Earlier this week, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, provided her response to the Obama Administration’s request for an emergency supplemental appropriation to address immigration and wildfires. Senator Mikulski will move a bill to the Senate floor next week to reduce funding by approximately $1 billion, and redirect program spending in response to the surge of young immigrants from Central America. The proposal retains the full $615 million requested by the President for wildfire suppression and includes an authorization modeled on S. 1875 to allow some wildfire costs to be paid with emergency appropriations, similar to other declared natural disasters.
The House is expected to soon announce its response to the President’s $4.3 billion request, likely limited to $1.5 billion in redirected funding for border control and immediate assistance, and eliminating the wildfire funding entirely. Instead, the House included significant increases for wildfire suppression and prevention in the FY 2015 Interior and Environment Appropriation bill that was reported by the Appropriations Committee last week. The Senate has yet to introduce its version of the Interior and Environment spending bill.