Senators gain wildfire mitigation provision
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July 23, 2013 |
U.S. Senators Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Michael
Bennet (D-Colorado) have secured a measure in
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Appropriations Bill to help prioritize wildfire
mitigation efforts.
The bill directs the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) to develop a report
detailing its efforts to mitigate wildfires and
identify any funding obstacles for current
mitigation programs.
Last week, Bennet and Crapo urged the
Subcommittee to push FEMA to use a greater share
of its mitigation funding to prevent
catastrophic wildfires. In the letter to the
subcommittee’s chair and ranking member, Bennet
and Crapo shared concerns about inadequate
funding and recommended the report as a first
step.
Specifically, the Crapo-Bennet measure in the
bill says, “Over the last decade, wildfires have
caused an average of over $1,000,000,000 in
economic damages, killed over 150 Americans, and
destroyed thousands of homes and other
structures across the Nation. The six worst
wildfire seasons in the past 50 years in the
United States have all occurred since 2000. The
Committee is concerned that mitigation efforts
are not keeping pace with the growing risk. FEMA
is directed to provide a report to the Committee
no later than 120 days after the date of
enactment of this act on the efforts being made
to mitigate wildfires including FEMA technical
assistance, information sharing, and grant
expenditures for the last 5 years. FEMA should
also identify any funding obstacles for
wildfires in its current mitigation programs.”
A 2007 CBO study of FEMA’s Pre-Disaster
Mitigation (PDM) program found that a very small
share of the agency’s funding went to wildfires.
Yet, in the same report, CBO concluded that for
every dollar FEMA has spent through the PDM fund
on wildfire mitigation, it has saved more than
$5 in future disaster losses.
“Idahoans know firsthand how devastating fire
season can be,” Crapo said. “Last year, more
than 1,000 wild land fires burned more than 1.6
million acres in Idaho alone and we are already
seeing a number of fires this season. I applaud
the work of the Appropriations Committee and
thank them for making wildfire mitigation a top
priority. This bill will provide FEMA the
resources to help our western states mitigate
for the devastating wildfire season even before
it starts.”
“Colorado and communities throughout the West
are facing increasingly devastating wildfire
seasons. They continue to grow in frequency and
intensity,” Bennet said. “This bill sends a
message to FEMA that wildfire mitigation
programs are a priority and should be expanded
in the future. They’ve proven to make a tangible
difference and may help us prevent the tragic
and unprecedented loss of life and staggering
levels of destruction we have endured over the
past decade.”
Bennet has worked tirelessly to attract critical
federal resources to help combat wildfires and
mitigate their effects. Bennet has called for
the modernization of our air tanker fleet to
fight wildfires, led efforts to secure Emergency
Watershed Protection resources to help Colorado
communities recover from last year's Waldo
Canyon and High Park fires, authored key forest
health and wildfire prevention provisions in the
Senate Farm Bill and urged the President to
expedite a request from Colorado Governor John
Hickenlooper to issue federal major disaster
declarations in response to the Black Forest and
Royal Gorge fires.
He also led efforts to bring federal assistance
to Colorado following last year’s High Park and
Waldo Canyon fires, including organizing a
letter of support urging the President to
support Governor Hickelooper’s disaster
declaration request.
Throughout his career in Congress, Crapo has
worked to reduce the risk and severity of
large-scale wildfires.
In the U.S. Senate in particular, Crapo helped
enact legislation, including the Healthy Forest
Restoration Act and the Collaborative Forest
Landscape Restoration Act, that have provided
land managers with more tools to counter
unhealthy conditions in our nation’s forests and
other lands to reduce the fire threat.
Crapo recently joined a bipartisan group of
senators in urging President Obama not to reduce
timber sales on Forest Service lands, as he
called for in his 2014 budget. The letter
stressed the serious consequences reductions
could have on communities across the nation and
the need for increased timber harvests to help
mitigate raging wildfires and help create jobs
in our forests. |
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