{"id":48014,"date":"2021-03-12T16:59:40","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T23:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bennet-and-hickenlooper-seek-assistance-for-wildfire-recovery\/"},"modified":"2021-03-12T23:59:40","modified_gmt":"2021-03-12T23:59:40","slug":"bennet-and-hickenlooper-seek-assistance-for-wildfire-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bennet-and-hickenlooper-seek-assistance-for-wildfire-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Bennet and Hickenlooper seek assistance for wildfire recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Sens.
Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper of Colorado sent a letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack on March 9, urging him to support wildfire recovery in the West and specifically in Colorado.<\/p>\n

In the letter, the Democrats included information about the devastation brought on by wildfires last year and asked Vilsack to make wildfire recovery a priority.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast summer, wildfires consumed over 10 million acres across the country, with almost 50 percent burning on National Forest Service land,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n

The letter also focused on devastation and recovery needs in Colorado, where three of its largest fires in history scorched thousands of acres last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, The Cameron Peak Fire burned over 200,000 acres in four months, and in one day alone, the East Troublesome Fire grew more than 100,000 acres, the letter said. \u201cIn Colorado, the U.S. Forest Service has already identified approximately $50 million in immediate needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennet and Hickenlooper also acknowledged both the importance and the faults of the Natural Resource Conservation Service\u2019s Emergency Watershed Protection program and the Forest Service\u2019s Burned Area Emergency Response program. They urged Vilsack to take action to ensure that the programs become more effective.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe effectiveness of these programs is sometimes limited due to administrative hurdles, local match requirements, staffing shortages and inconsistent funding,\u201d the letter said. \u201cTherefore, we encourage you to use USDA\u2019s broad discretion to maximize flexibilities as needed, and we stand ready to work with you in Congress to ensure that wildfire recovery programs have the funding and flexibility they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

The senators\u2019 letter comes almost two weeks after Vilsack\u2019s nomination to the position of USDA secretary.<\/p>\n

As a member of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry committee, Bennet participated in Vilsack\u2019s confirmation hearings. During his confirmation hearing, Vilsack agreed with Bennet that forests are important and undervalued as \u201ccritical infrastructure\u201d in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cYet we still aren\u2019t managing our forests like the critical infrastructure they are,\u201d Bennet said in the confirmation hearing. \u201cAnd with climate change driving hotter and dryer conditions, we\u2019re experiencing more catastrophic wildfires across the West, including the three largest in Colorado\u2019s history last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennet expressed support for Vilsack\u2019s nomination early on in the confirmation process, telling him they would \u201croll out the red carpet\u201d for Vilsack if he ever visited Colorado.<\/p>\n

The letter was similarly friendly. The senators expressed their appreciation for Vilsack and their interest in working with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe appreciate your demonstrated commitment to our forests and watersheds and look forward to working with you in the months ahead to ensure that Colorado communities have a partner in the USDA as they recover from these devastating wildfires,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n

Grace George is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado\u2019s senators urge USDA secretary to support wildfire recovery in the West<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[281,28,25,1566,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-agriculture","tag-headlines","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet","tag-u-s-senate","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48014"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}