Wildfire spending issue sparks a clash

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Four senior Republican and Democratic lawmakers are pushing the White House to release wildfire money that Congress approved last year.

Without the $280 million, the House members say, the U.S. Forest Service may be forced to halt some critical programs in order to make ends meet.

“We appropriated that money for a good reason,” House Appropriations Committee chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., said Thursday. “That is to fight these disastrous fires, and we intend to use it for the purpose that it was appropriated.”

Almost three-quarters of the money is emergency funds that paid for last year’s fire suppression efforts. The remainder is supposed to go toward programs this year to rehabilitate forests, conduct research and provide community assistance, among other uses.

However, other Forest Service programs are being tapped to cover for the missing funds. They include accounts that pay for wildfire preparedness and programs to remove hazardous wildfire fuels from forests.

In a letter Wednesday, Reps. Joe Skeen, R-N.M., David Obey, D-Wis., Norm Dicks, D-Wash., and Young – all leaders on the House Appropriations Committee – asked President Bush to provide the money, appropriated last year as part of the interior spending bill.

“These funds were taken from several critical agency functions,” they wrote.

Office of Management and Budget spokeswoman Amy Call said the administration is working with Congress to determine what the agency’s emergency funding needs are.

“I am sure that we are working with the agency to make sure that all critical functions continue,” she said. “No vital firefighting functions will be halted.”

Young said he is frustrated with Bush’s OMB director, Mitch Daniels, who is blocking the funds, because the administration’s focus is too narrow.

“All they worry about is numbers. They put a number on those dollars, and they don’t pay much attention to what those dollars mean for America,” he said.

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, who oversees the Forest Service, also wrote Daniels in January asking him to provide the money. On Thursday, the Forest Service referred inquiries to OMB.

A day earlier, the civilian head of the Army Corps of Engineers, Mike Parker, was fired because he told Congress that Bush’s budget proposal for the Corps was too low and could hurt some projects, many of them dear to Congress members.

The Forest Service’s silence on its funding issue concerned Young.

“That is a little ominous,” he said. However, “I can understand why the Forest Service is a little reluctant to talk.”

Dicks’ top aide, George Behan, said Daniels just wants to turn off the money spigot.

“He also wants it to be a one-branch government. He doesn’t understand that Congress is charged, under the Constitution, with disposing of these funds,” Behan said.