Feds slow response to reducing wildfire risks and costs should not result in states, counties paying more (1/30/07)

Feds slow response to reducing wildfire
risks and costs should not result in states, counties paying more

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 30, 2007

Contact: 
Kirk Rowdabaugh, Arizona State Forester, 602-616-2940
Jim Caswell, State of Idaho, 208-890-1012
Lori Faeth, Office of Arizona Governor Napolitano, 602-542-1334
Paul Orbuch, WGA, 303-623-9378

WASHINGTON - Federal agencies that are not doing everything they can to reduce the risk of wildfires should not be allowed to shift ever increasing costs of fighting wildfires to state and local governments, the Western Governors' Association told a Senate committee today. A recent audit by the Department of Agriculture recommended state and local governments pick up more of the fire-fighting tab.

Kirk Rowdabaugh, Arizona State Forester, presented testimony to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on behalf of WGA, the National Association of Counties, the National Association of State Foresters and the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

He said the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of the Interior need to adopt all of the cost-control recommendations delivered to them by the Governors in 2004 and fully implement the 10-year comprehensive forest health strategy updated just last year. If they don't, it will result in greater costs to state, local and federal governments fighting fires in what is known as the wildland urban interface.

Rowdabaugh said Congress should direct the federal agencies to make implementation of the new plan among its highest priorities, noting that all levels of government, firefighters and stakeholders support the steps outlined in the 10-year strategy to reduce wildfire risks, especially catastrophic wildfires.

It is these large fires that at great speed eat up the resources appropriated for suppression, Rowdabaugh said. So full implementation with adequate funding of all four goals in the 10-year Strategy is a wise and economical cost-containment approach. It is substantially cheaper to thin forests and protect communities in advance than to put out fires and repair the damage from them after the fact.

Gov. Mike Rounds (S.D.), WGA's Chairman, said he is pleased the Senate has taken up this topic so early in the 110th Congress.

Western Governors and our state and local partners believe strongly that the federal agencies can take a number of steps on their own and with us to improve forest health and get ahead of the tremendous costs of fighting wildfires, to the tune of $1 billion each year, Rounds said. We are all in this together, and it will take a strong, long-term commitment from all of us to turn the tide.

Gov. Janet Napolitano (Ariz.), WGA's lead for forest health issues, said unhealthy national forests are a major cause of catastrophic wildfires in Arizona and threaten the citizens that live near them.

I am disappointed that the federal agencies would consider shifting spiraling suppression costs to states and local governments, Napolitano said. The agencies have a ways to go to get their own house in order. Cost shifting is not a solution, but rather a misguided effort to pass the buck on costs.

Also testifying today before the Senate committee was Jim Caswell of the Idaho governor's office. He was the co-chair of the Strategic Issues Panel on Fire Suppression Costs that comprised state, federal and other experts. They issued cost control recommendations in 2004 that the governors endorsed. A number of those recommendations have yet to be acted on by the federal agencies.

The Western Governors' Association is an independent, nonprofit organization representing the governors of 19 states and three U.S.-Flag islands in the Pacific. Through their Association, the Western governors identify and address key policy and governance issues in natural resources, the environment, human services, economic development, international relations and public management.

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