The ACRES Act would ensure federal land management agencies are accurately reporting hazardous fuel reduction to reduce the risk of wildfires

WASHINGTON, DC – Last week, Rep. Tom Tiffany (WI-07) introduced H.R. 1567, the Accurately Counting Risk Elimination Solutions (ACRES) Act. This legislation would hold federal land management agencies accountable by providing transparency in the work they are doing to reduce the amount of fuel for wildfires on our public lands and determine the effectiveness of the fuel reduction.
 
Specifically, the ACRES Act 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. This legislation follows investigative reporting that agencies like the U.S. Forest Service have been overstating their fuel reduction work for decades, inflating their actual work done by over 20 percent.
 
“Decades of mismanagement of our federal lands have left our forests overstocked with trees and created tinderbox conditions – ultimately fueling catastrophic wildfires across the West,” said Federal Lands Subcommittee Chairman Tom Tiffany. “There is a better and active way to manage our public lands, and that starts with holding our federal land management agencies accountable by requiring accurate reporting on the effectiveness of their work in fuel reduction. The ACRES Act will ensure our federal agencies are not providing the fuel for more wildfires to spark.”
 
“Rural communities across the West, including mine in Central Washington, are plagued by catastrophic wildfires exacerbated by poor—or nonexistent—forest management. The ACRES Act will provide the American people transparency into the actions our federal land management agencies are (or are not) taking to reduce this threat. I congratulate Rep. Tiffany for introducing this commonsense bill and will continue to advocate for the active forest management that enables us to reduce hazardous fuels and protect our rural communities from this threat.” – Western Caucus Chairman Dan Newhouse (WA-04)
 
“This bill will give the American people a more accurate accounting of how much progress Federal land managers are making in addressing our wildfire crisis. Congress has given them unprecedented authorities and resources — and the public is entitled to know what these agencies are up to. If federal land managers actively use all of the expedited authorities Congress has given them, the number of treated acres should rise rapidly.” – Bill Imbergamo, Executive Director, Federal Forest Resource Coalition
 
The ACRES Act requires the Secretaries of the USDA and DOI to:

    Detail the actual, accurate acreage where hazardous fuel reduction activities took place and the region or system unit in which the acres were located.
    Distinguish between treatments that occurred within the wildland-urban interface, areas accurately reflecting treatments near communities that are most at risk to the threat of wildfires.
    Show the effectiveness of the hazardous fuels reduction work in reducing wildfire risk.
    Convey what methods were used to reduce hazardous fuels and the cost per acre to do so.
    Make the report publicly available on USDA and DOI websites.

The ACRES Act also requires the Secretaries to implement standardized procedures for tracking data for hazardous fuels reduction. This includes:

    Data reviews of the accuracy and timely input of the data used to track hazardous fuels, as well as verification that this data directly correlates to fuel reduction activity.
    Analysis of short and long-term effectiveness of hazardous fuel reduction on reducing the risk of wildfires.