[Senate Report 110-99]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
Calendar No. 229
110th Congress Report
SENATE
1st Session 110-99
======================================================================
WILDLAND FIREFIGHTER SAFETY ACT OF 2007
_______
June 26, 2007.--Ordered to be printed
_______
Mr. Bingaman, from the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
submitted the following
R E P O R T
[To accompany S. 1152]
The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, to which was
referred the bill (S. 1152) to promote wildland firefighter
safety, having considered the same, reports favorably thereon
with an amendment and recommends that the bill, as amended, do
pass.
The amendment is as follows:
Strike section 1 and insert the following:
``SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
``This Act may be cited as the `Wildland Fire Safety and
Transparency Act of 2007'.''.
PURPOSE OF THE MEASURE
The purpose of S. 1152 is to promote wildland firefighter
safety and facilitate agency and congressional oversight of the
Federal agencies' wildland firefighter safety practices and
policies.
BACKGROUND AND NEED
Wildland firefighting has long been a dangerous activity.
For example, the National Wildfire Coordinating Group reports
945 fatalities resulting from wildland fire accidents since
1910. In recent years, wildfire behavior has become more
extreme, the wildland-urban interface has grown rapidly, and
the number and size of wildfires has increased significantly.
Despite improvements in wildfire fighting technologies, these
and other factors combine to make wildland firefighting more
complex today than ever before.
Between 1910 and the late 1970s and early 1980s, the number
of Federal wildland fire fatalities was trending downward, but
that trend has reversed, with the number of Federal fatalities
slowly increasing since then. The deaths of fourteen Forest
Service firefighters on Storm King Mountain in 1994, four in
the Thirtymile Fire in 2001, two in the Cramer Fire in 2003,
five in the Esperanza Fire in 2006, and many others,
particularly highlight the need for continual improvement in
and oversight of safety policies and practices.
A number of recent reports have identified serious concerns
with the agencies' safety practices. The Occupational Safety
and Health Administration found ``serious and willful''
violations of safety standards by the Forest Service in its
investigation of Thirtymile Fire fatalities, noting that a
number of them were similar to failures which occurred at the
Storm King Mountain fire. It also found willful, serious and
repeated violations of safety regulations during its
investigation of the Cramer Fire.
The agencies' growing reliance on contract wildfire
fighting crews also has presented safety challenges. A report
by the Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General
(Report No. 08601-42-SF, March 2006) identified significant
problems with oversight and administration of the Forest
Service contracts and agreements for these private crews. The
report's ``findings confirm the need to address serious control
weaknesses with respect to the firefighting contract crews,''
which led the Inspector General to recommend, among other
things, improving oversight of contract crews' qualifications
and training.
These and other reports highlight the need for Congress and
the Federal agencies to improve oversight in the area of
wildfire safety. The agencies indicated at a recent Committee
oversight hearing on wildfire that they are working on making
some major changes to their training and other safety programs,
which further highlights the need for Congress to keep abreast
of the agencies' wildfire safety program.
Ensuring timely and sufficient information on the agencies'
safety practices and policies is critical to that effort. For
example, the Federal agencies currently do not specifically
track the portion of their wildfire-related funding that is
expended for wildland firefighter safety and training, making
oversight of safety program funding difficult. The annual
report to Congress required by S. 1152 will help to ensure that
information that is critical to improving oversight is
available.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY
S. 1152 was introduced by Senator Cantwell on April 18,
2007. A similar bill, S. 906, was introduced by Senator
Cantwell and Senator Murray on April 26, 2005. The Subcommittee
on Public Lands and Forests held a hearing on S. 906 on May 10,
2006 (S. Hrg. 109-518).
COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, in an
open business session on May 23, 2007, by voice vote of a
quorum present, recommends that the Senate pass S. 1152, if
amended as described herein.
COMMITTEE AMENDMENT
During the consideration of S. 1152, the Committee adopted
an amendment to the short title.
SUMMARY OF THE MEASURE
S. 1152 requires the Secretaries of Agriculture and the
Interior to jointly submit to Congress an annual report on
their agencies' wildland firefighter safety practices and
policies, including training programs and other safety-related
activities for fire suppression, prescribed burning, and
wildland fire use. The report will describe wildland
firefighter safety practices and policies, statistics and trend
analyses, estimates of expenditures on safety practices, the
status of implementing recommendations to improve safety, and
specific information relating to wildland firefighters that are
utilized pursuant to a Federal contract (such as the Forest
Service's National Firefighter Crew Contract) or agreement
(such as the Pacific Northwest Wildfire Coordinating Group's
Interagency Firefighting Crew Agreement). The definition of
``wildland firefighter'' makes clear that the report must
address safety practices not only for Federal firefighters
directly employed by the agencies, but also any other
firefighters--including contractors and volunteers--that
participate in any wildland firefighting activities under the
direction of the Federal agencies.
COST AND BUDGETARY CONSIDERATIONS
The following estimate of costs of this measure has been
provided by the Congressional Budget Office:
S. 1152--Wildland Fire Safety and Transparency Act of 2007
S. 1152 would direct the Secretaries of Agriculture and the
Interior to submit an annual report regarding the wildland fire
safety practices of designated agencies, such as the Forest
Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The reports would
provide information on policies, statistics, trends, and
progress made on wildland fire safety.
Based on information provided by the affected agencies and
assuming appropriation of the necessary amounts, CBO estimates
that implementing S. 1152 would cost $2 million over the 2008-
2012 period. This amount would be spent on data collection and
report preparation expenses over the five-year period. Enacting
this legislation would not affect revenues or direct spending.
The legislation contains no private-sector or
intergovernmental mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates
Reform Act and would not affect the budgets of state, local, or
tribal governments.
The CBO staff contacts for this estimate are Tyler Kruzich
and David Reynolds. The estimate was approved by Peter H.
Fontaine, Deputy Assistant Director for Budget Analysis.
REGULATORY IMPACT EVALUATION
In compliance with paragraph 11(b) of rule XXVI of the
Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee makes the following
evaluation of the regulatory impact which would be incurred in
carrying out S. 1152.
The bill is not a regulatory measure in the sense of
imposing Government-established standards or significant
economic responsibilities on private individuals and
businesses.
No personal information would be collected in administering
the program. Therefore, there would be no impact on personal
privacy. Little additional paperwork would result from the
enactment of S. 1152.
EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS
Because S. 1152 is similar to legislation considered by the
Committee in the 109th Congress, the Committee did not request
Executive Agency views on S. 1152. The views of the
Administration were included in testimony received by the
Committee at a hearing on S. 906 on May 10, 2006.
Statement of Joel Holtrop, Deputy Chief for National Forest System,
Forest Service, Department of Agriculture
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to
provide the Department's views on S. 906--Wildland Firefighter
Safety Act of 2005. * * * I am Joel Holtrop, Deputy Chief for
the National Forest System, USDA Forest Service.
S. 906 Wildland Firefighter Safety Act
Since the Department of the Interior and the Department of
Agriculture work closely together in fire management, the two
Departments are providing a joint statement on S. 906, the
Wildland Firefighter Safety Act. The bill would require the
Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior to
track funds expended for firefighter safety and training
programs and activities and to include a line item for such
expenditures in annual budget requests. This bill would also
require the Secretaries to jointly submit a report on the
implementation and efficacy of wildland firefighter safety and
training programs and activities to Congress each year. In
addition, the bill would direct the Secretaries to ensure that
any Federal contract or agreement with private entities for
firefighting services requires the entity to provide
firefighting training consistent with qualification standards
set by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group. The
Secretaries would be further directed to develop a program to
monitor and enforce compliance with this contracting
requirement.
The Departments are concerned that a budget line item may
not achieve the desired oversight of safety efforts and would
carry unnecessary administrative complexities. The Departments
do not consider training costs an effective means of
determining a firefighter's ability to perform safely.
Furthermore, section 2(a)(1) of the bill applies only to
the Secretary of the Interior with respect to public land
managed by the Bureau of Land Management. It's important to
recognize that wildland fire occurs not only on public lands
but also on the other Federal lands administered by the
Secretary of the Interior through the various other agency
heads.
Required training, recurrent training, required experience,
and job performance cross multiple budget activities and are
extremely difficult to track at the budget line item level.
Federal and state agencies provide funding for national and
advanced training academies as well as training at more local
levels. Virtually every firefighting training course includes
some element of fire safety. For these reasons, the Departments
do not support S. 906 in its present form.
Rather than focus upon budget structure, the Departments
suggest that an annual report, which would focus on measurable
firefighter performance and the efficacy of our safety and
training practices and activities, would better assist the
Departments' continual improvement of safety and performance
and would provide information to Congress in its oversight
capacity. Indeed, actions are already underway to report to
Congress. For fiscal year 2007, the Forest Service will report
to Congress (as part of the national performance measures) the
accident frequency rate for firefighter injuries during the
suppression of fires under Forest Service jurisdiction. The
Department of the Interior tracks and reports the number of
firefighter injuries and the amount of time lost from
firefighter injuries as a proportion of all time spent
firefighting. This information is reported as part of the 10-
Year Comprehensive Strategy Implementation Plan for Reducing
Wildland Fire Risks.
We are taking additional action to improve tracking of
firefighter safety and training measures.
As this Subcommittee is aware, after the investigations of
fatal fires in the last 10 years, we re-examined our safety and
training policies, practices, and performance and implemented
numerous significant changes. These changes have been developed
in cooperation with the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration, the Department of the Interior and other
interagency partners through the National Wildfire Coordinating
Group. In addition, an audit by the USDA Office of Inspector
General (OIG) in 2004 of the Forest Service firefighter safety
program and in 2006 of firefighting contract crews provided
recommendations that assisted the Forest Service and the
Department of the Interior agencies in identifying areas for
improvement. We have made significant progress in improving
safety, training, certification, accountability, and reporting.
The National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG), made up of
representatives from the Forest Service, Department of the
Interior agencies, Tribes, and State forestry agencies,
establishes minimum requirements for training, experience,
physical fitness level, and currency standards for wildland
fire positions. All participating agencies must meet these
requirements for national mobilization. All firefighters--
federal, tribal, state, local, or contract--carry a position
qualifications document (known as a Red Card) that shows the
firefighter has met all the training, experience, and physical
fitness requirements to perform a specific job under NWCG
standards. The Forest Service has augmented these standards to
meet specific safety requirements for the Forest Service.
Certification of each firefighter is the responsibility of
the employing agency. Firefighters must successfully complete
coursework and multiple training assignments before they are
certified for positions. Individual firefighters are trained to
meet unit, regional and national needs. Performance based
qualification standards, training courses, annual training to
maintain currency, drills, and demonstrated successful
performance prepare firefighters for conditions they may
encounter.
I would like to give you an update of items we have
improved in safety, training, certification, accountability,
and reporting for firefighters and contract firefighting crews.
The Incident Qualifications Certification System (IQCS),
now fully operational, responds to the need for accurate
tracking of qualifications and centralized records as
recommended in the 2004 USDA OIG report on firefighter safety.
Training, on-the-job experience, and certification of each
firefighter are documented and then added to the IQCS. Every
federal firefighter must be qualified and in the system before
they can be assigned by fire managers. State, local, and
contract firefighters use different tracking systems.
The 2006 OIG review of crew contract firefighting programs
reported the need for program oversight and gave several
recommendations for improvements. As a result, experience
requirements have been included in the 2006 crew contracts and
qualification records were reviewed prior to contract awards.
The Forest Service is working with the Pacific Northwest
Coordinating Group to establish a process to ensure contract
associations' training meets the National Wildfire Coordinating
Group standards. Also included in the 2006 crew contracts is a
provision for standardized language assessment to ensure that
there are no communication barriers that would contribute to
unsafe conditions. The Forest Service is coordinating with
other Federal agencies to identify counterfeit documents used
to obtain employment on contract crews. In addition, temporary
workers--that is, workers hired on a short-term basis during an
emergency--must also meet agency certification requirements.
The interagency Wildland Fire Leadership Development
Program trains firefighters and managers in leadership values
through a curriculum of courses designed to span the career of
wildland firefighters from entry level through management and
leadership levels. Individual firefighters and managers improve
their leadership skills through self- directed continuing
education efforts using the on-line resource
(www.fireleadership.gov) to prepare themselves for the
decision-making demands of firefighting.
The Federal Interagency Firefighter Medical Qualifications
and Standards program was developed by the Interagency Medical
Standards Team under the direction of the National Fire and
Aviation Executive Board. This program established medical
qualifications, standards, and procedures to ensure that
firefighters have an appropriate level of health and not be at
unnecessary risk, or put others at risk, in performing arduous
firefighter duties. The program is intended to ensure that
sufficient information is available to make a medically sound
judgment of whether an individual could safely perform the
firefighter duties.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, we believe
that examining firefighter performance and safety as a whole,
rather than simply tracking training costs, helps us to better
assess overall quality and effectiveness of our programs. We
welcome continuing oversight from Congress to help us make
further progress in this area, and we believe that providing
Congress an annual report on the performance and efficacy of
our overall firefighting program would produce the desired
outcome.
CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW
In compliance with paragraph 12 of rule XXVI of the
Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee notes that no
changes in existing law are made by the bill S. 1152 as ordered
reported.