The U.S. Forest Service will soon have to scale back some projects designed to help prevent wildfires so that it can meet the expenses of fighting this summer’s round of fires.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Tuesday that about $400 million to $500 million in projects will have to be put on hold in what has become a routine exercise toward the end of the fiscal year. He predicted that the money set aside strictly for firefighting will run out by the end of August.
“When we begin to run out of money we have to dip into the very programs that will reduce the risk of these fires over time,” Vilsack said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press.
Some 30 large fires are burning their way through federal and state forests in California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho. With lawmakers back home for the August recess and the public’s attention focused on those efforts, Vilsack is lobbying for an administration proposal to add $615 million to fight wildfires this fiscal year and next.
Lawmakers from both parties generally agree the current funding model is broken. They say it’s self-defeating to curtail activities designed to prevent forest fires, such as thinning overgrown forests and clearing underbrush, to cover the full costs of fighting blazes that have become more destructive over the past decade. But there is disagreement about how to fix the problem.
From The Associated Press: https://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FOREST_FIRES_VILSACK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT