legislation Archives - Page 17 of 25

Wildfire briefing, February 22, 2014

Bill GabbertFebruary 22, 2014February 22, 2014Uncategorizedcattle, history, legislation2 Comments

President Obama to meet with western governors about wildfire funding

On Monday President Obama will meet with the governors of some western states to discuss a change he is proposing in next year’s budget about how wildfires are funded. A busy and expensive wildfire season means the federal land management agencies have to rob dollars from routine ongoing non-fire activities to pay unusually high fire suppression expenses. And these busy and expensive fire seasons seem to be occurring with more regularity in recent years. The budget proposal for fiscal year 2015 would be similar to a bill introduced in the House, the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act of 2014 (H.R. 3992), which would create an emergency funding process for fire response. The funding mechanism would be structured along the same lines as procedures for paying for other natural disasters like floods and hurricanes.

Wildfires challenged early pioneers

The Santa Fe New Mexican has an interesting article by Marc Simmons about how early settlers had to occasionally deal with prairie fires as they traveled by horseback and wagon train across New Mexico and west Texas. Below is an excerpt:

…On another trip [in the 1830s, Josiah] Gregg’s caravan was chased by an approaching prairie fire, and it escaped just in time by reaching a bare stretch of country, devoid of grass. “These conflagrations,” he wrote, “are enough to inspire terror and daunt the stoutest heart.”

Capt. Randolph B. Marcy, leading a military expedition across the Southwest in the 1850s, had an experience similar to Gregg’s. One of his soldiers carelessly caught the grass on fire, threatening the supply wagons. He declared that only the most strenuous efforts by his 200 men in setting counter fires around the train saved the expedition from disaster.

Great danger, he said, came from troops throwing a lighted match or ashes from a pipe into the grass while marching. Matches were just then coming into general use, so that was a new problem.

When a prairie fire struck, various steps could be taken in the emergency. Marcy mentioned one, setting a counter or back fire. The hope was when the two fires met, the progress of both would be checked and they would die out.

However, we question something the author identified as one of the causes of fires that threatened travelers:

…But the sun could be blamed on occasion, when its refracted light on a piece of broken glass or bit of metal cast off by a wagon train set the grass ablaze.

It is very unusual for glass, broken or otherwise, to start a fire. But if a bottle contains water, in very rare circumstances it can act like a lens and concentrate sunlight, similar to a magnifying glass. We have never heard of an ordinary piece of metal causing a fire.

Utah’s “firefighting cows”

In recent years ranchers and state lawmakers in Utah have argued with the federal government over water rights on federal land that is used by cattle ranchers. In order to bolster their case, some of the ranchers point out that the animals reduce vegetation — and the threat from fires.

Below is an excerpt from the Deseret News:

Utah is a “livestock state” that recognizes the benefits that cattle confer on pubic lands, including keeping vegetative overgrowth at bay and thus reducing wildfire threats, said Sterling Brown of the Utah Farm Bureau.

“Cattle are one way to properly manage public lands,” he said. “We have deemed much of our livestock as firefighting cows because they have helped reduce fires out there.”

House introduces fire funding solution bill

Bill GabbertFebruary 19, 2014February 22, 2014Uncategorizedlegislation

The Nature Conservancy and other organizations are supporting a bill that has been introduced in Congress that should mitigate the funding problems caused when the costs of suppressing wildfires exceed the budgets of the federal land management agencies. Below is a statement issued by the groups:

A broad coalition of conservation, timber, tribal, recreation, sportsmen and employer groups praised Representatives Simpson (R-ID) and Schrader (D-OR) for introducing the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act of 2014 (H.R. 3992) that would create an emergency funding process for fire response. This funding structure is similar to existing federal funding mechanisms for response to other natural disasters, and would prevent “borrowing” from other USDA Forest Service (USFS) and Department of the Interior (DOI) programs. Since 2000 these agencies have run out of money to fight emergency fires eight times.

This bill ensures funding for both wildfire first responders and for land managers who care for public forests and streams. It is the House companion of the Senate bill, S. 1875, which was introduced at the end of 2013 by Senators Wyden (D-OR) and Crapo (R-ID) and continues to gain bipartisan co-sponsorship.

When the USFS and DOI wildfire suppression expenses exceed 70% of the 10-year average, this Bill provides funding from “off budget” sources in a structure similar to how the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) pays for other natural disaster responses. This would significantly minimize the need to transfer funds from non-suppression accounts when suppression funds are depleted. For years, the practice of transferring high suppression costs has negatively impacted agencies’ ability to implement forest management activities.

This additional funding would provide outside the normal discretionary appropriations process, and could potentially make these “savings” available for forest treatments that help to reduce fire risk and costs, such as Hazardous Fuels removal.

As this was written, the bill has been introduced in the House and referred to two subcommittees, Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, and Conservation, Energy, and Forestry.

The progress of the bill can be tracked at OpenCongress.org.

Thanks and a hat tip go out to Matt

Colorado’s wildfire problem

Bill GabbertJanuary 27, 2014August 25, 2019UncategorizedColorado, legislation9 Comments

Waldo Canyon Fire, June 26, 2012, the day hundreds of homes burned in Colorado Springs. Credit: Keystoneridin

Colorado has become a focal point for wildfire. Last year the Black Forest Fire destroyed 486 homes and killed two people near Colorado Springs. The year before on the opposite side of the city, the Waldo Canyon fire burned 347 homes and also killed two people. Since 2000, 1,769 homes have been destroyed by wildfires in the state and 8 residents and 12 firefighters have died.

Yet, in spite of their recent history, Colorado has a primitive and disorganized system for preventing, mitigating, responding to and suppressing wildfires. Some politicians, including state senators Steve King and Ellen Roberts, have been active in attempting to fix some of the problems by speaking out and introducing legislation. Senator King has gone over the top at least once in a rant about how “absentee landowners” are managing federal lands, but he has also recently proposed legislation that would provide funds for firefighting helicopters and an air tanker.

Senator Roberts, who was a park ranger in Rocky Mountain National Park for four years after graduating from Cornell University with a degree in environmental policy, has also introduced legislation related to wildland fire. One bill would create an information and resource center, while the other concerns the payment of death benefits for seasonal wildland firefighters killed in the line of duty.

None of these proposals, which may or may not become reality, will fix Colorado’s primitive approach to wildfire — their inability to attack new fires with prompt, overwhelming force has to be addressed — but at least some leaders in the state are beginning to take small, positive steps.

On January 4 Senator Roberts published the following on her website:

****

“Colorado’s Future is Burning as We Fiddle

Legislative session 2014 is less than two weeks away and it’ll be an interesting time in the Colorado Senate. The recalls and resignation of 3 Democratic senators since we adjourned in May mean a nearly 10% turnover in a nonelection year. Election season 2014 looms on the horizon, too, so we’ll have quite the mix of personalities, issues and politics this session.

Yet, no matter the upheavals and distractions, we must focus on the threat, no, make that the promise, of continued catastrophic wildfires and the concentrated effort needed to improve forest health, statewide. This may be assisted partly by legislation, but much more needs to be done outside that avenue.

What I know I won’t be supporting is the governor’s recent suggestion, as reported in the Durango Herald, that we rely on farmers and ranchers as our first line of defense in fighting wildfires. This may have been an off-the-cuff idea expressed by the governor, but, when I read it, I wondered whether to laugh or cry.

Fighting catastrophic wildfires is not like extinguishing a ringed campfire. We need professional wildfire fighters, assisted by local structure firefighters, law enforcement and other first responders. Facing a wildfire bearing down on them, farmers and ranchers are rightly preoccupied with moving livestock and protecting family and other precious assets. The suggestion that relying on the country cousins to save burning metropolitan suburbs, like Colorado Springs and Fort Collins, should also be distressing to residents of the Front Range.

We may not be able to fund a state-owned air fleet right away, but we must have a reliable emergency radio communications system and a steady, reliable supply of single engine air tankers, larger capacity planes and nimble, speedy helicopter operations. We can at least forcefully advance a western states’ regional air fleet that moves with the shifting fire dangers hitting states at different times of the fire season. We need to see that local, state and federal firefighters have ample ground resources, too.

We can expand and help fund education on home mitigation efforts and the need to do prescribed burns, not dictated by air regulations to occur only in windy times to disperse the smoke, but when they can be completed safely. We must do a better job of protecting our state’s watersheds and soils from the devastation caused by wildfires and this’ll require getting into our forests to responsibly thin out the gnarled and diseased trees. There’s no better exhibit of the terrible condition of Colorado’s forests than driving over Wolf Creek Pass, immediately east of my district.

Catastrophic wildfires destroy more than homes, possessions, and happy memories. Colorado has lost lives in these fires each year recently and neighboring Arizona suffered the immeasurable loss of 19 wildfire fighters last summer.

The federal government owns 68% of Colorado’s forests. The local federal foresters aren’t to blame for out of touch Washington, D.C., policies that have led to the forest devastation and the loss of the timber industry previously here. Yet, it’s impossible to address Colorado’s problems without demanding better stewardship from the federal landowner. This is where the governor should seek responsible, meaningful assistance and I’ll be right there to help him.

It is infuriating and ironic that the U.S. Forest Service is considering closing public restrooms, that is, pit toilets, along the highways of Southwestern Colorado as the agency “no longer has the resources to properly maintain” the toilets. If the agency can’t pay for maintaining a few pit toilets, can we really expect them to do better with maintaining our forests? The cost of fighting fires has decimated the most basic budget items, and yet, the federal government appears content to repeat the same insanity of reacting to catastrophe instead of getting ahead of it with restorative forest health practices.

There is a better way, but, apparently, the state of Colorado, and its governor, must lead the way as the feds cannot, or, will not. If what Governor Hickenlooper wants to focus on this legislative session is jobs for our state, trust me, job opportunities abound and public safety will improve, if we take this challenge seriously and with dedicated focus.

Colorado’s present, and future, demands it from us.”

Post-fire logging in Hastings bill is opposed by 250 experts

Bill GabbertNovember 9, 2013May 29, 2020Uncategorizedlegislation, salvage logging8 Comments

Rim Fire recovery — A recent photograph of an area in the Rim Fire that burned in and near Yosemite National Park this summer. InciWeb photo.

A bill introduced by Representative Doc Hastings that passed the House would require in some cases salvage logging after fires, would eliminate or reduce environmental restrictions in those projects, and prohibit legal challenges. An editorial in the New York Times has come out against the bill and 250 fire, forestry, and ecology experts have signed a letter opposing it. Below is the first paragraph in the letter:

****

“Open Letter to Members of Congress from 250 Scientists
Concerned about Post-fire Logging
October 30, 2013

As professional scientists with backgrounds in ecological sciences and natural resources management, we are greatly concerned that post-disturbance legislation addressed in HR 1526, which passed the House in September 2013, would suspend federal environmental protections to expedite and increase logging of post-fire habitat and mandate increased commercial logging of unburned forests on national forests. In addition, HR 3188, as currently proposed in the House, would override federal environmental laws to mandate post-fire clearcutting operations in national forests, Yosemite National Park, and designated Wilderness areas within the 257,000-acre Rim fire on the Stanislaus National Forest and Yosemite National Park. Both bills ignore the current state of scientific knowledge, which indicates that such activity would seriously undermine the ecological integrity of forest ecosystems on federal lands…”

Senate hearing on tight budgets for forest management

Bill GabbertNovember 6, 2013June 5, 2020Uncategorizedhearing, legislation, Tom Harbour4 Comments

On November 5 the Senate Subcommittee on Conservation, Forestry and Natural Resources held a hearing titled, “Shortchanging Our Forests: How Tight Budgets and Management Decisions Can Increase the Risk of Wildfire”. A video recording of the hearing can be viewed at the subcommittee’s website.

David Pitcher and Tom Harbour — Tom Harbour (left) the U.S. Forest Service National Director of Fire and Aviation Management (who did not testify), and David Pitcher (right) President and CEO of the Wolf Creek Ski Area at Pagosa Creek, Colorado.

It was held in a small room where the five witnesses outnumbered the four Senators. Generally, the attendees recommended that the government must invest more in forest thinning, prescribed fire, and hazard reduction projects.

Below are some excerpts from the written testimony of a few witnesses. Their statements can be downloaded at the website.

From Jim Hubbard, USFS Deputy Chief, State and Private Forestry:

When a wildfire starts within or burns into a fuel treatment area, an assessment is conducted to evaluate the resulting impacts on fire behavior and fire suppression actions. Of over 1,400 assessments conducted to date, over 90 percent of the fuel treatments were effective in changing fire behavior and/or helping with control of the wildfire (USFS, Fuels Treatment Effectiveness Database).

From Sallie Clark, El Paso County Commissioner, Colorado:

A 2007 Congressional Budget Office study indicates that every dollar invested in healthy forest and wildfire mitigation will save more than five dollars in future disaster losses.

From Christopher Topik, Director, Restoring America’s Forests, The Nature Conservancy:

Our current approach to wildland fire and forest management creates a false choice, pitting the viability of one against the other. In reality, we cannot afford to short-change either. The potential costs are too great.

SUMMARY OF KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

I. Budgetary

1. Increase federal funding for hazardous fuels reduction, Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration and associated proactive federal land management operations and science

2. Create and fund a new federal fire suppression funding mechanism to free up resources for proactive management referenced above

3. Permanently authorize stewardship contracting authority

4. Increase capacity of states and communities to become fire adapted

5. Increase research on economic, social and ecological impacts of forest investment

II. Management Decisions

6. Seek policy adjustments that foster innovation and improvement in NEPA implementation, thereby increasing the scale and quality of resulting projects and plans

7. Increase shared commitment and support for forest restoration by states and local governments

8. Enhance participation of additional sectors of society, such as water and power utilities, recreation and tourism, public health, and industrial users of clean water

9. Increase the safe and effective use of wildland fire

Chris Topik, Director, Restoring America’s Forests, The Nature Conservancy

Legislation update

Bill GabbertNovember 4, 2013August 25, 2019Uncategorizedlegislation2 Comments

Update on federal legislation affecting wildfire management.

In addition to the bill introduced last week that would provide for contract wildland firefighters to be covered for death and disability benefits under the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Act (PSOB), there are at least two other pending pieces of legislation at the federal level that would affect wildland fire management.

H.R.2858: Wildland Firefighters Protection Act

Status: Introduced by Rep. Diana DeGette, Colorado, July 30, 2013; referred to House committee

Cosponsors: none

Key provisions: It would establish a “wildland firefighter occupational series that would more accurately reflect the variety of duties performed by wildland firefighters”. For decades federal wildland firefighters have worked in various technician or professional job series that are not specifically related to firefighting. The bill would also begin a pilot program during which firefighters would receive “portal to portal” pay while they are assigned to an emergency incident.

H.R.1526: Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act

Status: Introduced by Rep. Doc Hastings, Washington, April 12, 2013; passed by the House September 23, 2013; referred to Senate committee.

Cosponsors: 22

Key provisions: Through several different strategies and changes in the law, the bill would increase logging on national forests, and reduce or eliminate environmental restrictions in some cases, including logging after a wildfire. Below is an excerpt:

SEC. 204. ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS.

Subsections (b) through (f) of section 104 shall apply to the implementation of a hazardous fuel reduction project or a forest health project under this title. In addition, if the primary purpose of a hazardous fuel reduction project or a forest health project under this title is the salvage of dead, damaged, or down timber resulting from wildfire occurring in 2013, the hazardous fuel reduction project or forest health project, and any decision of the Secretary concerned in connection with the project, shall not be subject to judicial review or to any restraining order or injunction issued by a United States court.

and, from Sec. 104, Management of Forest Reserve Revenue Areas:

(6) CATEGORICAL EXCLUSION- A covered forest reserve project that is proposed in response to a catastrophic event, that covers an area of 10,000 acres or less, or an eligible hazardous fuel reduction or forest health project proposed under title II that involves the removal of insect-infected trees, dead or dying trees, trees presenting a threat to public safety, or other hazardous fuels within 500 feet of utility or telephone infrastructure, campgrounds, roadsides, heritage sites, recreation sites, schools, or other infrastructure, shall be categorically excluded from the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4331 et seq.).

UPDATE November 9, 2013: 250 fire, forestry, and ecology experts have signed a letter opposing this legislation.

Representative Hastings, who introduced this bill, is a familiar name to many firefighters. He introduced with Senator Maria Cantwell the bill which became Public Law 107-203 in 2002, which requires fatalities of U.S. Forest Service employees due to a wildfire entrapment or burnover to be investigated by the office of the Inspector General of the Department of Agriculture, turning it into a law enforcement investigation rather than a lessons learned opportunity. The Cantwell-Hastings bill was a knee-jerk reaction to the fatalities on the Thirtymile fire the previous year. The law resulted in a firefighter being charged with 11 felonies, including four counts of manslaughter. The new atmosphere created by the unintended consequences of Cantwell-Hastings has now made it difficult to obtain and publish lessons learned after serious accidents and fatalities on wildland fires.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: