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Former Daily Show host Jon Stewart shares his attempts to interview senators about the renewal of the Zadroga Act, which provides health care to 9/11 first responders.
Tag: legislation
One organization’s plea to fix the wildfire funding problem
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized2 Comments on One organization’s plea to fix the wildfire funding problem It is incredible that Congress has failed to adequately fund the suppression of wildfires, an issue they have ignored for years and has broad multi-party support.
Western Priorities posted this video today with the following description:
The U.S. Forest Service now spends more than half of its budget fighting wildfires. Unlike other natural disasters, Congress does not provide separate funding for the largest fires, forcing the Forest Service to delay or abandon forest management that could reduce or prevent fires in the future.
This cycle of neglect must stop now. We call on leaders in the House and Senate to pass a wildfire funding fix as part of the omnibus budget negotiations this month, so wildfire funding is secure for the 2016 fire season.
Senate committee to seek input about wildfire funding from animal and water organizations
The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry will hold a hearing at 10 a.m. ET, November 5 to hear expert testimony about the impact of the federal wildfire budget on natural resources. The list of people who will provide advice to the committee primarily includes individuals from organizations involved with animals and water.
- Dan Dessecker, Director of Conservation Policy, Ruffed Grouse Society/American Woodcock Society, Rice Lake, Wis.
- William R. Dougan, National President, National Federation of Federal Employees, Washington, D.C.
- Ken Stewart, Chair, Board of Trustees, American Forest Foundation, Marietta, Ga.
- Chris Treese, Manager, External Affairs Department, Colorado River Water Conservation District (Colorado River District), Glenwood Springs, Colo.
- Chris Wood, President & CEO, Trout Unlimited, Arlington, Va.
The hearing will take place in room 328A in the Russell Senate Office Building in D.C. It will be televised; more information is available at the committee’s web site.
Effects of increasing fire suppression costs on USFS programs
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized1 Comment on Effects of increasing fire suppression costs on USFS programs 
The U.S. Forest Service has released a report that addresses the effects of the rapidly increasing costs of suppressing wildfires. Below is an excerpt:
…This report documents the growth over the past 20 years of the portion of the Forest Service’s budget that is dedicated to fire, and the debilitating impact those rising costs are having on the recreation, restoration, planning, and other activities of the Forest Service.
In 1995, fire made up 16 percent of the Forest Service’s annual appropriated budget—this year, for the first time, more than 50 percent of the Forest Service’s annual budget will be dedicated to wildfire.
Along with this shift in resources, there has also been a corresponding shift in staff, with a 39 percent reduction in all non-fire personnel. Left unchecked, the share of the budget devoted to fire in 2025 could exceed 67 percent, equating to reductions of nearly $700 million from non-fire programs compared to today’s funding levels. That means that in just 10 years, two out of every three dollars the Forest Service gets from Congress as part of its appropriated budget will be spent on fire programs.
As more and more of the agency’s resources are spent each year to provide the firefighters, aircraft, and other assets necessary to protect lives, property, and natural resources from catastrophic wildfires, fewer and fewer funds and resources are available to support other agency work—including the very programs and restoration projects that reduce the fire threat.
The depletion of non-fire programs to pay for the ever-increasing costs of fire has real implications, not only for the Forest Service’s restoration work that would help prevent catastrophic fires, but also for the protection of watersheds and cultural resources, upkeep of programs and infrastructure that support thousands of recreation jobs and billions of dollars of economic growth in rural communities, and support for the range of multiple uses, benefits and ecosystem services, as well as research, technical assistance, and other programs that deliver value to the American public…
Legislation that would pay for wildfire suppression like other natural disasters are funded has been talked about in Washington for years but Congress has not been motivated to address the issue.
(The graphics are from the USFS report.)
Senate hearing in Seattle August 27 about wildland fire management
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized4 Comments on Senate hearing in Seattle August 27 about wildland fire management Below is the witness list for a field hearing that will be held before the Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Thursday, August 27, 2015 at 11:30 a.m. PDT in the Pigott Auditorium of Seattle University (located at Su Campus Walk). The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on opportunities to improve the organizational response of the Federal agencies in the management of wildland fires.
Some congressmen want to increase logging by suspending environmental laws
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized1 Comment on Some congressmen want to increase logging by suspending environmental laws 
The House of Representatives has passed another bill that would suspend some environmental laws so that more logging can occur in federal forests. Similar to one passed in the House in 2013, it would enhance fire prevention and restoration, according to the proponents of the legislation which has three supporters in the Senate who introduced it there.
Below are excerpts from an Op-Ed in the New York Times about this effort which failed two years ago.
…Just as they did in 2013, supporters of this legislation are using the public’s fear of forest fires to advance their agenda. They argue that overgrown and “unhealthy” forests raise the risk of wildfires, and that the government has been hampered by litigation and environmental reviews from allowing timber companies to thin forests to reduce the risk of fire.
The legislation is rooted in falsehoods and misconceptions.
Some of the bill’s supporters claim that environmental laws regulating commercial logging have led to more intense fires. But, as we saw in the 2013 fire near Yosemite, known as the Rim Fire and one of the largest in California history, commercial logging and the clear-cutting of forests do not reduce fire intensity.
In the case of the Rim Fire, our research found that protected forest areas with no history of logging burned least intensely. There was a similar pattern in other large fires in recent years. Logging removes the mature, thick-barked, fire-resistant trees. The small trees planted in their place and the debris left behind by loggers act as kindling; in effect, the logged areas become combustible tree plantations that are poor wildlife habitat.
The bill’s supporters also argue that increasing logging and clear-cutting will benefit wildlife. But decades of forest ecology research strongly link the logging of both unburned and burned forests to the declines of numerous wildlife species, most notably the imperiled spotted owl.
Recognizing these findings, some 250 scientists sent a letter to Congress in 2013 opposing a similar version of the current legislation. They predicted, correctly, that the Rim Fire would actually benefit many wildlife species and rejuvenate the forest ecosystem, provided that the burned expanses were not then cleared by loggers…
The bill is titled, H.R.2647 – Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2015. The status of it can be followed at Congress.gov. As this is written, it has passed the House and now is before the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
The Op-Ed was written by Chad T. Hanson, an ecologist with the John Muir Project, and Dominick A. DellaSala, the chief scientist at the Geos Institute. They are the editors of “The Ecological Importance of Mixed-Severity Fires: Nature’s Phoenix.”
