Washington, D.C. – White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shaun Donovan and U.S. Forest Service (FS) leadership today hosted a national media call on wildfire activity in California and nationally. House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) issued the following statement in response to the Administration’s flawed and lackluster… Read more »
Today, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry held a markup to consider H.R. 2647, the Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2015 (Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-AR). On Friday, Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), released emergency wildfire legislation as an amendment in the nature of a substitute for H.R. 2647, which… Read more »
Today, House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT), Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Representative Bruce Westerman (R-AR) participated in a press call to discuss pending wildfire and forest management legislation (H.R. 2647 / S. 3085).
Click here to listen to a recording of the call.
“Last year, more than 10… Read more »
Only “you can prevent forest fires.” That’s what Smokey Bear would have you believe, anyway.
But America’s anti-wildfire mascot identifies only part of the equation. While visitors to the great outdoors can tamp out campfires or refrain from tossing cigarettes into dry leaves, the federal government, as manager of millions of national acreage, also has a role.
But decades of bad… Read more »
Yesterday, U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, introduced S. 3085, the Emergency Wildfire and Forest Management Act of 2016. The legislation pairs a responsible solution to “fire-borrowing” with much needed reforms to improve forest health on federal lands. This bill is similar to H.R. 2647 (Rep. Bruce Westerman,… Read more »
Today, the House Committee on Natural Resources held an oversight hearing with four Western governors on “Respecting State Authority in Regards to Resource Management and Energy Development.” Governors Matt Mead (R-WY), Steve Bullock (D-MT), Dennis Daugaard (R-SD), and Gary Herbert (R-UT) all expressed major concerns about a swath of federal policies that disenfranchise the states from… Read more »
On Wednesday, September 23, 2015 at 4:00PM EST, Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT), Senator Steve Daines (R-MT), and Representative Bruce Westerman (R-AR) will hold a press call to discuss catastrophic wildfire legislation and the Obama Administration’s recent request to Congress for wildfire suppression funding. Details are as follows:
… Read more »
The severe fire season in western U.S. forests has intensified calls for funding changes so that the U.S. Forest Service does not have to borrow money from other accounts to finish out a fiscal year of wildfire suppression.
The situation has revived the question of whether a solution can be accomplished through fiscal changes alone or whether a stepped-up level of active forest… Read more »
House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) today issued the following statement in response to the Obama Administration’s request for Congress to change the way the nation pays for wildfire suppression.
“Changing the way we pay for wildfire suppression is only one small part of a much more serious land management crisis that we must address – now. Our national… Read more »
Top administration officials wrote Congress on Tuesday to urge it–once again–to change the way it budgets for firefighting in light of the disastrous wildfire season in the western U.S.
The Agriculture Department just informed lawmakers this week that it will have to transfer $250 million to fighting the forest fires now raging, which brings this fiscal year’s emergency spending total to… Read more »
