Geoscience Policy Monthly Review
august 2015
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natural resources
Report: USFS spending more than half of its budget to fight wildfires
August 5, 2015
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) released a report on August 5 detailing the impacts of increasing costs of fighting wildfires on its non-fire work. Wildfire seasons have become longer, more severe, and more difficult to predict, forcing the USFS to spend over half of its current budget to fight wildfire and shift $700 million from non-fire programs. The agency predicts that in the next ten years, it will spend two-thirds of its appropriated budget on dealing with rising wildfire costs.
The USFS’ non-fire programs provide critical ecological services that help to prevent wildfires, such as protecting watersheds, fighting invasive species, and reducing hazardous fuels. However, the increasing severity of wildfire season—burning twice the acreage it did 30 years ago and lasting 78 days longer than in the 1970s—has crowded out USFS forest stewardship programs.
The report underpins the Administration’s proposal to restructure wildfire budgeting to fund roughly 70 percent of anticipated fire suppression costs through the USFS budget, with remaining suppression costs covered by a separate fire suppression cap. This proposal would eliminate “fire borrowing,” the practice of dipping into non-fire funds within the USFS budget when suppression funding runs dry. Supporters argue that the proposal would free up funds for wildfire mitigation to help reduce the severity of future fires. Opponents counter that the USFS budget should include the entire cost of suppressing fires and that the proposal allows USFS to circumvent statutory budget caps.
Sources: E&E News, U.S. Forest Service
Senators urge Congress to reform budgeting for wildfire suppression
August 28, 2015
Senators on both sides of the aisle have urged Congress to reform the nation’s budgeting for wildfire suppression, which currently requires the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to use funds from fire prevention and non-fire programs when fire suppression funding runs dry. At a field hearing in Seattle, Washington on August 28, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and John Barrasso (R-WY) highlighted the importance of maintaining wildfire prevention programs, such as reducing excessive fuel loads, that will diminish the size and severity of future fires. Earlier in the month, a bipartisan group of 11 Western senators pledged to reform wildfire budgeting.
Bills have been introduced that would eliminate “fire borrowing,” but Democrats and Republicans have disagreed over the mechanics of a solution. Some senators want the USFS budget to contain all wildfire suppression funding, while others would supplement catastrophic fire seasons with funding from different sources. Still others would make wildfire suppression funding contingent upon hazardous fuels removal, which would reduce long-term costs.
These discussions have occurred amidst the release of a USFS report on the impact of fire borrowing on non-fire programs and USFS Chief Tom Tidwell ordering a freeze in non-fire spending to ensure that funds are available to cope with a catastrophic 2015 wildfire season that has burned more than 7.5 million acres across the Western U.S.
Source: E&E News, Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Court affirms decision to strike down SEC conflict mineral rule
August 18, 2015
On August 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted 2–1 to affirm its prior decision to strike down a regulation in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) conflict mineral rule. The regulation would require companies to disclose on their websites if mineral components in their goods may have originated in conflict areas. The SEC developed the rule under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to discourage the use of conflict minerals—gold, tantalum, tin, and tungsten—that are sold to finance militias in war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa.
The D.C. Circuit panel struck down the disclosure regulation in April 2014, reasoning that it violated free speech. The SEC and human rights groups petitioned the court to reconsider the decision in light of a later ruling by the same court upholding Department of Agriculture regulations that mandate the disclosure of the country of origin of meat products on labels. The panel ruled that the meat labeling regulation did not require the reversal of its conflict minerals ruling.
Sources: E&E News, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission