Central Wisconsin News

WASHINGTON, DC – On September 13, 2023, Congressman Tom Tiffany’s (WI-07) bill, H.R. 1567, the Accurately Counting Risk Elimination Solutions (ACRES) Act, passed out of the U.S. House of Representatives almost unanimously.

After investigative reporting found that agencies, like the U.S. Forest Service, have been overstating their fuel reduction work for decades, Rep. Tiffany introduced the ACRES Act to hold federal land management agencies accountable in the work they are doing to reduce the amount of fuel for wildfires on public lands. Specifically, H.R. 1567 would require the Secretaries of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of the Interior (DOI) to carry out a yearly hazardous fuel reduction report based on the actual number of acres that the respective agencies treated over the past year.

“Americans have been victims of the scourge of wildfires for far too long in part due to decades of poor forest management, and it’s past time for Congress to change the way our overstocked public lands are managed,” said Congressman Tiffany. “The ACRES Act is a bipartisan step in the right direction to combat the wildfire crisis, and I’m thrilled the House passed this commonsense legislation to ensure federal land management agencies are accurately reporting their work in hazardous fuel reduction.” 

“H.R. 1567 puts our Republican goal of holding federal agencies and bureaucrats responsible and accountable into action. This legislation examines the work federal agencies are doing to reduce the amount of hazardous fuels on our public lands and determine the effectiveness of the wildfire mitigation. I am so pleased to see this bill pass through the House and thank Representative Tiffany for his continued work to combat our wildfire crisis,” said House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (AR-04).

“As Chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, I know firsthand that rural communities across the West, including mine in Central Washington, are plagued by catastrophic wildfires exacerbated by poor or inadequate forest management. Rep. Tiffany’s ACRES Act will provide the American people desperately needed transparency into the actions our federal land management agencies are (or are not) taking to reduce this threat. I’m glad to see the ACRES Act pass the House and hope the Senate takes up the bill soon to help prevent future disasters,” said Western Caucus Chairman Dan Newhouse (WA-04).

Rep. Tiffany’s ACRES Act now awaits action in the U.S. Senate. 

Original source can be found here.