Audio of House Testimony
Here's an audio link to today's testimony in Washington, D. C. concerning H.R. 5541, the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act (FLAME) and H.R. 5648, the Emergency Wildland Fire Response Act of 2008.
(Total time of audio: 65 minutes)
To download this audio file, right click and save to your computer for replay. (45MB)
(Total time of audio: 65 minutes)
To download this audio file, right click and save to your computer for replay. (45MB)
posted by Jay at
4/10/2008 09:19:00 AM
To comment on this post via email, click here.
Subscribe to
2 Comments:
April 7, 2008
The Honorable Nick Rahall
U.S. House of Representatives
1324 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairman Rahall,
The undersigned organizations are writing to express support for H.R. 5541, the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement (FLAME) Act. By establishing a new federal fund to be used only for suppression of catastrophic emergency wildland fires, this bill will help to move land management agencies towards a sustainable suppression funding mechanism better suited to deal with the escalating costs of fighting truly catastrophic fires.
The cost of suppressing fires has grown enormously in recent years and projections indicate that this trend will only increase as a result of hazardous fuels build-up, climate change, and increasingly populated wildland-urban interface areas. For example, the US Forest Service (USFS) has spent over $1 billion per year in five of the last seven years to extinguish fires. Wildland fire management activities (the largest component of which is suppression) rose from 13 percent of the agency's budget in fiscal year 1991 to a staggering 48 percent projected for fiscal year 2009.
These escalating costs have had a significant impact on the USFS and Department of the Interior (DOI), which are charged with wildland fire protection. Due to their budgets remaining essentially flat or declining from year-to-year, these agencies have consistently drained their other core programs in order to sufficiently fund fire suppression at the required 10-year rolling average level. Even with the diversion of funds, the agencies are regularly compelled to request supplemental funding from Congress each fire season and are forced to transfer already limited dollars from other essential agency programs. Such transfers further reduce program budgets and lead to program disruptions, project cancellations, and strained relationships with partners.
The emergency fund created by the proposed FLAME Act will reduce the need to deplete other agency programs to pay for suppression and will provide more assured funding than uncertain year-to-year emergency supplementals. We are pleased to see Congress requiring a high level of accountability via the reporting requirements listed in the bill, ensuring that this fund will not become a ‘blank check’ for the agency, but rather a key mechanism for isolating the costs of those largest, most catastrophic of fires that wreak havoc on agency budgets year after year.
We greatly appreciate the leadership that you have demonstrated in developing this legislation. The FLAME Act is an important first step in addressing the escalating costs of catastrophic wildland fires. We also recognize the efforts of the Agriculture Committee to work towards finding solutions for this grave problem. We look forward to providing any assistance that may be useful as you work to pass this important legislation in a bipartisan manner to address the long-term wildfire suppression funding situation.
Sincerely,
American Forests
American Lands Alliance
American Whitewater
Center for Biological Diversity
Clearwater Resource Council
Defenders of Wildlife
Forest Energy Corp
The Forest Service Council of the National Federation of Federal Employees
Framing our Community
Future Forest, LLC
Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center
Lake Country Resources Initiative
National Association of Counties
National Association of Forest Service Retirees
National Association of State Foresters
National Federation of Federal Employees
National Parks Conservation Association
Natural Resources Defense Council
Northwest Connections
Olympic Forest Coalition
Outdoor Alliance
Outdoor Association
Outdoor Industry Association
Pacific Rivers Council
Salmon Valley Stewardship
Sierra Club
Sierra Forest Legacy
Sierra Institute for Community and Environment
The Siuslaw Institute, Inc.
Sustainable Northwest
Swan Ecosystem Center
Wallowa Resources
Watershed Research & Training Center
Western Governors Association
The Wilderness Society
WildWest Institute
The Yaak Valley Forest Council
Excellent list. Common sense environmentalism at its finest. Now let's see Congress actually deliver!
Post a Comment
<< Home