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Firefighting costs out of control, says panel |
 Noelle Straub
Missoulian D.C. Bureau
WASHINGTON - Economists, foresters and
federal officials debated Thursday how to lower the skyrocketing cost
of fighting wildfires, mulling solutions that ranged from staying the
course to abolishing the U.S. Forest Service.
The agency's fire
spending is “out of control,” said Randal O'Toole, a senior fellow at
the Cato Institute, a Washington-based libertarian think tank. A forest
economist, O'Toole released a policy paper suggesting a range of six
alternatives to fix the problem.
O'Toole said the Forest Service
has had a virtual blank check to fight wildfires. After bad fire
seasons or loss of life or homes in wildfires, Congress rewards the
agency with more money, he said.“Fire has given the Forest Service money and power more than almost anything else,” O'Toole said.
O'Toole
argued the pros and cons of the alternatives, but did not advocate the
most extreme suggestion, abolishing the agency. He said it's too big a
change and would face much opposition. And mismanagement of private
lands, such as federal subsidies for some crops, often has been worse
than on public lands, he said.
Another option he outlined would
be to focus solely on the wildland-urban interface, where homes and
forests meet, and let most fires burn. But O'Toole added that not every
ecosystem needs the same treatment and some areas would benefit from
fire protection.
Even in the wildland-urban interface, the
Forest Service should consider whether it would be less expensive to
allow some homes to burn, especially if they don't comply with
fire-safe rules, than to spend millions on suppression, he said.
Relying
on private insurance to fund, and so rein in, the huge costs of fire
suppression may not be realistic, O'Toole said. And another
alternative, turning management of the national forests over to state
or local authorities, would have little popular support.
O'Toole
proposes to stop funding the Forest Service with tax dollars. Instead,
each forest's budget would come from its own user fees, including
timber, grazing, mining and recreation. Individual forests' board of
directors could choose whether to use the fees on fire suppression or
to let more fires burn, he said.
James Hubbard, deputy chief for
state and private forestry with the Forest Service, said he wouldn't
comment for or against specific alternatives. But he said staying the
course isn't the answer.
“I would just say that this suppression
cost problem does need some type of a solution,” Hubbard said. “Whether
we pursue that through different alternatives, through pilot (projects)
that we test or through political solutions, one way or another, the
Forest Service needs some help solving this problem.”
“We can do
certain things about cost containment but that won't totally solve the
problem, I don't believe, because of the weather conditions and the
fuel accumulations that we're facing in those forests,” he said. “So
we're going to continue to spend a lot of money on suppression. And the
way it's happening now, it's consuming the Forest Service budget and
it's doing so at the detriment of other programs. So we need a
different scheme.”
The Forest Service spent $1.5 billion on
wildfire suppression last fire season, when 5 million acres burned,
Hubbard said. The agency has already implemented 57 cost-saving
recommendations, he said. “It's not like we've ignored the situation,
but it continues to grow.”
Decisions made by line officers on
how to approach a fire dictate the cost, Hubbard said. So this year the
Forest Service chief told line officers to use a more flexible approach
in deciding what resources to throw at fires.
“We want you to take the appropriate response,” Hubbard said. “It isn't the same in all situations.”
The agency will allow more fires not threatening lives or homes to burn, he said.
The
agency needs to examine public and private roles in the wildland-urban
interface, Hubbard said. He said the agency will consider sharing more
responsibilities with local fire districts in such areas. Issues such
as zoning, fire codes and encouraging homeowners to fireproof their
houses are better done by local officials, he said.
“Suppression is a finance problem, a cost problem and a culture problem,” Hubbard said.
Other
cost-saving measures he cited include dispatching a principal
representative to large fires, using a new computer mapping program to
predict how fires will act and continuing to reduce the buildup of dry
brush and trees.
O'Toole said the Forest Service has had the
“wrong strategy” on hazardous fuels and that entire forests don't need
to be treated. Instead, only a 130-foot perimeter surrounding homes
needs to be treated.
Douglas Crandall, policy director of the
Society of American Foresters, disagreed. “Treatment makes a
difference, fuel makes a difference,” he said.
Crandall said the
Forest Service must be protected from political meddling. Lawmakers
from individual districts or states demand that the agency treat fires
there in a certain way and the agency often complies, he said.
Crandall also wants Congress to allow pilot projects around the country to see how some of the alternative ideas work.
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