HR471-119

What This Bill Does

The Fix Our Forests Act is a large forest-management and wildfire-risk bill. It defines firesheds and designates fireshed management areas for five years using Forest Service wildfire-risk data, including the top 20 percent of the Rocky Mountain Research Station's 7,688 firesheds. It creates an interagency Fireshed Center with representatives from the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy, FEMA, National Science Foundation, NOAA, NASA, NIST, and the United States Fire Administration. The Center must assess fire and smoke risks, maintain a public Fireshed Registry, and provide geospatial data on wildfire exposure, past fuels work, planned projects, project costs, environmental review status, public meetings, and project effectiveness.

The bill directs the Secretary concerned to carry out fireshed management projects in designated areas and uses faster procedures for hazardous fuels work, shared stewardship, and emergency fireshed management. It changes Good Neighbor Agreement payment treatment, creates intra-agency strike teams for NEPA and related reviews, expands the collaborative forest landscape restoration program, develops grazing strategies for wildfire-risk reduction, and updates water-source protection. It also changes litigation rules by limiting injunctions against covered agency actions unless plaintiffs show likely success on the merits, and it adjusts forest-plan consultation rules.

The second and third titles add community, research, and technology programs. The bill creates a Community Wildfire Risk Reduction Program, expands the Joint Fire Science Program into a Community Wildfire Defense Research Program, creates a categorical exclusion for certain electric utility line right-of-way forest management, requires a Seeds of Success strategy, supports priority reforestation and restoration projects at the Department of the Interior, sets fire department repayment procedures, creates a biochar research program, requires more accurate hazardous-fuels reduction reports, and establishes a public-private wildfire technology deployment pilot. Later sections require GAO and Forest Service studies, create a White Oak Restoration Initiative Coalition, direct Forest Service and Interior white oak pilot projects, establish a White Oak and Upland Oak Habitat Regeneration Program, require a tree nursery capacity strategy, authorize white oak research with tribes and land-grant institutions, create a USDA white oak initiative, and establish a Wildland Fire Management Casualty Assistance Program for next-of-kin of injured or killed firefighters and support personnel.

Who Benefits and How

At-risk communities in the wildland-urban interface benefit from prioritized hazardous-fuels projects, fireshed assessments, public project tracking, and wildfire-risk reduction programs. Municipal watershed users and tribal water systems benefit when fireshed projects reduce wildfire exposure to drinking-water sources. State governments, Indian Tribes, special districts, and local governments benefit from shared stewardship roles and public planning data. Timber operators, grazing permit holders, electric utilities, biochar developers, wildfire detection companies, remote sensing vendors, firefighting technology firms, tree nurseries, land-grant colleges, white oak restoration partners, and conservation groups working on oak habitat benefit from new authorities, pilot projects, research programs, categorical exclusions, contracts, grants, or technical assistance.

Who Bears the Burden and How

The Forest Service, Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, FEMA, NOAA, NASA, NIST, state forestry officials, tribal forestry officials, local governments, and interagency Fireshed Center staff must comply with new mapping, registry, assessment, reporting, pilot-program, data-publication, and project-delivery duties. Environmental plaintiffs and conservation litigants lose some leverage because injunctions against covered forest-management actions require a stronger showing at the outset. Federal land managers must balance faster hazardous-fuels work, categorical exclusions, utility right-of-way vegetation work, grazing strategies, forest-plan updates, and restoration pilots against Endangered Species Act, NEPA, public-comment, tribal-resource, and habitat obligations.

Key Provisions

• Designates high-risk fireshed management areas for five years using Forest Service wildfire-risk data.
• Establishes an interagency Fireshed Center and public Fireshed Registry with geospatial risk, project, cost, permitting, and effectiveness data.
• Directs fireshed assessments and emergency fireshed management projects focused on communities, watersheds, tribal water systems, infrastructure, habitat, and firefighting safety.
• Changes Good Neighbor Agreement revenue treatment and creates strike teams for environmental reviews.
• Expands collaborative forest restoration, grazing for wildfire-risk reduction, water-source protection, and forest-plan currency provisions.
• Restricts injunctions against covered forest-management actions unless plaintiffs show likely success on the merits.
• Creates community wildfire risk reduction, community wildfire defense research, electric utility right-of-way categorical exclusion, reforestation, fire department repayment, biochar, and wildfire technology pilot programs.
• Establishes white oak restoration coalitions, pilot projects, research authority, nursery-capacity strategy, and USDA technical assistance for private landowners.
• Creates a Wildland Fire Management Casualty Assistance Program for next-of-kin of firefighters and support personnel injured or killed in the line of duty.