Draft bill needs work to address fire borrowing, Tongass protection

Summer is upon us, and many of us will be heading to public lands to fish. A new bill in draft form is being considered in Congress that doesn't do enough to address the challenge of "fire borrowing," or winnowing away at federal agency funding earmarked for important restoration and maintenance projects and using the money to battle wildifires instead. The draft bill would also halt some significant progress on Alaska's Tongass National Forest, where ideological shifts are under way to better protect old-growth habitat vital to trout and salmon while managing second-growth forests more effectively.

By Corey Fisher and Austin Williams

It’s the end of May and we are on the verge of summer. Not summer as defined by the solstice or Memorial Day. No, it may be unofficial, but the real first day of summer is the last day of school when families across America look ahead to three months of freedom. And there’s no better way to celebrate that freedom than on our nation’s public lands where we can unplug from our daily life in the outdoors – camping, hiking, fishing, exploring, roasting hotdogs, making s’mores and making memories.

America’s public lands are central to this way of life—our way of life—and central to Trout Unlimited’s mission. So it was with great interest Wednesday night when U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Maria Cantwell (Washington), Ron Wyden (Oregon), Mike Crapo (Idaho), and Jim Risch (Idaho) unveiled discussion draft legislation called the Wildfire Budgeting, Response, and Forest Management Act. This discussion draft is a starting point for legislation aimed at improving forest management and ending the unsustainable practice of fire borrowing, or raiding agency funds earmarked for other priorities and using them to battle wildfires. This is not mundane federal policy; this legislation will affect public lands and public land users all across the country and we’re watching it closely.

This discussion draft tries to address two main challenges: the need to mitigate the crippling effects of rapidly rising wildfire suppression costs and the need to increase the pace of restoration on U.S. Forest Service land to build watershed resilience.  While we share these important goals and encourage our Senators to continue working toward a long-term solution to these problems, the discussion draft, as currently written, only partially addresses these two problems and actually creates a third.

TU will only support bills that actually help achieve those goals on the ground. This discussion draft has a long way to go before it can improve the health of our national forests, achieve improved watershed resilience and prevent damaging wildfires. 

Specifically, while taking a step in the right direction, the bill falls short on mitigating the harmful impacts of rising fire suppression costs eating the budgets for other essential projects, such as fish habitat restoration. The draft would allow the continued erosion of forest resource management budgets, which leads to decreasing fish habitat projects completed on the ground.

While premised on collaborative processes that TU fundamentally supports, the draft bill does not provide adequate safeguards to ensure that watershed health will be protected from the increased timber harvest and road building activities directed by the draft.  For example, roadless area watersheds are not adequately protected in the discussion draft. 

Worst of all, in a series of provisions entirely unrelated to the draft bill’s initial goals, it would undercut the unanimous, collaboratively developed recommendations of local stakeholders and unnecessarily delays badly needed reforms to unsustainable old-growth timber harvest practices on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. It puts at risk some of the most productive wild salmon streams in the world. The Forest Service has nearly finalized these reforms.

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The Tongass is the finest trout and salmon producing forest in the national forest system, generating hundreds of millions of wild salmon annually worth more than $1 billion to the regional economy and accounting for more than 10 percent of local employment. The Tongass is key to the success of Southeast Alaska’s top two economic drivers—fishing and tourism.

The Tongass’ rich salmon-producing watersheds must be better protected, and the Forest Service is about to take widely-supported steps to do so. Instead, this bill shuts the door on collaborative decision-making on the Tongass and, if passed, all but guarantees a return to divisive timber policy, litigation and increased uncertainty for all stakeholders. There is a better path forward, but the bill’s Tongass provisions would yield interminable and unwarranted delays to these changes.

The public can provide the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources with input on the draft by emailing comments to wildfire@energy.senate.gov; comments are requested by Monday, June 13.

The authors wanted the draft to generate badly needed discussions about fire management and the future of America’s national forests. On that score, they have achieved unqualified success. However, they have a ways to go before achieving their goals and ensuring our public land resources remain available for future generations of anglers, hunters and everyone who treasures our public lands.

We will work with the authors to improve the draft as it moves through the legislative process this summer.

Corey Fisher is the senior policy director to TU's Sportsmen's Conservation Project. He lives and works in Missoula, Mont. Austin Williams is the general counsel for TU's Alaska program. He lives and works in Anchorage, Alaska.