Bush Budget Undercuts Financial Health of Healthy Forests

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, March 3, 2004 (ENS) - Last December President George W. Bush signed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act and hailed the new law as a "major step forward in protecting America's forests." But at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing Tuesday, several key supporters of the legislation questioned the administration's commitment to spending the money needed to fully implement the law.

The law, which enacted many of the components of the President's Healthy Forests Initiative, authorized $760 million for hazardous fuel reduction projects, with half earmarked for the communities considered most at risk.

Environmentalists fear that the vagueness of the law and the broad authority it grants to federal agencies will encourage logging of valuable timber, not the underbrush most in need of clearing.

The administration's budget includes $760 million for the U.S. Forest Service and the Interior Department under the initiative, but only $476 million is for hazardous fuel reduction projects.

Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, accused the Bush administration of playing a "budgetary shell game" to make it seem as if the law is being fully funded.

The President has vocally touted the importance of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. (Photo by Tina Hager courtesy White House)

California Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat and key driving force behind the legislation, voiced her concern that the administration is "relabeling existing programs to achieve that amount."

U.S. Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Mark Rey acknowledged to the committee that only "between $80 million to $100 million" of the request is new money but challenged the accusation that the administration is misleading the public or the Congress.

Nothing in the authorization of the legislation "talked about $760 million in new money," Rey told the committee.

The amount requested under the Healthy Forests Restoration Act will fund treatment of 1.6 million acres, Rey said, and the overall budget request will fund treatment of an additional 2.4 million acres.

The budget request "squares favorably in total with the authorization," Rey said. "This is not a problem we got into overnight and it is not one we will get out of overnight."

The scope of the problem is daunting - some 190 million acres of public land are believed to need treatment for drought, insect infestation and potential fire. According to agency figures, the U.S. Forest Service and Interior Department treated some two million acres in 2003.

The problem is one the federal government has a large responsibility for - wildfires were aggressively suppressed throughout the past century, allowing mass accumulation of undergrowth that is a key fuel for wildfires.

In addition, many areas in the national forests have been clearcut by logging companies and replaced with closely spaced and highly flammable groves of commercial timber.

California Democrat Dianne Feinstein helped craft the new forest thinning law last fall as her state suffered from catastrophic wildfires. (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)

Wyden said the budget proposal was "particularly exasperating" given cuts to other Forest Service programs, in particular a 42 percent reduction - from $132 million to $77 million - in funds for state, local and volunteer fire related assistance.

The $4.2 billion fiscal year 2005 budget request for the Forest Service also cuts funding for burned area rehabilitation efforts by 13 percent from $31 million to $27 million.

The overall budget request is essentially flat compared with 2004 appropriations for the Forest Service. Another area of concern for committee members is the amount of money dedicated to fire suppression efforts.

"Each year we hear testimony about how the administration's request will meet the fire suppression needs and each year we end up scrambling for emergency appropriations," said New Mexico Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman. "These transfers cause chaos, delay and cause us to dismantle projects in all of our states."

The administration's 2005 request earmarks a total of $908 million for the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to fight fires - some $118 million more than it budgeted in 2004.

Over the past decade, an average of 4 million acres have burned each year. (Photo courtesy Forest Service)

In 2003 some 3.5 million acres burned and the Forest Service and BLM spent more than $1 billion to fight these fires. The previous year some seven million acres went up in flames and the federal government spent more than $1.6 billion to fight fires across 15 states. The two agencies had to borrow some $300 million combined from other accounts in 2003 to fight forest fires.

Rey said the request should be enough to avoid the "transfer chaos" of years past, but told Bingaman that the administration is keen to explore with Congress the creation of a contingency fund to address the yearly transfer needs.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, took issue with the cuts in state and private funding, as well as the administration's proposed zero funding for the Economic Action Program, which provides assistance to rural communities struggling with the decline of the forestry products industry.

"It concerns me that the administration is sending the message to Congress that assistance to small forest communities is not important," Murkowski said.

The administration is focused on other assistance programs through the USDA for such communities, Rey said, and had "backed out" Congressional earmarks in its budget request.

Bingaman pressed Rey on the administration's plan to deal with invasive species, several of which are ravaging forests in Western states and leaving these areas more susceptible to fire.

"This is a 900 pound gorilla if there ever was one," the New Mexico Democrat said.

Rey highlighted a $10 million increase in the Forest Service's budget for invasives and touted the administration's interagency approach to the problem.

Critics say the Healthy Forests Restoration Act would have done little to prevent the fires that devastated southern California. (Photo by Robert Eplett courtesy California Office of Emergency Services )

Hawaii Democratic Senator Daniel Akaka noted that part of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act authorizes up to $25 million for the restoration of habitats for endangered species.

"I do not find a request for this in the budget document," Akaka said.

The concern for the administration, Rey explained, is that the provision "requires, at a minimum, new guidance to our field and perhaps regulations before we can implement it."

"We did not want to create expectations we could not fulfill," said Rey, who added the provision could be addressed in the 2006 budget request.