California gets money for wildfire, drought as Congress temporarily funds government again

Congress passed a government funding bill in a down-to-the-wire vote on Thursday in the face of a looming shutdown.

The continuing resolution bill, a short-term spending resolution that will keep the government funded through early December, delegates $28.6 billion to disaster relief efforts, including for wildfire prevention and response and the consequences of drought.

Here’s some of what the bill addresses on wildfires and drought.

• Firefighters: The bill waives the federal overtime pay cap in 2021, which California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla had suggested earlier this year. The pay cap limits the number of overtime hours that can be paid to fight wildfires.

• Burnt crops: $10 billion will go to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildfire Hurricane Indemnity Program to help agricultural producers affected by wildfires and smoke.

• Cleaning forests: $175 million will go to the U.S. Forest Service for managing hazardous fuels, such as clearing dried vegetation that acts like kindle for fires, and $175 million for rehabilitating burned areas. Overall, $1.36 billion will go to the U.S. Forest Service for dealing with repercussions of wildfires that have burned since 2019.

• Western drought: $200 million will go to the Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees water resource management, for projects to address drought in the West.

• Water infrastructure: $238 million will go to improving California’s water infrastructure, including $205 million for storage projects, $21 million for nine water recycling projects in California and $12 million for four desalination projects.

“After Senate Republicans repeatedly blocked legislation to fund the government and prevent a default, Senate Democrats came together to move forward and fund the federal programs that working families across America depend on,” Padilla said in a release following the bill’s clearance of the Senate. “I’m proud to support this bill that will provide billions of dollars in critical funding to California for wildfire disaster response and drought relief, as well as funding to help re-settle Afghan refugees.”

Several wildfires are burning up and down the state. California is spending more and more state funding each year to combat fires, and Cal Fire expects to outspend emergency funding designated in the state budget to fight wildfires this year.

Prolonged drought in California could threaten access to clean groundwater for farming communities and forced conservation efforts.

The U.S. House of Representatives will next vote on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package, which also includes provisions for preventing and responding to wildfires and drought, among other climate issues.

Feinstein said that the focus on upcoming funding legislation must focus on climate change to address fires and drought.

“As we negotiate long-term government funding and an agreement on infrastructure legislation, Congress must recognize the fact that these intense wildfires and droughts are being driven by climate change,” Feinstein said in a press release on Thursday. “We need to pass a package that accepts that reality and addresses the climate crisis we’re facing.”