Geoscience Policy Monthly Review
june 2016

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congress

Senate committee hears testimony on wildfire budgeting and management draft

June 24, 2016

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources convened to receive testimony on the Wildfire Budgeting, Response, and Forest Management Act (S. ___) put forward by Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA).

This new bipartisan legislation would end the practice of borrowing funds from non-fire accounts, a process known as ‘fire-borrowing’, by enabling a transfer of limited funds to the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Department of the Interior (DOI) through a budget cap adjustment when all appropriated suppression funding (100 percent of the 10-year average) is exhausted. It would also allow the agencies to invest excess suppression funding in fuel reduction efforts to reduce the threat of future wildfires.

The Obama Administration and others, including Robert Bonnie, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, believe the draft fails to solve the underlying problem: the rising cost of wildfires, which now consumes more than half of USFS’s budget. The Obama Administration also called for better fire management and resiliency plans, proposing one solution that would appropriate only 70 percent of the 10-year average for fire suppression, use emergency funds to cover additional needs, and leave the remaining 30 percent for proactive forest management.

The hearing also addressed the Tongass National Forest Plan Amendment, which would authorize a comprehensive inventory of young-growth timber in the Tongass National Forest prior to forest management plan revisions. Although Bonnie claimed than an inventory of that scale is “unnecessary to arrive at a decision on planning,” Chairman Murkowski sent a strong message that the Committee only had “one chance to get it right” to save the forest.

Sources: E&E Daily, Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, Tongass Advisory Committee

Senate committee passes COMPETES successor

June 29, 2016

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a markup of the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act (S. 3084) and a number of other bills on June 29. The bills were approved by a voice vote and will now head to the Senate floor for consideration.

The American Innovation and Competitiveness Act would update and reauthorize programs previously authorized through the America COMPETES Act, which expired in 2013. The new bill, introduced by Senators Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Gary Peters (R-MI) in collaboration with the scientific community, authorizes funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF) among other federal science agencies. The bill reaffirms the National Science Foundation’s merit-based peer review process, expands grant programs for women and minority groups, establishes an interagency working group to reduce administrative burdens on researchers, authorizes a STEM education advisory panel of outside experts to guide federal education programs, and promotes the commercialization of federally funded research.

Although the bill passed with an overwhelming majority, Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE) warned that in order for it to pass on the Senate floor, they would need to include offsets for the increases to NSF and National Institute of Standards and Technology funding.

The House passed its own version of COMPETES (H.R. 1806) in May 2015, but received criticism from Democrats and the science community for cutting funding for the geosciences and ARPA-E. The Senate version, however, has been praised as a bipartisan effort and is largely supported by the scientific community.

Sources: Govtrack.us, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology