To authorize the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to use funds appropriated for wildland fire management in the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001, to reimburse the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service to facilitate the interagency cooperation required under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 in connection with wildland fire management.
Key claim: Interior and Agriculture may use already-appropriated wildland fire management money to pay the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service for Endangered Species Act consultations needed for fire work, and recipients must report purchases of foreign-made items.
Abstract
(HR581 · 107th Congress) Authorizes the Secretaries of the Interior and of Agriculture to use wildland fire management funds (appropriated in the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001) to reimburse the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service for the costs of their compliance with Endangered Species Act consultation requirements. Sets forth Buy American provisions and congressional reporting requirements for recipients of such funds with respect to expenditures on foreign-made items. Latest action (2001-06-03): Became Public Law No: 107-13.
Why this matters
ESA consultation is a routine bottleneck for federal wildfire prevention, suppression, and post-fire rehabilitation work on habitat for listed species. Letting the operating agencies pay the consulting wildlife agencies out of existing fire budgets is a small plumbing fix that removes a funding excuse for delayed or skipped Section 7 reviews, without creating new appropriations or altering ESA standards.