Press Release

The Western Governors’ Association requested a meeting with Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt 10 days ago. Governors attending today’s meeting in Salt Lake City were WGA Chairman, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, Idaho; Govs. Marc Racicot, Mont.; John Kitzhaber, Ore.; Bill Janklow, S.D.; Mike Leavitt, Utah; and Jim Geringer, Wyo. Other governors joined the meeting by telephone.

"The states are seeking true partnerships with the federal government and a new approach to managing our forests that will help prevent the devastation we have seen this year," Kempthorne said. "We also agreed to work immediately toward getting the necessary appropriations from Congress to begin the recovery from this year’s fires."

The governors recommended going beyond the $1.6 billion proposed by the administration in emergency funding for this year and to include reimbursing states for expenditures they have incurred for firefighting efforts and equipment. The governors advanced as a vision for a 10-year strategy, their existing policy resolution entitled, Improving Forest Ecosystem Health on Federal Lands. That resolution calls for, among other things, active management and restoration treatments for fire-prone forests.

"What you’re seeing here to today is a situation to get beyond the rhetoric," said Kitzhaber, who is leading WGA’s fire response efforts along with Racicot. He said the governors and Secretaries are seeking a thoughtful strategy that would use "incentives to produce healthy forests and healthy ecosystems representing wide ranging values. It’s important to move forward to make a major policy shift in this country that is long overdue."

Gov. Racicot said it is essential to get a long-term strategy of restoration. "We’ve talked about it for a long time, and now we have an opportunity to move this agenda forward on terms that are very simple," he said. "Once we receive the necessary appropriations, we need to trust the people on the ground to do the restoration work based on a set of sound scientific principles."

Related WGA policy resolutions are available on the Web at

The Western Governors’ Association is an independent, nonprofit organization representing the governors of 18 states, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. 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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