Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, sent a letter to President Trump expressing the importance of maintaining funding for wildfire suppression activities in Fiscal Year 2018. Senator Cantwell’s letter also highlighted the importance of finding a permanent fix to the fire-borrowing issue.
The President’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget blueprint would fully fund wildfire preparedness and suppression activities at $2.4 billion, which represents 100 percent of the ten-year average. However, Senator Cantwell points out in her letter that the proposed amount does not take into account the additional $600 million the Forest Service received in 2015, and that going back to the ten-year average would represent a reduction in funding. The President’s detailed budget is expected to be released in May.