04/01/05 Firefighting and the federal budget

04/01/05 Firefighting and the federal budget

Reductions in farm payment programs and other similar cuts have been among the big focus items for rural and farm based interests looking at the President's proposed fiscal year 2006 budget. One budget component that has not received a lot of press has been the Interior appropriations for 2006. Not that there is a lot of perceived negative aspects of the proposed Interior budget. For example, firefighting efforts seem to have been given monetary increases for the Healthy Forest Initiative, which seems like good news for the Western U.S. as it deals with increased wildfire concerns both this year, and next, as a result of drier than normal weather conditions. Interior Assistant Secretary Lynn Scarlett says overall forest and range health programs, like Healthy Forests, for 2006 come in at $313 million dollars. SCARLETT: We expect with this budget which is a ten million dollar increase to add four million acres or more to that fuels reduction effort, trying to bring those lands back to health. And we're doing this also in tremendous collaboration with states, and localities and tribes. But there might be one part of the Interior budget that should concern rural areas when it comes to next year's budget and firefighting efforts. The Bush Administration budget proposes the elimination of the Wildland Fire Rural Fire Assistance program. That is the program that helps train rural firefighters both in ag lands and near forested areas. But Scarlett says the proposed elimination of that program should not decrease rural firefighter training, as for one, partnerships with local fire departments will be addressed through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and second, Interior still plans to address local firefighting training out of its preparedness funds. SCARLETT: In our preparedness funding, we've now actually set aside $1.8 million dollars specifically for the purpose of rural firefighter training. The fact that we have eliminated our grant assistance program is in no way a signal to those firefighters but rather a sign that we think we can work better by working with other existing grant programs that are larger than ours. And Scarlett adds as a side note that benefits both aiding firefighting efforts and providing drought relief, an additional $10.5 million dollars in fiscal year 2006 has been added to the Water 2025 program.
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