Spending Bill and The Forest Service

Mule Deer said:

I'm happy to hear that congress has finally fixed fire spending within the forest service, but I'm not really all that knowledgeable on how the budget works for them.

With the Axing of fire borrowing, does this essentially increase the budget of the forest service for non fire programs? How so if you know how the budget works?

http://mtpr.org/post/montana-delegation-praises-forest-management-changes-omnibus-bill

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Big Fin said:

Probably not. It would require Congress to appropriate enough money for the other parts of the USFS budget. Given this fix is not what some wanted, any additional funding for USFS budget will be an uphill battle. It will provide some consistency that what does get appropriated for other programs is not likely to get raided for wildfire funding, but probably not an increase for those other programs.

This has been a crazy week for folks working on the conservation issues attached to this bill. A lot of really good solutions were agreed to behind the scenes, but for the ugly reason of politics, some of those good ones were dropped or the period of the fix was shortened, or the good idea was watered down to "meh." Until it is passed by both houses and signed by the President, I'm still holding my breath.

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Big Fin said:

Probably not. It would require Congress to appropriate enough money for the other parts of the USFS budget. Given this fix is not what some wanted, any additional funding for USFS budget will be an uphill battle. It will provide some consistency that what does get appropriated for other programs is not likely to get raided for wildfire funding, but probably not an increase for those other programs.

This has been a crazy week for folks working on the conservation issues attached to this bill. A lot of really good solutions were agreed to behind the scenes, but for the ugly reason of politics, some of those good ones were dropped or the period of the fix was shortened, or the good idea was watered down to "meh." Until it is passed by both houses and signed by the President, I'm still holding my breath.

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Big Fin said:

Probably not. It would require Congress to appropriate enough money for the other parts of the USFS budget. Given this fix is not what some wanted, any additional funding for USFS budget will be an uphill battle. It will provide some consistency that what does get appropriated for other programs is not likely to get raided for wildfire funding, but probably not an increase for those other programs.

This has been a crazy week for folks working on the conservation issues attached to this bill. A lot of really good solutions were agreed to behind the scenes, but for the ugly reason of politics, some of those good ones were dropped or the period of the fix was shortened, or the good idea was watered down to "meh." Until it is passed by both houses and signed by the President, I'm still holding my breath.

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Ben Lamb said:

It's signed.

This was a significant win for conservationists. Other items in the Omni were an increase to LWCF (from $400 million last year to $425 this year), Reversing the Cottonwood decision, and $65 million for grouse conservation (NRCS).

After hearing how this all came about, we all owe a huge thanks to the majority and minority leaders in both houses, and while a lot of good stuff didn't get in, a lot of bad stuff didn't either.

As for consistency - I think the fire fix will be very helpful in getting ground-level projects moving forward, since the service will no longer need to be paid back their own money, allowing them to put it on the ground much faster. I'd still like to see increased budgets, but overall, the omnibus was a solid win for conservation.

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icebreaker12 said:

Not near as important with this with this crowd, but it also saw increases to the USFWS and increases to NAWCA. Some pretty good things in here.

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Old Ranger said:

Soooo... What is your definition of "improved consistency"?

DOI and USDA Budget allocations in non-Fire Suppression Resource Mgt. areas to the BLM and USFS have been smaller "consistently" through the past four Administrations. And now the current situation with this one. Just Saying.....

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