Alan Simpson: “I understand what the gentleman is trying to do, and we are on the same page, actually, in ultimately what we want to…”

“I understand what the gentleman is trying to do, and we are on the same page, actually, in ultimately what we want to accomplish with this. The fact is that we appropriate money--the Interior Subcommittee has done it for several years now, and Chairman Calvert has done it in this bill--where, under the FLAME Act, we fund the 10-year average of what it costs to fight wildfires. Unfortunately, I think it is in 8 of the last 10 years we have exceeded that 10-year average. Consequently, when money runs out for fighting wildfires, what the Forest Service does is borrow that money from other accounts. We sometimes complain that the Forest Service doesn't go out and do the thinning that is necessary or do the restoration that is necessary or do the trail maintenance that is necessary. The reason they can't do it is because we have borrowed all the money to fight wildfires, and we are trying to prevent that wildfire borrowing. It is one thing to try to prevent it in a manner that will address the problem and another to just say you just can't borrow, because I would hate to be in the situation where we run up against a fire year where we are going to exceed the 10-year average, we run out of firefighting money, and there is no way to get the resources in order to fund the fires that are occurring in the latter part of the year. This would put pressure on for Congress to probably do something.…”