Description
Executive Summary: On August 8, 2000, President Clinton asked Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman to prepare a report that recommends how best to respond to this year*s severe fires, reduce the impacts of these wildland fires on rural communities, and ensure sufficient firefighting resources in the future. The President also asked for short-term actions that federal agencies- in cooperation with states, local communities, and tribes can take to reduce immediate hazards to communities in the wildland-urban interface and to ensure that land managers and firefighters are prepared for extreme fire conditions in the future. This report recommends a Fiscal Year (FY) 2001 budget for the wildland fire programs of the Departments of Agriculture and Interior of $2.8 billion. Included within this total is an increase of nearly $1.6 billion above the President*s FY 2001 budget request in support of the report*s recommendations. This includes additional funding of about $340 million for fire preparedness resources, new funding of $88 million to increase cooperative programs in support of local communities, and approximately $390 million for fuels treatment and burned area restoration. The increase also includes about $770 million to replenish and enhance the Departments* fire suppression accounts, which have been depleted by this year*s extraordinary costs, and to repay FY 2000 emergency transfers from other appropriations accounts.