September 16, 2003
The Honorable Bill Frist
United States Senate
461 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Fax: (202) 228-1264
Dear Senator Frist:
The diverse group of organizations signing this letter strongly urges both the House and the Senate to immediately provide adequate supplemental funding in the next available funding vehicle, to cover suppression costs incurred for this year’s fire season, reimburse borrowed funds, and preclude additional funding transfers from other programs.
This year, as in past years, the USDA Forest Service, the Department of the Interior, and their numerous state, local, and tribal partners are working to manage wildfires to protect human lives, property, water supplies, and important natural resources. To date, 3.0 million acres of forestland have burned, over 300 structures have been destroyed, and thousands of Americans have had to evacuate their homes. Tragically, although safety is always a top priority, lives have also been lost. The agencies have inadequate funding to cover wildfire suppression costs in fiscal year 2003. To make up for this lack of funding, the agencies have been forced to transfer funds from other important program accounts to pay for wildfire suppression costs, as they have done in previous years.
This transferring of funds negatively impacts the agencies’ ability to restore and manage our National Forests and other public lands, further erodes the trust and continuity required to implement collaborative projects, interferes with important research and land conservation efforts, and imposes negative economic impacts on communities. As experienced in previous years, transferring funds can postpone or eliminate projects that can reduce wildfire risk and can ultimately reduce suppression costs. Transferring can also impede projects necessary for maintaining or restoring the health and productivity of the nation’s public and private forestlands as well as projects designed to provide the ecological values and services the American people expect from their forests. Without additional support to cover the costs of wildfire suppression, the agencies will continually be behind the curve in providing their valuable services.
We urge Congress to address this issue in the short-term by ensuring that sufficient supplemental funding is approved expeditiously. However, our request to reimburse this funding does not preclude our commitment to the development of a long-term solution that will prevent this problem in future years.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
American Forest Foundation
American Forest & Paper
Association
American Forest Resource
Council
American Forests
Black Hills Forest Resource
Association
Colville Community Forestry
Coalition
Communities Committee of the
Seventh American Forest Congress
Ecological Restoration
Institute
Ecological Society of America
Forest Landowners Association
Forest Resources Association
Forest Stewards Guild
Friends of Trees
Intermountain Forest
Association
International Association of
Fire Chiefs
International Association of
Fish & Wildlife Agencies
Intertribal Timber Council
Lake County Resources Initiative
Mattole Restoration Council
Minnesota Shade Tree Advisory
Committee
National Alliance for
Community Trees
National Association of
Conservation Districts
National Association of
Counties
National Association of
Professional Forestry Schools and Colleges
National Association of State
Foresters
National Association of State
Universities and Land Grant Colleges
National Forest Counties and
Schools Coalition
National Network of Forest
Practitioners
National Woodland Owners
Association
Pinchot Institute for
Conservation
Society of American Foresters
Sustainable Northwest
The Conservation Fund
The Forest Trust
The Nature Conservancy
The Wildlife Society
Trees Forever
Trees New York
Trust for Public Land
Wallowa Resources
cc:
Joshua B. Bolten, Office of
Management and Budget
Mark Rey, US Department of Agriculture
Rebecca Watson, US Department of the Interior