Washington, D.C. Is NOT Burning

The Senate debates whether to give D.C. stimulus money to fight forest fires that it doesn't have.

STEPHEN MOORE

California has been burning up as result of raging forest fires, but Congress doesn't seem to know that. The Senate was all set last week to award $2.8 million of stimulus money for forest fire management to . . . the District of Columbia.

Hold on! Washington, D.C. doesn't have any forests, let alone forest fires. So Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming brought an amendment to the Senate floor to wipe out the funds and reassign the money to the U.S. Forest Service to spend where fires actually are a risk. The amendment passed unanimously so if any senators favored the original funding plan, they apparently didn't feel like speaking up.

In an interview, Mr. Barrasso said he was "amazed" when he saw where the funding was going. "The last time Washington, D.C. faced a catastrophic fire," he quips, "is when the British burned down the White House in 1814."

Mr. Barrasso's aggravation is understandable. Wyoming, with its huge acreage of national forest land, was allotted zero dollars of stimulus money, even as its forests have been ravaged by the pine beetle. What's more, Mr. Barrasso won an ally in Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who was equally miffed that emergency forest fire abatement money was diverted to places where there are no forests.

According to the National Interagency Fire Center, more than 5.5 million acres of U.S. wildlands have burned already this year. Not one acre in DC, however.

The original plan called for giving the money to a local D.C. non-profit called Washington Parks & People. What was the group planning to spend the money on? Answer: planting trees and vegetables and "green education projects." Mr. Barrasso adds: "I've only been in Washington for a short time, but I'm continually shocked at how this town wastes money." At least he won a victory for taxpayers and the environment last week. Meanwhile, the only smell of burning in Washington is evidently tax dollars going through the pockets of our legislators.