or 30 minutes ago, find it in c-span's mcgill library at c-span.org. c-span where history unfolds daily. next a look at the look at the response with the dealing with the california wildfires. from washington journal, this is 30 minutes. continues. journal host: once a week we focus on "washington journal" on your money and what that federal money is being spent for. $2 y we're looking at the billion plus spent so far this year on fighting wildfires. the studio is in robert bonnie, a former department undersecretary for natural resources. this you for joining us morning. explain your role at the agriculture department when you forest re, you oversaw service; correct? guest: yes, undersecretary for agencies t at two under the u.s. forest service and conservation service.

ost: what do you make of what you have been seeing out in california recently? uest: it's terribly tragic, we've obviously lost a lot of lives, a lot of homes and resources, as well. but it's part of a larger trend that we've seen over the last bigger fires, , more catastrophic and deadly ires and that is very concerning and it means investments at the federal level are critically important, both firefighting aspect and to do more work, educe threat of catastrophic fire in the first place. host: headline in "u.s.a. today" the nightmare, the worse may be over, perhaps they corner.rned a it doesn't mean they don't have a lot of work to do and people of struggling, but in terms the money spent, what are the on the federalds government in places like california today? about 20 's look back years, 20 years ago the u.s.

forest service, largest agency in the government, federal government, used to spend one-sixth of the on firefighting. this year it will probably spend not more budge oat firefighting, both in preparing for fire and what you in all the major fires you this year. not on private land, national forest land. most expense out there is paid by the state, that doesn't mean there aren't substantial firefighter, aircraft, hot shot teams, you name it out there. work nothing close partnership the the state, the state is lead on the firefighting side, lead on recovery, but the ederal government and state government, along with local municipal fire departments will

of thegether in the wake fire. host: phone number on the bottom of the screen for our guests. robert bonnie, talking about california and other wildfires, money involved on the federal government end. for dealing with and we'll get to your calls. 202-748-8001, republicans. is your , 202-748-8000 number. independent, 202-748-8002. directly impacted by 202-748-8003. call mr. bonnie, more facts and igures we can put on the screen. federal firefighting activity in $2.4 billion for 50,000 fires ion, covering 8.5 million acres. think a lot of people maybe don't understand that number, 50,000 fires going on, 4300

personnel are engaged, 33 helicopters, 14 air use.ers in there is a lot going on there, his information comes from the agriculture department. how does the spending get what is the process for doing that, so that cumove forward? firefighting and the forest service budget, the forest service is not the only spends money on firefighting, interior, bureau management, other bureaus spend money on fire, as well. budget ar the agencies certain amount based on the verage firefighting expenditures over the last 10 years. the problem is over time that sorage has been going up and those agencies, particularly the forest service, having to devote money to ore firefighting, taking larger and larger share of the budget and of the r necessary case forest service, they run out of

money. they have to what is called money from other accounts, take from forest anagement or restoration account, recreation, other things we need to do on national money taken ving away to fight fires, that includes activities that will educe the threat of catastrophic fires. peter to ly robbing pay paul. host: do you see budgetary future?in the guest: a lot of discussion in congress about this. hen i was in the obama administration, there was a ipartisan effort with the president, republicans and democrats on the hill to address this. years, three now that have been focused on this, change the able to way fire is budgeted for. what needs to happen, we need to fires like natural disasters. they are treated as normal the se that come out of normal expense of the agency.

it's gotten too big, it is other things. we need to create a disaster fund, both for the u.s. forest service, as well as the department of interior agencies so that in bad years, they can the funds. then, maintain the existing budget to be able to invest in prevention. host: where can folks read this opinion piece you wrote with mark ray, essor, ipartisan solution to the wildfire problem. guest: "u.s.a. today," mark ray had the same position i had bush administration, again, signalling there is broad support for how we fix this, we to move forward. host: from allen first in brooklyn, new york, democratic for robert bonnie. good morning. caller: good morning. looking at the news headlines of week, it seems we're live nothing two realities. cutting back on obama era regulation on carbon time we're the reading about record floods and

storms and fires in texas and and da and puerto rico california. as a member of the forest you feel constrained not to make public connections the needs of your agency increase withing climate change and the seemingly ignore the rt to connection to climate change by other branches of your own government? the : i'm no longer with department of agriculture. no longer in the government, i'm actually at duke university, but continue to work on these issues. and our fire season have grown over the last three decades. fire seasons are longer, our ires are bigger, more catastrophic and climate change is clearly playing a role in that. change isn't the only challenge we're facing.

decades, it was sort of a mantra in the u.s. the t service, but in scientific community and elsewhere fire was a bad thing, controlled.o be that mythology is long gone. we're dealing with the legacy of it. we put out small fires for so ong and created fuel build-ups in wild lands and forest and climate that puts us at -- creates serious challenges. the third piece that i think is sort of rtant is just management of the lands, dealing but also the , fact we got houses in places we didn't have houses. hen i was in the administration, we had a 250,000 mexico, it n new never made the headlines because no one lived there. what you are seeing in now is people t and lives being put at risk

here, so you've got this three-legged stool of climate management and fuel build-up over time and then urban and what we call interface, which is houses in the wild areas creating challenges. and driving up the budget. joanne calling for robert. good morning. caller: good morning. isten, i live in nevada and close to california, we have the fires.from the california now do you attribute any of this envireos that took grazing off the land and cutting the trees down? sierras and l the see dead standing trees, what do they think is going to happen? hen i left talascoga weeks ago and my brother was missing in the fires, okay, but we talked

waiting to as fire happen, nobody cleans up their land out there. happens every year, i'm tired of their smoke. lands, get ur thenviros out of it, use common sense. dean heller did a report, from nevada, did a report on how much in e category save wildfires. why aren't these things used? on y brown just falls back global warming, at what the democrats normally do and that's shame. clean up your land. thank you. bonnie.bert guest: i'm glad your brother is well. that land management matters a lot, not only the management of federal lands, but private and state lands, as well. and one of the things we obama rated on in the administration and really a bipartisan way, increase the amount of forest restoration doing, work with the timber industry, with

onservation groups with local communitys to increase the amount of work we're doing in the woods, to restore more conditions and to reintroduce fire in places we could o so safely so we reduce those fuel loads. ou point out grazing has an important role to play and grazing can be a tool that is forest manage h toment reduce fuel loads. o, there have been challenges related to environmental the ation of management on national forest and federal lands. traesz that through collaborative work, by pulling people together. there is clearly more work we do. to and i think one of the challenges with the budget ituation is that we're investing so much money in just fire fighting that we're not the to invest in prevention, the restoration work, working with local fuel, to s to reduce be more prepared in the fire,

the budget matter necessary this debate. host: chairman of the house and resources committee, you know, he was on the newsmaker program the past weekend and need to improve management of the forest service, here is a look. service themselves has a goal of trying to refine and fix their forest, manage the 25% a year. they get to 2% and not all of hat is simply because they are incompetent, there are other factors, that is what we're can g to relieve so they manage 25% a year, so when the fires hit, they are not fires.ophic i don't know about the other one, but i do know mismanagement are causing devastation. host: robert bonnie, your thoughts? no question.look, one issue, there is a lot of actually fertile ground in the opportunities s to do more management, to look projects that e both benefit local communities,

grazers, forest industry and other folks while also ecological ng improvement, water shed, protecting forest, better forest help, better wildlife habitat. work together collaboratively, correct, there is more work to do there. the challenge is that if we additional resources to do that work, the forest service is really hamstrung, it takes people, it takes foresters, it takes rofessionals to go sxout plan large-scale efforts. we have to solve the budget problem. focus on the s environmental litigation or the don't fix there and the budget problem, we're not going to make any progress at all. host: judy calling from lincoln, nebraska. good morning, judy. caller: good morning. how are you, sir? host: doing well. to somebody to talk live. host: we're glad to talk to you

live, as well. would you like to say or ask, judy? caller: the fires is another thing. i got a friend living there and he's clear on the northern part area and rancisco stuff like that. what are they doing about it? on an, they are blaming it the state. our president is insane, the man devil's advocate. he don't do anything for anybody. all about money and all about him. in hollywood got fired in whatever.a -- or and stuff and things and he is a scum bag. right.all we get the point, caller. let's hear from robert bonnie. well, i think obviously a lot there, but i think the one that you gotsay is serviceted career civil

in the forest service at the arertment of interior, they working hand in hand with irefighters on the ground in california california. we fight fires seamlessly at level, , state and local everybody working together and i terms of fire response, we do a really good job. ur challenge in doing things ahead of the fire that can reduce the threat. that is where budget issues come in, thinking about large scale forest restoration comes in, it where we put out homes on the landscape so we tonight put people and house way, those are s things we need to think about ahead of the fire so we can get problem. this host: from twitter, prater wants to know what will happen when starts falling on the charred land, can you explain

that? guest: this is actually a real problem. a lot of the fires, you obviously see the devastation today, but now you have removed the vegetation from the land and if you get a heavy rain, heavy snow and then snow the water pringtime, runs off immediately, there is ot vegetation to slow it down and to take up some of the water. so this creates real challenges. forest service, cal fire, which is the california fire resources national conservation service, other agencies gallon out in the wake even when the ground is still warm to begin to treat the acres so we get less and fewer threats of mud slides and those types of things. post-fire, when the flames it's charred landscape, we're not done yet, a lot more done. to be those things are expensive, they

require people, that is why i budget ing back to the situation. that is why we need to solve the budget issue. know it is supplemental bill, but congress is working through $36 billion in the might reachweek, it final vote this week. toward ce of that goes the forest fire situation? guest: my understanding there be several hundred million dollars in there that will help the federal budgets when it comes to firefighting. the said before, so often agency has to take money from its other budget line items in for fire and typically the bills will replenish those things. hat they don't do, solve the long-term problem, treat fire as a disaster, create a disaster agencies can tap on and don't have to rob other budget lines. something called forest act of 2017, want to get your take on that, here are some points. this act would provide extra

irefighting money to from fema instead of coming from forest service, expedite review process controlled burns and wave environmental safe guards for management projects endangered species are believed not to be affected. what else can you tell us? guest: as we were thinking about this during the obama we recognize you need both to deal with the udget issue, you might also need to address ability to do larger scale restoration, forest talked about. i the challenge is with some of this legislation goes too far. we've demonstrated that you can you can work at collaborative level with lots of forest industry, environmental group, local communities and you can ccomplish large-scale restoration. we need to be careful that we wars that ite timber

affected federal land managem t to solve thee need budget problem, we need to allow he agencies to draw on emergency funding, we can look at some ways that we can stream can getjects so that we more work done. , my hope is congress can walk that line and find a way to do this that preserves the -- the budgetlaws problem. host: california fires worsen survivors, for washington times, officials outdoors.imiting time california on the line, june lake, california, independent lynn.r named good morning. caller: hello. air.: you're on the caller: hi. yes, this is very interesting.

the forest in the international forest and, you watched these basicallyvice workers do nothing for many, many years. they were supposed to do a whole forest planning between our sierra forest and started in 2012, 2017. now we watch third degree federal agency spend thousands and thousands of dollars basically on nothing. owner, you know, it's very frustrating to watch don't get to waste money in business. this gentleman is up there again, about once waiting for congress.

dead trees beatle, everywhere and, you know, it's so hard to understand why people in there and harvest that timber. magine the resources as far as needing new homes, you have huge, massive fires that cost dollars, you have forest service sitting around have meetings and this whole person does in, and six anning process months later, they're gone and a new person comes in, just like starting over. it is extremely frustrating and that your of tell guest is a little frustrated, too, because how long he's dealt still waiting as dollars and billions of re being wasted with zero accountability and i have a lot

living in the forest all of my life, dealing with ecreation and timber, watching these fires and there's so many problems as the average person living in this again were ce waiting for congress, waiting our he government to solve problems. if you would just let the local people go to work, they don't to destroy their lands, they want to protect their lands. of grass ins are full that grazing isn't allowed anymore, then the grass just burns. i mean, i don't know what the answer is, but i can tell you absolute positive about the mount of money that is completely wasted by the government, sitting around and to plan and trying to get together with -- trying to get together with the foresters. lynn, thank you. a lot there, any response?

guest: couple points. one, the effort you are talking on the indian national forest, along with couple other develop aorests is to plan that has community buy-in, you can get work done faster. efforts, what the planning efforts are about so hat we can do large-scale restoration. a little bit, the big challenge, of ow there is a lot cynicism about government. one big challenge the forest 40% fewer es, it has oresters, 40% fewer planners, recreation, managers, all those of then the nonfire side organization, fewer, 40% fewer employee there is and we've oubled the amount on the fire side of the organization. steady has been this creep of resources away from away from gement, grazing management, recreation,

all those things that matter a you live inommunity and we're spending more and more and more dollars on fire every year. of the challenge that you see on the ground as someone forest is by national that the forest service has fewer people to do the things matter to your community. this, that is why the budget so important. we've got to solve the budget challenge to be able to give the resources it needs to work with the community so they can get things done. about the r point importance of working with local communities is really, really important. that is something i think the forest service and other agencies have taken to heart. clearly more we can do there, without budget resources, well.'t be able to do it host: jim at twitter, how much fire is result of current activism and earlier misguided environmentalism? guest: there is no question that need to do more forest

that ment and restoration involves thinning to reduce the fuel levels. involves using hiscribed fire, fire on our lives oren there is no houses in danger. to theu know, think back 1980s and 1990s and you have a the west and r in litigation and confrontation around management of the forest.l there is no question that is in maybe nse maybe agency more defensive, but i think the agency has begun to come out of you see, we were able to treat more acres, produce obama mber during the administration, there are opportunities to do more out work withfind ways to the environmental community and conservation community and imber industry and local community to get more work done,

that collaborative approach is really important. actually quite optimistic we an work through this issue in terms of being able to work through environmental laws, planning and other things to get work done. the fundamental challenge continues to be the budget. budge sxet lve the give the agency resources, they won't be able to perform the way they need to. couple more calls and then we'll wrap up. or eileen? caller: aline. i'm recent -- lived in maryland years and i was very active in invasive species that.l, things like those kind of new plans are making it harder to fight fires they're a lot more strong and things like that. but i think we do need to get involved and e aybe put smokey the bear to a different focus and understand

what is going on with the fires like that. er hink your previous call er maybe should get herself elected committee and get people interested in living in the areas, have input and known.ions be so, there would be more buy-in involved. would be guest: great comments there. invasive species. you're exactly right, these are species not native to the united in the we have a species west called cheat grass which changes the way fires burn out and create huge problems wildlife, afety, for for grazers and so addressing investing in restoration is going to be critically important to deal with the fire problem in a lot of places. so that invasive species

challenge is a real one. changing the way fires burn, making them more so an issue and that really needs to be dealt with. it n, the way to deal with is for communities to work together, to collaborate, to ome up with large-scale efforts, but in order to do that, we have to invest the dollars to get projects done. host: one more call, tony new castle, pennsylvania, you are on robert bonnie. caller: good morning, gentlemen. tony.hi, caller: i guess the thing i'm calling about, to direct -- to sorry for these people losing -- it is horrible we don't have , kind of these major disasters. i love it here. so anyway, but anyway, some of were probably there strict built nd

construction, i think they need change some of these codes for building, i've studied housing, concrete and stuff like that, at least you ouldn't lose everything, especially in tornado areas and everything, you seem to keep same old stuff and it's not going to last. in my , you know, i'm 60s, my kids have a small amily, seem like they don't want to do anything unless you have a machine to do it with. get out and need to get their hands dirty and stuff, many prison people sitting there that why can't we get them working or something like that? so that is my comment. host: thank you for calling. final thought on preventing and wildfires.h guest: great point on building of the fire ture threat has changed. there is the size of the fire, the fire,ic nature of we have to think about changing building codes, things like

metal roofs, clearing vegetation away from houses and these areas that are fire prone, that is to be the difference between a house surviving or not. fires advance,se they get heavy winds and they thousands and thousands of embers, if your embers, it thstand will still be standing after what can be a very catastrophic fire. in order to do that, we have to invest in changing building have to work with existing houses so they can be lot we ted, there is a need to do that will take resources to do that. former bert bonnie, undersecretary agriculture department for natural resources 2013-2017,

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