Katie Hoover wrote this very timely and important CRS report (28 October 2020): Federal Wildfire Management: Ten-Year Funding Trends and Issues (FY2011-FY2020).
Download CRS_Report_Federal_Wildfire_Mgmt_28Oct2020
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Summary
Wildfire management is a series of coordinated activities to prepare for, resolve, and recover from wildfire events. The federal agencies responsible for wildfire management include the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service (FS) and the Department of the Interior (DOI). FS carries out wildfire response and management across the 193 million acres of national forests and national grasslands; DOI carries out these activities on more than 400 million acres of national parks, wildlife refuges and preserves, Indian reservations, and other public lands. The federal agencies also coordinate wildfire response activities with state and local governments as needed.Both FS and DOI generally receive annual discretionary appropriations for wildfire management activities through the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bills. Wildfire management funding for DOI is provided to the Office of Wildland Fire (a department-level office). Both FS and DOI receive wildfire appropriations through similarly structured accounts, programs, and activities, though FS’s account structure changed several times between FY2011 and FY2020. The funding generally falls into four categories: suppression, preparedness, reduction of wildland fuel (e.g., biomass, vegetation), and other wildfire activities. Suppression is the work associated with wildfire response and includes postfire emergency stabilization measures. Preparedness comprises a range of tasks to ensure readiness for wildfire response, including workforce preparation, equipment and resource management, and wildfire outlook conditions forecasting. Fuel reduction is a wildfire prevention activity intended to mitigate the risk of catastrophic fires. Other wildfire activities include site rehabilitation, federal assistance programs, wildfire research, and facility maintenance, among others; the activities funded in this category varied between FS and DOI over the 10-year period.
Total combined FS and DOI wildfire appropriations fluctuated annually but increased from FY2011 to FY2020. On average, combined wildfire appropriations were $4.48 billion annually in inflation-adjusted constant FY2020 dollars, and the appropriations nearly doubled over the 10-year period. The FY2020 wildfire appropriation was $6.11 billion, the highest appropriation to date. Over the time period, the majority of the funding went to FS. Funding for suppression was $2.20 billion combined annually on average from FY2011 to FY2020, in constant dollars, and the FY2020 appropriation for suppression was $3.65 billion combined. On average, the agencies combined received $1.52 billion annually for preparedness, $590.7 million annually for fuel reduction, and $174.1 million annually for other wildfire activities (in constant dollars) over the period in question.
The funding trends over the FY2011-FY2020 period are attributable primarily to fluctuations and increases in appropriations for suppression, which accounted for nearly half of the average annual wildfire appropriation. During this period, Congress provided suppression funding to FS and DOI through multiple accounts, including the agencies’ respective Wildland Fire Management (WFM) and Federal Land Assistance, Management, and Enhancement (FLAME) Act accounts. The FLAME accounts received funding from FY2010 through FY2018. In addition, Congress provided suppression funding pursuant to the wildfire adjustment (also known as the wildfire funding fix), a budgetary mechanism that allows for an upward adjustment of the discretionary spending limits to accommodate a specific amount of spending for wildfire suppression. This mechanism, which first became available in FY2020, is most easily thought of as providing funds that are exempt from discretionary spending limits.
In addition to regular discretionary appropriations, at times Congress provided FS and DOI with additional, or supplemental, wildfire funding for a fiscal year between FY2011 and FY2020. Congress typically provided this funding to replenish an agency’s suppression accounts or to repay funds transferred from other agency accounts to cover emergency suppression costs. Congress provided supplemental appropriations in 7 of the 10 years from FY2011 through FY2020. In some years, this funding was designated as emergency spending and, as such, essentially was exempt from discretionary spending limits under a separate adjustment; in other years, the funding was not designated as emergency spending.
Debates on whether, where, and how to provide additional funding for wildfire management have persisted for decades. From FY2011 to FY2020, congressional interest focused on the adequacy of program funding and the extent to which increasing suppression costs have reduced the availability of funding for other wildfire programs (and other FS or DOI programs more generally). The wildfire adjustment was intended to alleviate some of these concerns, at least temporarily. Issues pertaining to preparedness funding involve the number and effectiveness of aircraft available for wildfire suppression and the adequacy of efforts to recruit and retain federal firefighters. Issues related to fuel reduction funding include the scope and scale of fuel reduction needs, prioritization of treatments to the highest-risk locations, and effectiveness of treatments. Other wildfire funding issues include how much funding to provide for wildfire research, assistance programs, and postfire restoration.
Lots of information.
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