters in order to reduce their risk of entrapments.
Left to right: Bryan Rice and Senator Maria Cantwell.
The Senator said to Mr. Rice, “Don’t hold us back from getting solutions in the marketplace this summer if we can”.
You can see how this went down in the better version of the 6-minute video below. If the video does not play, here’s another source for it.
