Merkley: 2015 Fire Borrowing Reinforces Need for Long-Term Wildfire Funding Fix

Statement

Oregon's Senator Jeff Merkley released the following statement after reports that the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is now implementing fire borrowing -- the practice of halting other programs, including fire prevention efforts -- to free up funds to combat the record-setting wildfires that ‎are blazing across the Northwest:

"There's a slow-motion hollowing out of the Forest Service as the result of our backwards approach to funding efforts to fight inevitable wildfires. This year, for the first time in history, more than half of the Forest Service's budget has been set aside to address wildfires. Unless Congress acts, Americans will continue gradually losing the benefits of our forests -- fewer available campgrounds, erosion polluting our streams and rivers, lost jobs as timber projects stall, and most ironically and worryingly, more frequent and more severe wildfires as we loot fire prevention to pay for the fires burning right now. There's a common-sense fix with bipartisan support, and I am going to be pushing hard to see it signed into law this year. It's time to fund huge wildfires like the natural disasters they are, and stop fueling the vicious cycle of cutting fire prevention and everything else to pay for fires that are already burning‎."

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