House Interior Approps Subcommittee mark-up would eliminate USFS borrowing for wildfire

The House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee marked-up the Interior and Environment appropriations bill this week. In his statement to the subcommittee, Congressman Norm Dicks acknowledged the frustration of "ever increasing budgets for fighting wildfires" and "the damage which occurs when agencies are forced to borrow money to fight fires from their base program budgets." The subcommittee's recommendations attempt to stop the "irrational borrowing of funds from critical projects" by including bill language which prohibits this borrowing unless the President has submitted a formal budget request to Congress to replace the funds.

Congressman Dicks's statement and a comparison chart of the markup are available here: http://appropriations.house.gov/Subcommittees/sub_ienv.shtml