As Congress headed home for the Christmas break, Agriculture Department Secretary Tom Vilsack presented lawmakers with an angry ultimatum: Put up more cash if you want the U.S. Forest Service to keep putting out the nation’s huge wildfires.
Vilsack is fuming because Congress set aside $1.6 billion to pay for wildfire suppression in 2016 despite the service, which he controls, spending $100 million more than that to fight blazes this year. Year after year, Congress has underfunded the firefighting effort, forcing the Forest Service to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars from other departments in the agency to pay for equipment and firefighters.
Congress allocated $1 billion for fire suppression in 2015 — a year fast approaching another record for most acres burned. As fires continued, Vilsack pleaded for more money to avoid the frantic inter-agency borrowing of fire seasons, such as $999 million in 2002, $695 million in 2003 and $200 million in 2006.
In a smoldering letter to lawmakers, Vilsack put his foot down. The 2016 budget “fails to provide a long-term solution to address the critical and growing problem of paying for catastrophic wildfire and instead leaves the Forest Service hobbled by the current untenable budget situation,” he wrote.
He issued what amounts to a threat, saying he will no longer rob from other departments to pay for firefighting efforts that Congress doesn’t fund.
