To amend title 5, United States Code, to provide for special base rates of pay for wildland firefighters, and for other purposes.
Analysis under review: This bill has generated analysis that may be too generic or incomplete. Clause-level evidence remains available below.
Summary
This bill permanently raises pay for federal wildland firefighters who work for the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior. It creates special base pay rates set at 150% of current General Schedule rates, provides premium pay when firefighters are deployed to wildfires and prescribed burns, and guarantees paid rest and recuperation leave after incident deployments. The bill also allows up to million to be transferred from Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funds to continue interim salary increases while the new pay system is implemented.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Establishes permanent special base rates of pay, incident response premium pay, and rest and recuperation leave for federal wildland firefighters employed by the Forest Service and Department of the Interior.
Who Benefits
- Federal wildland firefighters (Forest Service and DOI)
- Wildland fire incident response personnel
Who Bears Costs
- Federal budget (increased personnel costs)
- Office of Personnel Management (implementation burden)
Key Policy Areas
{'domain': 'Labor', 'evidence': 'Creates new pay scales (special base rates at 150% of GS base) and premium pay for wildland firefighters under title 5 USC'}, {'domain': 'Public Lands', 'evidence': 'Targets Forest Service and Department of Interior employees fighting wildland fires on federal lands'}, {'domain': 'Government Operations', 'evidence': 'Amends federal civil service pay system (title 5 USC chapter 53) and leave system (chapter 63)'}
Primary Purpose
Establishes permanent special base rates of pay, incident response premium pay, and rest and recuperation leave for federal wildland firefighters employed by the Forest Service and Department of the Interior.
Policy Domains
Legislative Strategy
"Codifies into permanent law the temporary wildland firefighter pay increases that were set to expire, by amending title 5 USC directly"
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
IntroducedMr. Padilla (for himself, Mr. Daines, Mr. Barrasso, Mr. Schiff, …
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Federal wildland firefighters (Forest Service and DOI), Federal wildland firefighters and certified incident responders, Federal wildland firefighters and incident responders
Federal budget (personnel costs), Federal budget (premium pay costs), Forest Service and Department of the Interior
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "OPM"
- → Office of Personnel Management (prescribes special base rates)
- "wildland_firefighter"
- → Forest Service or DOI employee whose duties relate primarily to wildland fires
- "secretaries"
- → Secretary of Agriculture and Secretary of the Interior
- "covered_employee"
- → Forest Service or DOI wildland firefighter or certified incident responder
- "covered_employee"
- → Forest Service or DOI wildland firefighter or certified incident responder
- "applicable_secretary"
- → Secretary of Agriculture or Secretary of the Interior
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
Employee who is a firefighter within meaning of section 8331(21) or 8401(14), including supervisory/administrative firefighters
Annual rate of basic pay replacing GS base rate, set at 150% of GS base, administered same as GS base rate
A firefighter employed by the Forest Service or DOI whose duties relate primarily to wildland fires (not structure fires)
Wildfire, prescribed fire, or severity incident (not initial attack fires contained within 36 hours)
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology