Today both the House and Senate took decisive, bi-partisan action to responsibly budget for the costs of suppressing catastrophic wildfires by introducing the FLAME Act (Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act), H.R. 1404. The human-powered outdoor recreation community applauds this critical step in getting a handle on the financial impacts that catastrophic wildfires currently have on recreation and other programs.
Under the current system, about one-half of the U.S. Forest Service’s annual budget is already set aside for dealing with forest fires. Money used for fire is not used for vital land management projects, or for taking care of access roads, trails, crags and river access points. What’s more is that when fires really get out of hand, federal agencies are forced to “steal from Peter to pay Paul” and pilfer non-fire budgets to pay for catastrophic fires.
Imagine that almost every summer you broke your creek boat and had to buy a new one but you did not budget for it, and then you were shocked when you had to eat rice and beans for two months afterwards to make ends meet. This is how major fires are currently managed, only instead of eating rice and beans, critical recreation and land management activities grind to a halt. With the FLAME Act, Congress is simply budgeting for predictable and recurring catastrophes.
The FLAME Act attempts to get some much needed control on how we pay for catastrophic fires by setting up a special account in the US Treasury to deal with the really big, really expensive wildfires. In addition to having the special account, the FLAME Act also would require the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture (which oversees the Forest Service) to develop a comprehensive wildland fire management strategy to improve fire management on our public lands.
American Whitewater and our partners in Outdoor Alliance look forward to working with Congress and the Obama Administration to pass the FLAME Act and get it signed into law.