A bipartisan group of senators is trying to rally support to increase funding for a collaborative program designed to restore national forests and their watersheds.

Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Idaho Republican Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch are drafting a letter to Senate appropriators asking them to fully fund the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration program, a Crapo spokesman said.

The two-year-old program brings together local officials, timber companies, environmentalists and other forest users to solve contentious management issues. Projects typically utilize timber thinning, prescribed burns, invasive weed removal and other management tools to improve forest health.

"We are making the case that the program has created jobs, timber production, fuels reduction and improved habitat," said Crapo spokesman Lindsay Northern.

Both chambers have tentatively proposed funding the program at $30 million in 2012, a slight bump from the $25 million it received in 2011. The Obama administration requested $40 million, the program's maximum authorized amount.

Bingaman, who helped spearhead the program's establishment in 2009, recently highlighted the jobs and timber supplies created during the program's first year.

Nearly a dozen projects reduced wildfire risk, supplied 107 million board feet of timber and generated nearly $59 million of labor income, according to a new joint report from the Forest Service and stakeholder groups (Greenwire, Nov. 7).

"This program put 1,500 local people to work restoring 10 national forests and reducing destructive mega-fire risk, at a cost of only $10 million," said Tracy Connell of the Nature Conservancy, adding that the program is expected to leverage $219 million in non-federal money over the next decade.

The program's total funding will likely determine how many of the more than two dozen new collaborative restoration proposals the Forest Service will be able to fund in the coming years. A federal advisory committee met in Utah last month to evaluate proposals in 18 states.