The Trump administration’s push to consolidate the federal government’s response to wildfires is advancing with first steps on an independent study.
But an underlying question is beginning to emerge: How unbiased would — or should — the study be, given that the administration has already dictated the outcome?
The administration has reached out to organizations that could conduct or contribute to the review, according to representatives of those groups and others directly familiar with officials’ actions. In a recently enacted spending bill for the Interior Department, lawmakers directed the departments of the Interior and Agriculture to contract with an “independent, nonpartisan research organization with expertise in federal land management” to analyze the proposal.
The USDA’s undersecretary for natural resources, Michael Boren, was contacted by the Alliance for Wildfire Resilience about the study, said one of the organization’s founders, Tyson Bertone-Riggs.
