The ACRES Act would require the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior to include annual reports in the President’s budget materials on hazardous fuels reduction activities completed on federal lands during the prior fiscal year. Those reports must count acres only once even if multiple treatments occurred, and must identify whether treated acres are in the wildland-urban interface, the wildfire risk level before and after the period, the type of activity performed, the cost per acre, the region or system unit, and the effectiveness of the work in reducing wildfire risk.
The bill also directs both departments to adopt standardized procedures for tracking hazardous fuels reduction data within 90 days of enactment, including regular data reviews, verification methods, and ways to distinguish acres inside versus outside the wildland-urban interface. After implementing those procedures, the agencies must report to Congress on the procedures and recommend policy or program changes to address tracking limitations. The Comptroller General must then conduct a GAO study within two years on implementation and any remaining reporting or data-tracking problems.
Impact
The bill would affect reporting and data-collection practices at the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior, including National Forest System lands, public lands, and National Park System units. It does not create a new grant or spending program and expressly authorizes no additional funds, so implementation would depend on existing appropriations. The measure would likely improve congressional oversight of wildfire mitigation work by standardizing how hazardous fuels reduction acreage and outcomes are counted and reported.
Sentiment
The available legislative history suggests generally favorable sentiment toward the bill. The measure was ordered reported without amendment and favorably by the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, indicating committee support for the bill’s transparency and accountability goals. No recorded votes or committee transcript objections were provided, so there is no evidence in the supplied materials of organized opposition.
Contention
The main policy issue appears to be data accuracy and how federal agencies count and verify hazardous fuels reduction work, especially when multiple treatments occur on the same acre or when work spans the wildland-urban interface. Another likely point of concern is administrative burden, since the bill imposes new standardized tracking, reporting, and verification requirements without providing additional funding. Based on the text, any contention would likely center on whether the reporting requirements are sufficiently precise and whether agencies can implement them with existing resources.
Reforms the organizational structure for the Department of Transportation and Development including its duties, powers, and responsibilities of officers and employees (EN INCREASE SD EX See Note)
A bill for an act providing for certain business entities acting under the jurisdiction of the secretary of state by providing for the removal of information from a filing based on a sworn affidavit and administrative dissolution based on the response to interrogatories.(See HF 2678.)