Senator Barrasso ripped into Chief Randy Moore after suggesting the agency shouldn’t be focusing on wildfire prevention efforts and helping to protect wildlife from being impacted.
“We haven’t been doing a very good job of protecting against wildfire.” Barrasso said. “To me this seems a complete lack of urgency by your department with all of this.”
The array of aircraft that can be found at wildland incidents and how they are used depend on the location and availability of the air assets as well as the weather and fire conditions at the fire location. (Photo courtesy of Firefighter Apparatus Magazine).
Moore, who is a career Forest Service employee and was a regional forester in the West before becoming chief in 2021, responded to concerns from Barrasso and other committee members that the agency’s removal of wildfire fuel hasn’t increased at the pace lawmakers wanted when passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act a year later.
Looking at acres treated may be an outdated approach, Moore said, given that the nation’s forest landscape — including rapid development in fire-prone areas — has changed dramatically in the century since the Forest Service was created, according to E&E News.
Moore then went on to suggest that with development, where forests are thinned and homes protected, that may make a bigger difference than how big those areas are.
“Is that the right metric for performance?” Moore asked rhetorically, adding that he’d welcome a deeper discussion with lawmakers on the subject. “What is the appropriate performance level — is it acres treated, or is it the right acres treated?”
Barrasso responded with a withering, unwavering response: “If you don’t like the results, then you change the metrics — that’s ridiculous.”
Out of 63 million acres the Forest Service estimates to be at high risk of wildfire, the agency treated slightly more than 4 million last year through measures such as thinning and prescribed burns. The national forest system totals 193 million acres.
Even though last year’s treated area was a historic high, the agency projects fewer acres this year with a decrease in timber harvests for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
“Is this really a credible strategy with all the money that’s been moved to the Forest Service?” Barrasso asked, referring to billions of dollars appropriated through the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act.
Criticism of the Forest Service came from both sides of the aisle, as Democrats were also not happy with the responses Chief Moore was giving to their questions.
Committee Chair Joe Manchin, (D-WV) lamented the closure of lumber mills, including half a dozen recently in his home state and around two dozen near national forests, as the Forest Service projects a slight reduction in timber sales in fiscal 2025.
He questioned Moore, as well, on the slow pace of replanting trees in areas burned by wildfire — an effort Congress expanded through the infrastructure bill.
The acreage in need of such work has increased more than 200 percent since 2020, but the Forest Service has said it can meet only 6 percent of the need annually, Manchin said.
“I wouldn’t argue with your figures,” Moore said.
Manchin shook his head and chuckled. “This is a pretty poor performance, really, on that, in terms of getting up to speed,” he said.
Moore echoed comments he made at an appropriations hearing in April that a healthy timber industry is necessary for the Forest Service’s wildfire strategy to succeed.
The agency has spent $79 million in the past three years to help sawmills, Moore added. But market conditions outside the Forest Service’s control also dictate sales, he quickly qualified
Other complaints mounted at the hearing. Manchin spoke about burned trees not being salvaged for timber, an issue Moore blamed in part on lawsuits.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) said forest work is moving too slowly and that a Small Business Administration program to help supply timber mills is languishing due to lack of supply.
“Right now they’re not getting that supply. They’re barely hanging on,” Cantwell said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) accused the Biden administration of abandoning the transition to young-growth timber harvesting in the Tongass National Forest, hobbling the region’s remaining mills.
And she repeated comments she’d made to Moore at a hearing in April that Southeast Alaska is expecting much more through an initiative the administration launched to diversify the economy beyond old-growth timber.
For fiscal 2025, the Forest Service requested $6.5 billion in discretionary funding, which is a large number considering that’s on top of $2.4 billion in the congressionally mandated disaster fund for wildfire suppression.
The proposal includes $216 million for a permanent pay increase for wildland firefighters, $136 million to hire an additional 570 permanent firefighters and $207 million for hazardous fuels reduction.
