Firefighting costs sap funds for public lands

Firefighting costs sap funds for public lands

08/15/02

MICHAEL MILSTEIN

The U.S. government expects to spend upward of $1.5 billion battling wildfires this year, making it by far the most expensive firefighting year in the nation's history and draining away millions in public land funds

As fires across Oregon and the West consume record sums, they also illuminate a budget tug of war between Congress and the Bush administration. Congress wants to unleash a flood of extra firefighting cash while the president seeks new controls on ballooning wildfire expenses.

The cost projection prompted an urgent round of cutbacks throughout the U.S. Forest Service, which already has spent more than twice its $321 million firefighting budget. Field offices are suspending road and trail maintenance, land purchases, fish and wildlife habitat work, replanting of logged or burned areas, and more.

"We were told, 'Just delay whatever you can,' " said Lisa Norris, resource staff officer for the Mount Hood National Forest.

Oregon wildfires, sometimes consuming more than $5 million each day, are doing their part to drive up the price. About 5.6 million acres have burned nationally, more than twice the average.

Congress traditionally has reimbursed land agencies such as the Forest Service for firefighting costs as the season winds down and probably will again this year. But the Bush administration has taken a hard line against supplying extra money.

The administration strongly opposed $700 million in emergency fire suppression money Congress inserted into a Forest Service budget bill. On Tuesday, the president shot down a $5.1 billion package that included an extra $50 million for firefighting, saying it included too much needless spending.

That has forced the Forest Service to transfer money from its day-to-day programs to cover escalating fire expenses. Western lawmakers, among them Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., have voiced protests.

The actions highlight a sharpening fiscal scrutiny of the nation's firefighting program, which once went as unquestioned as Smokey Bear even as it left Western forests overgrown and primed for fire. Now the federal government spends ever-rising sums battling fires that burn more acres than ever.

Per-acre costs increase

In 2001, the Forest Service spent $1,300 an acre combating fires, a 300 percent increase from the year before, according to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, the administrative arm that holds federal purse strings.

There is no incentive to hold down firefighting costs, however, because agencies receive unlimited reimbursements that may even encourage overspending, the OMB said.

In its 2003 budget summary, the OMB concluded: "In some western areas, the government pays more suppressing fires than the fair market value of the structures threatened by those fires. It would literally be cheaper to let the fires burn and pay 100 percent of the rebuilding cost."

A little-noticed section of the administration's 2003 budget requests $20 million to buy "fire plain easements" on land where the cost of putting out wildfires exceeds the property value. Such easements could, in effect, pay landowners to let fires burn.

President Bush's budget office also has sought new standards to make fire spending more cost-effective.

The Forest Service commonly has borrowed from timber sale receipts to make up for wildfire overruns, with Congress later replenishing the money.

But the collapse of logging on federal lands, particularly in the Northwest, has left much less timber money to go around.

"We just don't have access to nearly what we have in the past," said Hank Kashdan, Forest Service budget chief.

Cost projections grow

Since federal agencies cannot spend into the red, the Forest Service is cutting programs as fast as it's spending on fires. A new cost projection based on fire conditions predicts wildfires will cost the agency from $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion, some $330 million more than last projected about three weeks ago.

It's also well more than the Forest Service's fire spending record of $1.1 billion in 2000 and represents more than a quarter of the agency's entire budget.

This week officials discovered an unaccounted for $215 million now available for firefighting. But the Forest Service still must cut deeply to come up with the remaining cash.

"We've got adequate funds to borrow from to meet our projections," said Mark Rey, undersecretary of agriculture. "It's not a perfect solution, but this is our highest priority, protecting people and forests."

Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth is expected to issue a directive today warning all employees to halt any spending they can.

Other federal agencies, such as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Affairs, expect to spend $300 million or more on fire this year. That exceeds their wildfire budget, but they have borrowed from backup accounts without affecting ongoing programs.

The entire wildfire outlay of more than $1.5 billion for all agencies will surpass the earlier record of $1.36 billion in 2000.

Repercussions are spreading. The Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station in Portland expects to cut $11 million from its $53 million annual budget, forcing cancellation of contracts with Oregon State University and the University of Washington, said Robert Szaro, acting director.

"All of that is going to have a major effect on what we get done the next few months," he said.

Contracts in peril

Many Northwest national forests expect to cancel contracts for road and trail maintenance, thinning of timber stands and other projects.

The administration blames the problems in part on sluggish Forest Service accounting that underestimated wildfire costs and left "no way of knowing precisely how much is being spent in a timely manner," Mitchell Daniels, Bush's budget director, wrote to the agriculture secretary two weeks ago.

"We have made decisions based on inaccurate information provided by the Forest Service, decisions we are now forced to reconsider," he wrote.

Undersecretary Rey said there are plans to speed up the accounting. The administration recognizes extra wildfire money will be needed, he said, and plans to reconsider the strategy of paying for fires through borrowing.

Wyden, Cantwell and eight other Western senators wrote to the Office of Management and Budget in June that the borrowing approach jeopardizes projects to thin forests and reduce the hazards of future wildfires.

They pointed to cases in which the Forest Service borrowed millions meant for thinning to pay for firefighting instead and did not return the money even when Congress replenished it. Aides also hinted Bush officials could use the specter of burning forests to justify stepped up logging.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find an Oregonian who doesn't think this is a fire emergency," said Josh Kardon, Wyden's chief of staff. "By refusing to fund firefighting at the level Congress desires, the administration might create the perception of a crisis that would work to its own advantage." Michael Milstein: 503-294-7689; michaelmilstein@news.oregonian.com