Federal Wildfire Management: Ten-Year Funding Trends and Issues (FY2011-FY2020)

Federal Wildfire Management: Ten-Year Funding Trends and Issues (FY2011-FY2020). Congressional Research Service. Katie Hoover. October 28, 2020

Wildfire management is a series of coordinated activities to prepare for, resolve, and recover from wildfire events. The federal agencies responsible for wildfire management include the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service (FS) and the Department of the Interior (DOI). FS carries out wildfire response and management across the 193 million acres of national forests and national grasslands; DOI carries out these activities on more than 400 million acres of national parks, wildlife refuges and preserves, Indian reservations, and other public lands. The federal agencies also coordinate wildfire response activities with state and local governments as needed. 

[PDF format, 37 pages].

Improving Pandemic Preparedness: Lessons from COVID-19

Improving Pandemic Preparedness: Lessons from COVID-19.  Council on Foreign Relations. Thomas J. Bollyky and Stewart M. Patrick. October 2020.

The United States and the world were caught unprepared by the COVID-19 pandemic despite decades of warnings of the threat of global pandemics and years of international planning. The failure to adequately fund and execute these plans has exacted a heavy human and economic price. Hundreds of thousands of lives have already been lost, and the global economy is in the midst of a painful contraction. The crisis—the greatest international public health emergency in more than a century—is not over. It is not too early, however, to begin distilling lessons from this painful experience so that the United States and the world are better positioned to cope with potential future waves of the current pandemic and to avoid disaster when the next one strikes, which it surely will. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 158 pages].

A Primer on Disaster and Emergency Appropriations

A Primer on Disaster and Emergency Appropriations. The Heritage Foundation. Justin Bogie. March 2, 2016.

Each year, Congress appropriates billions of dollars in discretionary funding for disaster relief and emergencies. Some of that funding is provided through base appropriations measures, but a much larger portion is provided through annual Budget Control Act (BCA) cap adjustments that increase discretionary spending by billions of dollars, or by supplemental appropriations bills that provide even greater amounts of funding that is not subject to spending caps or budgetary controls. The paper outlines the three classifications of disaster and emergency spending and discusses the importance of paying for these events within the normal annual appropriations except in the cases of true emergencies. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 3 pages, 121.36 KB].

The Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force’s Infrastructure Resilience Guidelines: An Initial Assessment of Implementation by Federal Agencies

The Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force’s Infrastructure Resilience Guidelines: An Initial Assessment of Implementation by Federal Agencies. RAND Corporation. Melissa Finucaneet al. December 9, 2014.

In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast of the United States, devastating communities across the region. This disaster motivated the federal government to examine how it might improve community and infrastructure resilience so that communities are better prepared for existing and future threats, including those exacerbated by climate change. To ensure that federal agencies incorporate key principles of resilience into their formulation, evaluation, and prioritization of infrastructure investments related to Sandy rebuilding, the Presidential Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force developed its Infrastructure Resilience Guidelines in the spring and summer of 2013. On behalf of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Interagency Policy Committee’s Subcommittee on Recovery and Mitigation, the RAND Corporation conducted an initial assessment of federal agencies’ implementation of the guidelines. The main goal of this study was to identify the lessons learned from the opportunities and challenges encountered when implementing the guidelines. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 74 pages, 569.01 KB].