Joe Neguse Warns: The Trump Administration’s ‘Skinny Budget’ ‘Decimates The Forest Services’

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During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing before the congressional recess, Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) questioned experts about how Trump's budget proposal will affect forest management.

Transcript

00:00Gentlemen Yields and I'll recognize the ranking member Mr. Nichols for five minutes.

00:04Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you Deputy Chief Crockett for your testimony.

00:09I promise I'll get to the substance of why we're here in the bill eventually here but I wanted to

00:14ask you since you're here just a few questions about an issue that's deeply important to folks

00:19I represent back in Colorado. There are as you probably are aware three congressionally designated

00:25Southwest Ecological Restoration Institutes that work to understand and reduce the threat of wildfire

00:32and receive funding from the Forest Service. One of those institutes the Colorado Forest Restoration

00:38Institute is located in my district based at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

00:44These institutes have been supported on a bipartisan basis by Congress. We designated funding upwards

00:51of 6.6 million dollars for fiscal year 24 and fiscal year 25. We've recently learned that the Forest

00:58Service has told the institutes that their funding will be cut in half for fiscal year 2025 reducing

01:05funding to three million dollars for all three institutes. That would represent a 55 percent

01:10reduction in federal funding and put critical science-based work that takes place at each of these

01:17centers into jeopardy. Deputy Chief are you aware of this? Question number one and the second question is

01:27I suppose if you are aware is the Forest Service intending to reallocate funds designated for these

01:32institutes. Thank you for the question. So to answer the first question yes I'm aware of the budget

01:40adjustments that we made and I actually have a working session set up with the leaders of the the

01:46institutes tomorrow to work through the details of looking at the existing funding that's on the books

01:54that they've had for for several years as well as the opportunities with the three million dollar

01:59that was allocated this year knowing that there's another institute in Utah that is set to come online

02:05next year. Plan to have a budget working session with them tomorrow on that topic. Well I would just

02:12suggest to you Deputy Chief thank you for your candor. Congress appropriated the funds right? Yes. Right so

02:23the United States Congress appropriated to your department your parent agency this particular sum of

02:32money to be expended by these institutes and I I don't understand the Forest Service's position

02:45that it can and is proceeding to reallocate I think the word you used was adjustment make adjustments

02:52notwithstanding congressional intent which was very clear in the appropriations that we've adopted and

02:58you can imagine the the slippery slope that that will create here in Congress because essentially I

03:04I don't know how much clearer we could be the appropriators could be and I suppose that it will

03:10compel Republican and Democratic members of Congress to work together to provide your agency and other

03:17agencies like it with no discretion whatsoever given the lack of clarity as to the agency's

03:27willingness to implement the appropriations as they have been designated by Congress so I would just

03:35encourage you I we will certainly follow up with the agency and with the chief but would hope that you

03:42could relay the same back to the relevant decision makers within the agency of course you are one of them

03:50uh because I I would hope that the agency's final decision would be to abide by the congressional intent in

03:58those in the in the fiscal year 2025 appropriation uh with respect to the bill that we're discussing today

04:09and I think there are a number of different components that my colleague from Colorado uh has included in his

04:14discussion draft uh that makes sense and I think are prudent there are other areas where I have

04:22you know some questions and and look forward to uh collaborating and engaging on some of those

04:27questions some of which were noted by uh the the ranking member of the full committee the only

04:32I guess observation I would make and you're welcome to uh respond deputy chief is that while I think

04:40enacting new authorities reforming existing authorities is certainly worth doing I worry that we're missing

04:48the forest for the trees pardon the pun because this is all happening in the context of a skinny budget

04:56that the Trump administration has submitted that decimates the forest service decimates the BIA it's

05:01unclear to me you know what how the BIA would begin to even achieve some of what we would be asking them

05:10to do uh under the the budgets the skinny budget submitted by the president but in any event if you

05:15wish to respond you're welcome to um so I don't know if I have a a full answer for you but um just say that

05:24you know the the administration supports the president's budget and we're looking forward to working to

05:29working through successful solutions. I yield back. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

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