U.S. Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue is calling on Congress for authority to expand forest management practices to help stop the California wildfires.
Perdue says Congress this past spring gave USDA authority in the Fire Funding Fix to authorize funds for fire suppression, but it doesn’t take affect until the 2020 fiscal year which means the Forest Service is borrowing from forest management funds. “What the U.S. Forest Service had to do for many years was borrow from their operational budgets to suppress fire and that took sometimes hundreds of millions or billions of dollars away from the management techniques that we could use.”
He and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke say Congress can still add language to the farm bill that would help mitigate wildfire damages.
Continue reading Perdue says Congress can do more to prevent forest fires at Brownfield Ag News.
