Washington outlook.

As negotiations for spending for Fiscal Year 2006 go forward, we're seeing stiff resistance to President Bush's spending proposals that adversely affect rural communities.

As we go to press, the House has passed its Interior Appropriations bill (HR 2361), but the Senate has only just moved its version of the bill through the initial subcommittee and few details are available. Most of our discussion focuses on spending proposals and language in the House-approved bill.

In the last Washington Outlook (Spring 2005), we expressed concern about the President's FY2006 proposals to reduce or eliminate many programs that provide grants and assistance to communities for conservation, wildfire protection, and rural development. The House bill questions many of these proposals and restores funding in several important areas, both for the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

The House report accompanying HR 2361 recognizes wildfire management and forest health programs as "critically important core programs on which the Committee has focused scarce resources." "Without these funds," it states, "we will not be able to protect communities and natural resources." It also warns of "ever-increasing wildfire suppression costs" and a growing number and severity of "large fire events."

Particularly important is the House bill's restoration of funding for programs such as the Forest Service's State Fire Assistance Program. In the report, the Committee appeared puzzled "why the Administration chose to dramatically cut this successful cooperative conservation and protection program in its request."

The report says that state fire assistance funds should be used preferentially to support community wildfire protection planning and implementation. We are pleased to see this language in the House report again this year and hope that, unlike last year, it will make its way into the final conference report.

Similarly, the House bill restores $5 million to the Bureau of Land Management's Rural Fire Assistance program, expressing skepticism of the Administration's claim that "similar funding was available within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for rural fire assistance."

The House took steps to restore funding for the Economic Action Program (EAP), a Forest Service program that provides technical and financial assistance to rural communities for capacity building and economic development. EAP has been a high priority for AMERICAN FORESTS' advocacy efforts with community-based forestry partners, but the Administration has proposed to eliminate it over the last few years. The House restored nearly $8 million for the program, largely by transferring $5 million for a biomass grants program from the hazardous fuels reduction program.

This is helpful, and the biomass grants program is consistent with EAP, but we are greatly concerned about continued reductions in EAP support. Although Congress continues to restore funding, levels have dropped steadily from a high of nearly $36 million in FY 2002 to $19 million in FY 2005 to $8 million now. We hope the Senate boosts support for EAP in its proposals.

In other State and Private Forestry (S & PF) programs, the House questions "why, with the huge concern nationally for healthy forests, the (Administration's) budget request included such large decreases for these immensely valuable and vital forest health programs." The House bill also provides small increases above the Administration's requests for the Forest Stewardship program (up $300,000 to $37.4 million) and the Urban and Community Forestry Program (up $700,000 to $28.2 million).

To offset these increases, the House proposes to significantly reduce funding for Forest Legacy, an Administration priority, calling new land acquisition a "low priority." Forest Legacy funding will be a key point of discussion for the House and Senate conference committee, since one of the few highlights released on the Senate's bill is $62.6 million for Forest Legacy.

Finally, one of AMERICAN FORESTS' highest priorities has been and is to ensure that national forest lands affected by management actions, such as timber harvest, or natural disturbances, such as wildfire or insect and disease, are effectively reforested through tree planting or natural regeneration. We provided testimony on these issues for a House Resources Committee hearing on post-fire restoration last year (see Summer/Autumn 2004).

In follow-up to that hearing, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently completed the report, Forest Service: Better Data Are Needed to Identify and Prioritize Reforestation and Timber Stand Improvement Needs (GAO-05-374). To discuss the findings, the same House committee convened another hearing in April. Most important to us is a GAO conclusion that, "Although the Forest Service annually reports its reforestation and timber stand improvement to the Congress, the agency has not developed a tally of these needs that accurately reflects the condition of our national forests."

House bill 2361 responds to the GAO report by providing an increase of $11.7 million over last year's funding level for the National Forest System program for improving and establishing forest vegetation. Accompanying report language specifies, however, that the agency "needs to standardize guidance for reporting data on reforestation and timber stand improvement needs and improve the data's accuracy before additional increases can be considered."