Wildfire Disaster Funding Act Reintroduced in Both Houses

This week, the Senate’s companion measure to H.R. 167 (Simpson, R-ID/Schrader, D-OR), which is still waiting bill number assignment, was introduced by Senators Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Ron Wyden (D-OR).  Like the original Wildfire Disaster Funding Act (WDFA) previously introduced, these two measures would change the way wildfire disasters are funded.  The ultimate goal is to help protect fire prevention and forest management money from being used on fire fighting in the forests. 

The original WDFA, S. 1875 (Wyden, D-OR) and H.R. 3992 (Simpson, R-ID), was strongly supported by RCRC.  However, this package of bills failed to gain passage during the last Congressional session.  The bills have now been reintroduced in both houses, indicating continued strong support for the issue, and the need to address fire funding prior to the start of another fire season.  

The WDFA supported by RCRC and a broad coalition of other local government, environmental, and community groups, would effectively separate fire suppression costs of the most catastrophic fires from other budgeted forest activities.  This special set aside would prevent “fire borrowing,” or the action of taking funding out of critical fire prevention and forest health programs to pay for the costs of responding to catastrophic and particularly costly wildfires.

RCRC continues to push for a policy change to fund fire disasters in the same manner that other types of disasters are funded, and allow for critically needed fire prevention projects to be completed to end the vicious cycle of wildfire disaster in California and throughout the west.