Washington – Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) joined a bipartisan group of senators today to press Senate Leaders Mitch McConnell and Charles E. Schumer in a letter to include a wildfire funding fix in disaster aid legislation the Senate will soon consider.

The letter, led by Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), was also signed by senators Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho).

The House of Representatives passed disaster aid legislation last week to provide funding for hurricanes and wildfires that have hit the country this year. That bill will allow the U.S. Forest Service to pay back the funds it has been forced to borrow from other accounts to cover the cost of fighting wildfires. However, the House-passed legislation does not include a long-term solution to provide consistent funding for fire suppression and prevention.

The bipartisan Wildfire Disaster Funding Act (WDFA) would fix the way the federal government funds and fights wildfires. It would end the practice known as “fire borrowing” by funding the largest wildfires from disaster accounts similar to accounts used to fund other natural disasters, freeing up funding for fire prevention and forest health projects.

“We request that you work with us to include the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, legislative language that ensures the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of Interior (DOI) have stable, reliable funding to help prevent wildfires,” the senators wrote.

So far, the Forest Service and the Interior Department have spent almost $2.9 billion this year to put out wildfires. The Forest Service has had to take funds from other accounts, or “fire borrow” to pay for the record-breaking cost of this year’s fires.

“Passage of the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act will free up funds to do the prevention work that reduces the risk of catastrophic wildfires that our country has suffered this year -- funding that could have prevented the deaths of Americans, destruction of hundreds of homes and businesses, the loss of business revenue due to evacuations, and the loss of millions of acres of forests,” they wrote. “We ask that you work with Western senators to include a comprehensive wildfire funding fix in any disaster supplemental bill that comes before the Senate.”

Wildfires have burned about 8.7 million acres of land this year, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Tens of thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate from their homes in California this year alone.

Wyden and Crapo introduced bipartisan legislation to fix the way the federal government funds the fight against wildfires, the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, in 2013. 

The letter is avaiable here and below:

Dear Majority Leader McConnell and Minority Leader Schumer:

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the latest disaster supplemental funding bill. We request that you work with us to include the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, legislative language that ensures the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of Interior (DOI) have stable, reliable funding to help prevent wildfires.

As you know, 2017 has been a record-breaking year for wildfires, with the Forest Service and DOI spending nearly $2.9 billion fighting these disasters. While it is absolutely necessary that the agencies responsible for fighting wildfires receive the funds they need for fiscal year 2017, this is only the first step to solving this long-term problem. In addition to emergency funding, the Forest Service and DOI require stable, reliable funding to help prevent wildfires before they begin. The bill we introduced, the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act (WDFA), is a long-term, bipartisan funding solution that fixes the long-festering problem of fire borrowing.

The Senate should continue to push for a fire funding fix that treats wildfires like the natural disasters they clearly are. Together, we should work to stop the erosion of the Forest Service budget that siphons resources from important fire prevention programs, like hazardous fuels thinning and the State and Private Forestry program, to pay for fire suppression.

Passage of the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act will free up funds to do the prevention work that reduces the risk of catastrophic wildfires that our country has suffered this year -- funding that could have prevented the deaths of Americans, destruction of hundreds of homes and businesses, the loss of business revenue due to evacuations, and the loss of millions of acres of forests. We ask that you work with Western senators to include a comprehensive wildfire funding fix in any disaster supplemental bill that comes before the Senate.

Sincerely,

###