Rita Neznek<NeznekR@safnet.org>

Subject: Action needed for Wildfire suppression emergency funding

10/14/2003 06:14 PM

To State Chairs

State Policy Chairs

Divsions Chairs

All,

Unfortunately, it is still uncertain as to whether the House and Senate

Interior Appropriations conference will retain the $400 million in

emergency money included in the Senate Interior Appropriations bill to

reimburse the Forest Service and the DOI for wildfire suppression costs in

2003. This year, the Forest Service and the BLM have transferred almost

$700 million from other program accounts (National Forest System, Planning,

etc.) to cover wildfire suppression funding. This transferring has serious

implications for implementing work on the ground, especially if the

transferred funding is not reimbursed. (see attached letter)

House and Senate Conferees will be meeting over the next few weeks to

resolve this and other differences in the House and Senate versions of the

Interior Appropriations bill. This $400 million would be in addition to the

emergency funding provided in the Legislative Branch appropriations bill

which became law on September 30th, 2003 (contained $253 million for the

Forest Service and $36 million for the DOI).

We are encouraging you all to contact your members of the House and Senate,

urging them to:

1) provide emergency funding (specify emergency funding to ensure the

funding is not taken from other FY 2004 programs, but rather is in addition

to funding for FY 2004 programs) with the recognition that a long-term

solution to this problem is critical.

2) pass this message along to the House leadership, the House

Appropriations Committee Chair and Ranking member, and the House and Senate

conferees.

If you have stories of on-the-ground projects that have been

delayed/eliminated because of the transferring of funds this year, these

would be useful in your conversations with these offices. Please share

these stories with us by sending them to Billy Ellison, at the Society of

American Foresters at policyi@safnet.org so we can share these with offices

as well.

Attached is a letter signed by SAF and 42 other organizations regarding the

emergency supplemental funding. Feel free to use this in your

conversations.

Specific members to target besides your members of Congress include:

Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House

Tom Delay, House Majority leader

The conferees:

Senate: Burns; Stevens; Cochran; Domenici; Bennett; Gregg; Campbell;

Brownback; Dorgan; Byrd; Leahy; Hollings; Reid; Feinstein; Mikulski.

House: Taylor (NC), Regula, Kolbe, Nethercutt, Wamp, Peterson (PA),

Sherwood, Crenshaw, Young (FL), Dicks, Murtha, Moran (VA), Hinchey, Olver,

and Obey.

Thanks again for your help.

-Rita

Rita Neznek

Associate Director, Forest Policy

Society of American Foresters

(301) 897-8720 ext. 115

neznekr@safnet.org

(See attached Wildfire Supplemental Letter in: HTML Format, Word Format, or Rich Text Format)