[Congressional Bills 118th Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] [H.R. 8557 Introduced in House (IH)] <DOC> 118th CONGRESS 2d Session H. R. 8557 To direct the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to encourage and expand the use of prescribed fire on land managed by the Department of the Interior or the Forest Service, with an emphasis on units of the National Forest System in the western United States, to acknowledge and support the long-standing use of cultural burning by Tribes and Indigenous practitioners, and for other purposes. _______________________________________________________________________ IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES May 23, 2024 Ms. Schrier (for herself and Mr. Valadao) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committees on Agriculture, Oversight and Accountability, and the Budget, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned _______________________________________________________________________ A BILL To direct the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to encourage and expand the use of prescribed fire on land managed by the Department of the Interior or the Forest Service, with an emphasis on units of the National Forest System in the western United States, to acknowledge and support the long-standing use of cultural burning by Tribes and Indigenous practitioners, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS. (a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``National Prescribed Fire Act of 2024''. (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents for this Act is as follows: Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents. Sec. 2. Findings. Sec. 3. Definitions. TITLE I--USE OF FUNDS Sec. 101. Prescribed fire accounts. Sec. 102. Policies and practices. Sec. 103. Collaborative prescribed fire program. TITLE II--FACILITATING IMPLEMENTATION AND OUTREACH Sec. 201. Cooperative agreements and contracts. Sec. 202. Human resources. Sec. 203. Liability of certified prescribed fire managers. Sec. 204. Prescribed fire claims fund study. Sec. 205. Environmental review. Sec. 206. Prescribed fire education program. TITLE III--REPORTING Sec. 301. Annual reports to the national fire planning and operations database. Sec. 302. Annual implementation report. SEC. 2. FINDINGS. Congress finds that-- (1) in 2018, the Forest Service Fire Modeling Institute determined that 63,070,000 acres of National Forest System land and 171,200,000 acres of other forest land were at high or very high risk of experiencing a wildfire that would be difficult to suppress; (2) according to the National Interagency Coordination Center, between 2010 and 2019, in the United States, on average-- (A) 64,000 wildfires burned 6,847,000 acres annually; and (B) 100,000 prescribed fires burned only 3,672,000 acres annually; (3) indigenous communities have used cultural burning to manage landscapes since time immemorial; (4) according to the National Interagency Coordination Center, the annual cost of suppressing wildfires in a State with an active prescribed burning program is less than 1 percent of the annual cost of suppressing wildfires in a State without an active prescribed burning program, despite each State having the same number of wildfires; (5) according to a 2021 Environmental Protection Agency report assessing the air quality and health impacts of prescribed fire compared to wildfire, smoke impacts from prescribed fire were found to be smaller in magnitude and shorter in duration; (6) according to a 2019 study conducted by Stanford University, smoke from prescribed fires exposes children to fewer negative health effects than the detrimental smoke generated by wildfires; (7) according to a 2015 study published in Ecology, trees that have not been burnt by a low-intensity fire are unusually prone to bark beetle attacks, and between 2000 and 2010, bark beetles killed the majority of trees on 32,000,000 acres of the 193,000,000 acres of National Forest System land; (8) as of March 1, 2023, there were-- (A) 38 prescribed fire councils in 34 States; and (B) 113 prescribed burn associations in 19 States; (9) according to the 2021 National Prescribed Fire Use Survey Report-- (A) 41 States regulate prescribed fires by issuing burn permits; (B) 23 States offer prescribed burn manager certification courses to facilitate responsible burning on private land; (C) only 5 States (Vermont, Massachusetts, Missouri, Connecticut, and Rhode Island) lack laws to reduce liability associated with the responsible use of prescribed fire; and (D) only 8 States (Florida, Montana, Nevada, Colorado, Michigan, Georgia, South Carolina, and Washington) have laws that use a standard of gross negligence for determining liabilities for the responsible use of prescribed fire; and (10) as of September 30, 2019, 31 States have a formal process to track the number of acres treated for forestry purposes using prescribed fire. SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. In this Act: (1) Federal land.--The term ``Federal land'' means-- (A) public lands (as defined in section 103 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1702)); (B) units of the National Park System; (C) units of the National Wildlife Refuge System; (D) land held in trust by the United States for the benefit of Indian Tribes or members of an Indian Tribe; and (E) National Forest System land. (2) Landscape-scale prescribed fire plan.--The term ``landscape-scale prescribed fire plan'' means a decision document prepared pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.) that-- (A) covers a unit of the National Forest System, a Bureau of Land Management district, or a subunit thereof; (B) analyzes the site-specific environmental consequences of prescribed fire on the land described in subparagraph (A); and (C) obviates the need for subsequent decisions pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.) with respect to the unit, district, or subunit described in subparagraph (A). (3) National forest system.-- (A) In general.--The term ``National Forest System'' has the meaning given the term in section 11(a) of the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974 (16 U.S.C. 1609(a)). (B) Exclusion.--The term ``National Forest System'' does not include the national grasslands and land utilization projects administered under title III of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act (7 U.S.C. 1010 et seq.). (4) Prescribed fire.--The term ``prescribed fire'' means a fire deliberately ignited to burn wildland fuels in a natural or modified state-- (A) under specified environmental conditions that are intended to allow the fire to be confined to a predetermined area and produce the fireline intensity and rate of spread required to attain planned resource management objectives; (B) that does not include pile burning; and (C) in accordance with applicable law, including applicable regulations. (5) Secretaries.--The term ``Secretaries'' means-- (A) the Secretary; and (B) the Secretary of Agriculture. (6) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary of the Interior. TITLE I--USE OF FUNDS SEC. 101. PRESCRIBED FIRE ACCOUNTS. (a) Definition of Secretary Concerned.--In this section, the term ``Secretary concerned'' means-- (1) the Secretary of Agriculture, with respect to an account established by this section for the Department of Agriculture; and (2) the Secretary, with respect to an account established by this section for the Department of the Interior. (b) Establishment of Accounts.--There are established in the Treasury of the United States the following accounts: (1) The Prescribed Fire account for the Department of Agriculture. (2) The Prescribed Fire account for the Department of the Interior. (c) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be appropriated to the accounts established by subsection (b) a total of $300,000,000 for fiscal year 2024 and each fiscal year thereafter. (d) Presidential Budget Requests.--For fiscal year 2024 and each fiscal year thereafter, each Secretary concerned shall submit, in the budget justification materials submitted to Congress in support of the budget of the relevant Department for each fiscal year (as submitted with the budget of the President under section 1105(a) of title 31, United States Code)-- (1) a request for amounts in the Wildland Fire Management appropriation account of the Secretary concerned to carry out the activities described in subsection (e); and (2) an accounting of costs with respect to prescribed fire, by region of the National Forest System or the Department of the Interior, as applicable, for the previous 3 years, including-- (A) the amount spent on prescribed fire; (B) the number of acres treated with prescribed fire; and (C) the number of personnel dedicated to carrying out prescribed fire. (e) Use of Funds.-- (1) Mandatory activities.--The Secretary concerned shall use amounts in the accounts established by subsection (b)-- (A) to develop, in coordination with State, local, and Tribal governments, a prescribed fire operational strategy for each region of the National Forest System or the Department of the Interior, as applicable, specifically for using funding provided through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117- 58; 135 Stat. 429) and other additional sources of funding, that describes-- (i) the fire deficit by region; (ii) staffing and funding needs; (iii) plans to apply prescribed fire; and (iv) regional targets to demonstrate an increase in prescribed fire with respect to-- (I) existing programs; and (II) activities carried out using additional funding sources; (B) with respect to prescribed fires-- (i) to carry out necessary environmental reviews; (ii) to conduct outreach to the public, Indian Tribes and beneficiaries, and adjacent landowners; (iii) to conduct any required pre-ignition cultural and environmental surveys; and (iv) to implement prescribed fires on Federal land; (C) to hire additional, dedicated personnel and procure additional equipment, including unmanned aerial systems equipped with an aerial ignition system, to implement a greater number of prescribed fires; (D) to fund an increase in staffing (including in- person and hybrid staff) in order to provide training for the implementation of prescribed fire and management of smoke; (E) to conduct post-prescribed fire activities, such as-- (i) reseeding to prevent the spread of invasive species; and (ii) recurring application of fire to maintain desired conditions; (F) to conduct monitoring for safety and fire effects on ecosystem resilience and risk mitigation; and (G) to use key performance indicators, including-- (i) the annual number of acres of National Forest System land or public lands, as applicable, where completed treatment effectively mitigates wildfire risk or maintains or restores ecological integrity with respect to-- (I) land in the wildland-urban interface; and (II) land not in the wildland-urban interface; (ii) the number of acres in a desired condition as a result of fire management objectives, as determined by the Secretary concerned; (iii) the number of acres treated with prescribed fire and the quantity of emissions from prescribed fires; (iv) the number of acres where treatment results in changes in fire regime condition class; and (v) the number of burns conducted by Indian Tribes or Indigenous-led organizations or pursuant to an agreement with an Indian Tribe or Indigenous-led organization. (2) Joint coordination.--The Secretaries shall coordinate to jointly develop a common data management and analysis system for planning and post-treatment accountability. (3) Authorized activities.--The Secretary concerned may-- (A) assist State, Tribal, local government, or private prescribed fire programs-- (i) to establish a training or certification program for teams comprised of citizens or local fire services to conduct prescribed fires on private land, consistent with any standards developed by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group or State prescribed fire standards; (ii) to enable additional fire managers and apparatus, whether provided by the local resources of an agency, private contractors, nongovernmental organizations, Indian Tribes, local fire services, or qualified individuals, to assist in implementing a prescribed fire; (iii) in funding the completion of the claims funds study under section 204; or (iv) to finance the implementation of a prescribed fire on State, Tribal, or private land and any post-prescribed fire activities as are determined to be necessary by the Secretary concerned; (B) provide technical or financial assistance to a prescribed fire council or prescribed burn association for the establishment or operation of the council or association; and (C) provide funding for the collaborative prescribed fire program established under section 103. (f) Prioritization of Funding.-- (1) In general.--Subject to paragraph (2), the Secretary concerned shall coordinate with Federal, State, and local agencies, Indian Tribes, and nongovernmental organizations, including through the Wildland Fire Leadership Council, to establish prioritization criteria for expending funds under this section for each activity described in subsection (e). (2) Requirement.--In establishing criteria under paragraph (1), the Secretary concerned shall give priority to a project that is-- (A) implemented across a large contiguous area; (B) cross-boundary in nature; (C) in an area that is-- (i) threatening to, or located in, the wildland-urban interface and identified as a priority area in a statewide forest resource assessment or Community Wildfire Protection Plan; or (ii) identified as important to the protection of a Tribal trust resource or the reserved or treaty rights of an Indian Tribe; (D) on acres at high or very high risk of experiencing a wildfire that would be difficult to suppress; (E) in an area that is designated as critical habitat and in need of ecological restoration or enhancement that can be achieved with the aid of prescribed fire; or (F) supportive of potential operational delineations or a strategic response zone. SEC. 102. POLICIES AND PRACTICES. Beginning with the first fiscal year that begins after the date of enactment of this Act, and for each of the 9 fiscal years thereafter, the Secretaries shall conduct prescribed fires on Federal land such that the total number and combined size of all prescribed fires on Federal land is 10 percent gre