Internal email: Tree growth funds going toward wildfires

摘要

A disaster aid bill that's supposed to replenish Forest Service accounts for planting trees and fighting bugs wouldbe used mostly to fight wildfires this summer.That's the message from an internal Forest Service email, and a reality of Forest Service budgeting in the finalyear before a wildfire funding fix enacted by Congress takes full effect.At issue is $720 million in a supplemental spending bill that's moving - slowly - through Congress, intended toreplenish non-fire-related accounts the Forest Service raided to fight wildfires in California and elsewhere lastyear. The agency borrowed that sum from various program accounts, including about half from the Knutson-Vandenberg trust fund, a timber revenue account Congress created in 1930 to pay for reforestation and otherimprovements in national forests.