Nicholas Begich Presses Experts About Wildfire Prevention And Forest Management In Alaska

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During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing before the congressional recess, Rep. Nicholas Begich (R-AK) questioned witnesses about wildfire prevention.

Transcript

00:00From Alaska, Mr. Bengich for his five minutes.

00:05Thank you, Mr. Chair. First question here to Chief Munzey. One of the key Alaska wins in this bill

00:13is the formal authority for tribal and state governments to enter into shared stewardship

00:17agreements that cross jurisdictional lines. That's a game changer for places like rural

00:23Alaska where multiple entities manage a single fire-prone landscape. How important is this type

00:29of intergovernmental coordination for getting work done quickly on the ground, in your view?

00:34Sir, it's of critical importance. End of statement. Let me expand. This year, I've had our Board of

00:42Seedvisors allocate $500,000 simply for a study on how we bring federal, state, tribal, local governments

00:49together to first decide on what good looks like in an interagency fashion. Often, we see siloed efforts

00:57within the CEs that may be granted. Some of this is tied up with legislation, but it's a patchwork

01:03quilt that's not very well stitched together. So the first would be to bring those parties together

01:08to decide what good looks like. The second part of that study will look at the regulatory environment.

01:12What I'm very helpful or hopeful for is that with a bill like to fix our forests that we're able to bring

01:19the technology where we can create a one-stop shop for agencies to move through the permit process to

01:26understand this regulatory environment. The third portion of this study is to find out what funding

01:32is needed today to completely protect our county, again, jurisdictionless. The fourth is the maintenance

01:41of the work that we do. What's the maintenance schedule? And this is critical because often we do these fuel

01:47projects but then a couple of years go by 7, 8, 9, 10 and they're erased like the picture I showed from

01:53the 1930s. The final stage is what is the maintenance dollars that need to be set aside on an annual basis

01:58to make sure that the efforts that we do today are sustainable in the future. Thank you. Additional question

02:07and this is this I'll open up for anyone who'd like to answer. Another Alaska win in the bill

02:12is the fire shed registry, a public map showing what areas have been treated, what projects are in the

02:19pipeline and how well they're working. As someone, as folks who are focused on public accountability,

02:25how do you see this kind of tool changing the game for communities trying to understand where their risk

02:30and progress really stands? Let me help on that one real quick.

02:34We use a common operating picture of the Angels National Forest, the San Bernardino National Forest.

02:40The Angels National Forest was where the Eaton Fire Palisades were burning. San Bernardino National Forest,

02:47both are in our jurisdiction. San Bernardino is the most heavily recreated and lived in forest.

02:51We work with both of those agencies closely but there is no common operating picture that allows us

02:57to share what our fuel management efforts are. So this year we're paying $250,000 for that common operating

03:06picture because the federal government agencies lack the ability to adopt technology. So we pay for them

03:12to use this technology so that we can congruently plan for the future.

03:19Anyone else like to weigh in on that? I was going to jump on in on that but that was pretty good.

03:23I would just say that this is really helpful from a prioritization standpoint but also really

03:29necessary from an accountability standpoint. We don't have a really good grasp of what we're doing

03:33on the ground right now across jurisdictions and that's a huge problem. Thank you very much

03:37and I will yield the balance of my time, Mr. Chair.

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