“A bill to provide mandatory funding for hazardous fuels reduction projects on certain Federal land, and for other purposes.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section directs the heads of the National Park Service, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs (agency heads) to carry out hazardous fuels reduction projects—defined as the ecologically appropriate, cost-effective, site-specific removal or modification of flammable vegetation or woody debris through methods such as prescribed fire, thinning, brush removal, mastication, pruning, or slash treatment—on federal lands under their jurisdiction (covered land). Agency heads must prioritize such projects conducted in or adjacent to at-risk communities or high-value watersheds (as defined in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 [HFRA]); in areas of very high wildfire hazard potential; in fire regime I, II, or III lands (per HFRA, i.e., areas historically dominated by low-, moderate-, or mixed-severity fire regimes, respectively); or designed to advance two or more goals of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy (i.e., fire-adapted communities, resilient landscapes, and safe/effective fire response). (As background, HFRA authorizes hazardous fuels reduction on federal lands, with priority for wildland-urban interface areas near at-risk communities to protect human life and property from wildfire.) This section further provides $30 billion, to be transferred from the Treasury on the first October 1 after enactment according to an allocation formula established by the Secretary of the Treasury in consultation with the agency heads, available until expended without further appropriation, with no more than 10% usable for administrative and planning costs.
This section authorizes $3 billion for the Community Wildfire Defense Grant program for FY2027 through FY2031, in addition to amounts made available under 16 U.S.C. 40803(c)(12). (The program awards competitive grants to states, Indian Tribes, and local governments or consortia thereof to develop Community Wildfire Protection Plans and implement wildfire protection projects on nonfederal land with high wildfire hazard potential.)
This section reauthorizes the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP)—which supports landscape-scale projects on National Forest System lands proposed by public collaboratives to restore forest health, reduce wildfire risks, and improve watersheds—at $100 million for FY2026 and each fiscal year thereafter (from $80 million for FY2019 through FY2023) and makes several other modifications, including (1) requiring project proposals to address pathogens (in addition to species) and standardized monitoring questions and indicators; (2) requiring federal staffing plans to support collaboratives; (3) adding selection criteria on use of innovative mechanisms (e.g., good neighbor agreements, conservation finance), cross-ownership wildfire risk reduction and restoration (including in the wildland-urban interface), and watershed health improvements; (4) increasing the maximum number of selected projects to 20 (from 10) and the maximum per Forest Service administrative region to 4 (from 2); and (5) expanding eligible project expenditures to include conflict resolution or collaborative governance (in addition to woody biomass utilization).
This section establishes the County Stewardship Fund in the Treasury, administered by the Secretary of Agriculture or the Secretary of the Interior, to deposit each fiscal year—for each stewardship contracting project under the section—the greater of (1) 25% of the appraised value of sold forest products, transferred from the general fund of the Treasury, or (2) 25% of excess receipts from the project as authorized under subsection (g)(2). Amounts in the fund are available until expended solely to make annual payments to counties in which such projects occurred on federal lands, equal to 25% of receipts generated from each project, for any governmental purposes. (Stewardship contracting authorizes the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to enter into agreements or contracts with private or public entities for land management services—such as road maintenance, prescribed fire, vegetation removal for fire risk reduction, watershed restoration, and noxious weed control—offsetting costs with the value of removed timber or forest products.)