By Matthew Daly / Associated Press
WASHINGTON — As wildfires rage across California and the West, Democratic and Republican senators have joined forces to help rural communities better prepare for and prevent catastrophic wildfires.
A bill introduced Thursday by senators from three Northwestern states would authorize more than $100 million to help at-risk communities prevent wildfires and create a pilot program to cut down trees in the most fire-prone areas.
Under a streamlined approval process, forest managers would “thin” pine forests near populated areas and do controlled burns in remote regions. The bill also calls for detailed reviews of any wildfire that burns more than 100,000 acres.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, of Washington, said the bill would “create new tools to reduce fire risk and help better protect our communities,” especially those in the Northwest near fire-prone pine forests.
Cantwell, top Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, co-sponsored the bill with Democrats Patty Murray, of Washington, Ron Wyden, of Oregon, and Republicans Jim Risch and Mike Crapo, of Idaho.
Risch, who also serves on the natural resources panel, said the nation needs to “actively manage our forests to reduce the fuel available for fires to burn.”
The bipartisan bill is a compromise between Republicans eager to make it easier for federal land managers to thin overgrown woodlands and Democrats dubious of allowing timber companies greater access to harvest federally owned forests.
The bill comes as lawmakers from both parties push to rework a federal funding formula that makes it hard for officials to budget for extreme wildfire seasons such as the one ravaging the West this year. The formula ties spending to a 10-year average for wildfires even as fires burn longer and hotter each year and forces officials to tap money meant for prevention programs to fight wildfires.
Western lawmakers are seeking to ensure that Congress includes a fix to the “fire borrowing” problem in disaster-aid legislation being considered in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.
“Congress must continue to pursue efforts aimed at reducing the risk and severity of wildfires and end the ‘fire borrowing’ that takes funds from other Forest Service maintenance priorities,” Crapo said.
The bipartisan forest-management bill won praise from a range of timber industry, firefighting and conservation groups.
Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said the bill “will improve forest health and mitigate fire risks.”
Travis Joseph, president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, called the bill “a thoughtful response to our nation’s public forest health crisis.”
Thomas Jenkins, fire chief in Rogers, Arkansas, and chairman of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, said the bill would provide needed resources to protect at-risk communities and assist federal agencies develop preparedness programs.
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