Click here to watch Ranking Member Barrasso’s remarks.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (ENR), delivered opening remarks at a full committee hearing to examine the President’s budget request for the U.S. Forest Service for Fiscal Year 2024.

The hearing featured testimony from Mr. Randy Moore, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service.

For more information on witness testimony click here.

Senator Barrasso’s remarks:

“Thank you very much, Madame Chairman.

“Thank you for today’s hearing on the Forest Service budget request.

“Chief Moore – welcome back to the Committee. Glad to have you here today.

“We are looking forward to hearing how the proposed budget intends to further the critical mission of the agency.

“I’m pleased with some of your priorities within the budget request.

“For example, there is funding to protect our forests from catastrophic fire, as the chairman just said, providing badly-needed pay increases to our brave firefighters. We have a number of them here with us today.

“I also do have some significant concerns.

“In the last two years, Congress has provided over 10 billion additional dollars to the Forest Service.

“The budget proposes massive increases in new spending.

“Your request for $7.4 billion in discretionary appropriations would amount to a 52 percent increase over current funding levels.

“In an era of historic budget deficits, the Forest Service really needs to prioritize.

“To be clear, the Forest Service faces enormous challenges in the fight against wildfires.

“One-third of our National Forests are at serious risk to being consumed by catastrophic fires.

“There is broad agreement among members of this committee - both sides of the aisle - that the historic forest fire treatment levels are totally inadequate to meet the challenge.

“While I support robust funding for the efforts, I’m not convinced that we can simply just spend our way out of problems that have plagued our forests for decades.

“The Forest Service needs to fully embrace efforts to streamline its processes for approving projects that improve forest health.

“The agency needs to more aggressively defend against harmful litigation that prevents projects from moving forward.

“Far too often, when extreme environmental groups sue, vital wildfire reduction projects get tied up in the court and don’t get accomplished.

“I’m also deeply troubled by what appears to be the intentional exclusion of Wyoming from major Forest Service initiatives aimed at reducing wildfire risk.

“In its 10-year strategy to combat the wildfire crisis, the agency has announced significant spending across 21 designated areas.

“These dollars fund projects that are critical for reducing wildfire risk, and defending America’s forests.

“They’re going to protect people’s lives and livelihoods.

“Inexplicably, Wyoming is the only state located on or west of the Rocky Mountains that has not received funding under this strategy – the only state of all of those.

“Further, Wyoming is the only western state to be excluded from the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission.

“This is a commission created by Congress to help improve strategies to prevent, to manage, to suppress, and to recover from wildfires.

“That’s why in March of last year, I, along with the rest of the Wyoming delegation, sent a letter specifically requesting that Wyoming be represented on the Commission.

“Here we are, a year later, Wyoming is still not represented.

“This is a pattern of neglect that simply must change.

“Much like other western states, Wyoming is highly vulnerable to wildfires.

“According to the Forest Service estimates, more than four million acres of Wyoming’s forests are at either high or very high risk to catastrophic wildfires.

“And we’ve seen the tragic results of the failure to properly manage these acres.

“In four of the past five years, Wyoming has been hit by numerous destructive fires.

“In 2020 alone, we experienced nearly 340 thousand burned acres.... We’re talking about a large area of land.

“Today, our communities remain in harm’s way.

“According to the Forest Service’s website WildfireRisk.org, towns in Wyoming, like Dubois, Jackson, Buffalo, Lander, and Saratoga are all at high risk to destructive wildfires.

“I believe the people of Wyoming deserve better protection.

“And, at the very least, they deserve the same protections that every other western state is getting.

“Thanks so much, Madame Chairman, and I look forward to the questions and hearing today.”