Agriculture secretary says he’ll push for more wildfire funding

WASHINGTON — Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has assured House appropriators that he would press the White House for more funding and flexibility to address wildfires across the nation as lawmakers from both parties expressed dismay at proposed budget cuts to the U.S. Forest Service.

President Donald Trump’s proposal for fiscal 2018 released on Tuesday proposes cutting the Forest Service’s budget to $5.2 billion from the $5.6 billion allocated in the fiscal 2017 omnibus. Trump’s budget would direct $2.5 billion of that toward the Forest Service’s wildland fire management budget, compared to the $3.2 billion in the omnibus.

At a hearing to examine Trump’s budget proposal for the Forest Service on Thursday, House Appropriations Interior-Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert, who recalled the wildfires that have in recent years ravaged his state of California, called on Perdue to make forest management a priority. Calvert said the protracted drought that only recently ended in California left the state with nearly 100 million dead or dying trees that could lead to more fires if the agency does not quickly clear them.

The budget “is a recipe for more forest fires,” Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, told reporters shortly after the hearing.

Interior-Environment Subcommittee ranking member Betty McCollum, D-Minn., at the hearing warned that if cuts to the Forest Service’s budget continue, states would be forced to fill the resulting “void.”