Today, a bipartisan group of senators introduced its companion to the Fix our Forests Act (FOFA), reintroduced and quickly passed by the House earlier this year. The FOFA is a significant federal forest management and wildfire package aimed at streamlining critical work required on the National Forest System, as well as implementing a number of key activities related to wildfire prevention, mitigation, and response. The core of the legislation:
- Designates new “fireshed management areas” covering the top 20 percent of firesheds for wildfire risk exposure and provides authorities to expedite management projects in these firesheds, including streamlined procedures for judicial review of agency decisions.
- Establishes a new federal Fire Intelligence Center a joint office within USDA and DOI that is modeled after the National Weather Service, to become the national hub for wildfire intelligence and prediction. The center is designed to modernize, unify, and leverage real-time data, science, and interagency collaboration.
- Streamlines all federal lands projects by clarifying the circumstances under which federal land managers are not required to re-initiate Endangered Species Act consultation under a land and resource management plan or land use plan (i.e. Cottonwood Fix) and increasing the acreage limit of most NEPA categorical exclusions from 3,000 acres to 10,000 acres.
- Creates a new interagency “Community Wildfire Risk Reduction Program” to support federal agency coordination efforts to reduce the risk of and the damages resulting from, wildland fires in communities in the wildland-urban interface and a “Community Wildfire Defense Research Program” support research and development around innovations in wildfire-resistant building materials, design, planning, and landscape architecture. Opens the Community Wildfire Defense Grant program to fund needs in the built environment.
Among FOFA’s 176 pages are a number of significant wins for state forestry priorities, including:
- Streamlining project review requirements and processes to grow the pace and scale of federal forest management and associated cross-boundary work.
- Requiring USDA and DOI to establish standard operating procedures to set payment timelines for state fire suppression cost share agreements.
- Efforts to increase the nationwide deployment of prescribed fire, including resources for state exceptional event demonstrations.
- Incorporating the “RNGR Support Act” – a key NASF Farm Bill priority – that would codify the Forest Service’s Reforestation, Nursery, and Genetics Resources (RNGR) Program, which serves as the national center of reforestation, nursery, and tree improvement expertise and technical assistance.
- Reflecting a key NASF Farm Bill priority, the bill opens the definition of “At-Risk Community” in the Healthy Forest Restoration Act to include communities that have been identified as “at risk” by state wildfire risk assessments and other collaboratively developed tools used by federal and state agencies.
NASF supports the bipartisan process and the focus on forest management and wildfire while recognizing that many of the policies are nuanced. We look forward to continuing to work with Congress on modest yet meaningful revisions.
“State forestry agencies play a lead role not only in managing and protecting over 550 million acres of state and private forests, but also working to improve the health and resiliency of federal lands through cross-boundary partnerships nationwide. State Foresters are also responsible for wildfire protection on more than 1.5 billion acres and, in collaboration with local fire departments, responding to 80 percent of the nation’s wildland fires,” said Jay Farrell, Executive Director of National Association of State Foresters. “NASF applauds the bipartisan work of Senators Sheehy, Curtis, Hickenlooper, and Padilla to chart a path forward to greatly enhance wildfire management and recovery efforts and stem the tide of disastrous wildfires that threaten our nation’s forests and the livelihood of communities that depend on them. We recognize that many of the key improvements made in the Fix Our Forests Act are nuanced and look forward to continuing our work with Congress to ensure its landmark reforms become law.”