The U.S. Forest Service is looking to reshuffle funds in its proposed fiscal 2013 budget, including the funds to cut the risk of wildfires, to create a broader, more comprehensive program that will integrate several climate-ready actions.

The Integrated Resource Restoration (IRR) program -- currently a pilot in three of the nine Forest Service regions -- increases collaboration over a variety of related forest restoration goals, instead of individually tackling them.

For example, establishing a program for timber sales along with stewardship contracts to thin forests could reduce the risk of wildfire, improve watersheds and remove the need for roads prone to soil erosion, said Forest Service chief Tom Tidwell.

The Obama budget request to take the project to full scale would give it $793 million, more than five times the current $146.4 million devoted to the pilot (Greenwire, Feb. 17).

"These outcomes help reduce risk from threats like fire, insects and diseases; provide clean, low-cost drinking water to communities; and maintain local infrastructure and jobs by creating economic opportunities such as uses for biomass and other forest products," said Tidwell in his testimony.

Through the Integrated Resource Restoration line item, the Forest Service can use its climate research to address the need to thin out forests, increase culvert size to accommodate more rain-on-snow events, or be responsive to invasive species whose proliferation is driven by climate change, added Tidwell.

"Those are the funds we use to accomplish the management on the ground," he said.

Forest thinning becomes a more prominent tool

But representatives at a hearing for the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies argued that the pilot program is not yet ready to be fully implemented.

"Before we can allow IRR to be employed nationwide, we need proof of concept and robust performance measures to know that it work," said subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho).

Chris Topik, director of the Nature Conservancy's Restoring America's Forests program, agreed that IRR is not yet ready to move on to the next level.

"We're not yet at a point where we think it could go national," he said. "We think the pilot that was offered was a good idea; learning from that pilot will only make it more successful."

A solid plan to remove excess wood is especially needed in light of the Department of the Interior's 25 percent cut in budget for treatments.

The program would also divert nearly $21 million from the Hazardous Fuels fund, to restore lands in order to avoid wildfires. The Hazardous Fuels program, which has seen a drop of $75.5 million, will concentrate on reducing fire risk in communities that abut national forests. Known as the wildland-urban interface, this is the most expensive area to rehabilitate from damage.

The Appropriations Committee ruled last year that 75 percent of the funds in the Hazardous Fuels budget should be dedicated to projects in the wildland-urban interface, said Simpson.

The Forest Service recently announced the deployment of new, more efficient air tankers -- fire-fighting aircraft -- a cost of $24 million in the wildland fire management budget.

The budget also projects a threefold increase in the use of wood and plant waste from thinnings to be used for energy generation in biomass plants -- from 477,921 tons in 2011 to 1,556,000 tons in 2013.