Tagged: fires

Yosemite National Park Equal Access and Fairness ActThis bill modifies the Raker Act, which allowed San Francisco to dam the Hetch Hetchy Valley within Yosemite National Park, to (1) increase the annual rent San Francisco pays to the National Park Service (NPS), and (2) direct the NPS to expand public access to the reservoir and lake created by the dam.Specifically, the bill increases rent paid by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission for the use of the park from $30,000 to $2 million per year. That amount must be adjusted annually to reflect increases in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. The commission may not recoup such sums from wholesale water or power customers. The bill allows collected rent to be used by the Department of the Interior for wildfire mitigation activities in the park and other national parks in California.The bill also requires the NPS to administer the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and Lake Eleanor Basin areas for public recreation, benefit, and use in a manner that will preserve scenic, historic, scientific, or otherwise important features.

This bill sets out requirements for wildfire suppression and management activities carried out by the Forest Service.These requirements apply to Forest Service land that (1) has a severe, extreme, or exceptional drought intensity rating; (2) has a National Wildland Fire Preparedness level of 5 (i.e., the highest level of wildland fire activity); or (3) is located in a fireshed ranked in the top 10% of wildfire exposure.Within 24 hours of detecting a wildfire on such Forest Service land, the service must use all available resources to extinguish the wildfire. Additionally, the service may not inhibit the firefighting activities of state and local agencies that are authorized to respond to wildfires on the Forest Service land.Further, the service may only initiate a backfire or burnout as part of a fire suppression strategy if it is ordered by the responsible incident commander or is necessary to protect the health and safety of firefighting personnel. The service must use all available resources to control any initiated fire until it is extinguished.The bill also limits the service's use of prescribed fires (i.e., the controlled application of fire by a team of experts under specified weather conditions to restore health to ecosystems that depend on fire). When using prescribed fires as a fire resource management tool, the service must comply with applicable laws and regulations and immediately suppress any prescribed fire that exceeds its prescription.

Accurately Counting Risk Elimination Solutions Act or the ACRES ActThis bill establishes requirements regarding reports about hazardous fuels reduction activities and standardized procedures for tracking data for hazardous fuels reduction. Hazardous fuels reduction activities means any vegetation management activities that reduce the risk of wildfire but excludes the award of contracts to conduct hazardous fuels reduction activities.First, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of the Interior must include in the materials submitted in support of the President's budget each fiscal year a report on the number of acres of federal land on which such activities were carried out during the preceding year.Next, USDA and Interior must implement standardized procedures for tracking data related to such activities. The standardized procedures must includeregular, standardized data reviews of the accuracy and timely input of data used to track hazardous fuels reduction activities;verification methods that validate whether such data accurately correlates to such activities;an analysis of the short- and long-term effectiveness of such activities on reducing the risk of wildfire; andfor hazardous fuels reduction activities that occur partially within the wildland-urban interface, methods to distinguish which acres are located within and which located outside the wildland-urban interface.Finally, the Government Accountability Office must (1) conduct a study on this bill's implementation, and (2) submit a report to Congress with the results of the study.