Wildfire Budget

Simpson Pushes for Better Wildfire Budgeting. Talks with Forest Service Chief Tidwell about Wildfire Disaster Funding Act during budget hearing

Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson recently discussed funding for wildfire suppression with Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. They talked at length about Simpson’s legislation to end the practice of fire borrowing as a way to pay for wildfire suppression. Tidwell has said that the Forest Service would not provide more discretionary funding, but would instead allow the agencies to budget better for both fire suppression and forest management. The Congressman’s spokesperson Nikki Watts, gave me a partial re-cap of their conversation: “Really what we’re trying to do is to not decimate non-fire budgets with fire borrowing. We’re either going to pay for fires by taking the money from other budgets and try to repay them later, which doesn’t work, or we are going to find a better way to manage this account.”

Simpson thanked the Forest Service for the good work it did during fires in Ketchum last summer.  “There is absolutely no reason some of those homes should still be standing, except for the good work that your people did in protecting them,” he said.  But he also warned Chief Tidwell that unless his wildfire disaster funding proposal passed, the Forest Service would be in worse shape under the President’s budget request than it is now. 

After the hearing, Simpson reiterated the importance of managing these accounts in a way that doesn’t rob non-fire accounts each year. “We need to be able to manage federal lands. In order to manage them, we need to stop using funding intended for land management to fight fires. This is a devastating cycle and is destroying our forests. I’m hopeful my bill will pass so Congress can write a reasonable and responsible wildfire fighting budget.”