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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Wildfires Burning Through Forest Service Budget, Even in East

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Wednesday, November 29, 2017   

RICHMOND, Va. – More and bigger wildfires – even in the East – are burning through the budget of the U.S. Forest Service.

But some in Congress want to attach controversial logging provisions to a proposed fix.

Droughts and a buildup of fuel are feeding more deadly wildfires – such as the 2016 fire near Gatlinburg, Tenn., that killed 14.

And last month there was a 100-acre fire in the normally damp woods near the Virginia, West Virginia border.

Jennifer Jones, a public affairs specialist for the U.S. Forest Service, says firefighting that once cost $300 million a year might now run $2 billion annually.

"We project that by 2021, about 67 percent of our budget will be requested for fire,” she states. “The more that we have to request for fire suppression, the less that we have available to request for other programs, including those that could reduce fire risk."

A plan with bipartisan support would create a separate budget for the big, out-of-control fires – treating them as natural disasters, just like floods and tornadoes.

But some versions of that proposal tie the budget fix to easing regulations on logging.

Some congressional Republicans argue that environmental rules and community participation are slowing logging that could reduce the fuel for wildfires.

Sam Evans, a staff attorney and national parks and forests program leader at the Southern Environmental Law Center, says what's really happening is that those members of Congress are holding the budget fix hostage in an attempt to force an unrelated policy change.

"Not all logging projects are of equal value in preventing wildfires,” he states. “But that's what these provisions would do, is to say that 'we don't need to think about the impacts that these projects might have on recreation, or water quality, or rare and endangered species. We just need to cut, cut, cut.'"

The Wildfire Disaster Funding Act would provide a set level of funding for fighting normal fires within the current Forest Service budget.

It also would create a separate disaster fire fund, which the service could call on when that initial funding is exhausted.

Evans says he expects the debate over the legislation to come to a head during discussions of a farm bill next year.

The Forest Service is part of the Department of Agriculture, and is funded through the farm bill.




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