Rachael Lange is a second year student at Harvard Law School and a guest contributor to this blog.
Bipartisan recognition of growing wildfire impacts across the country has led to the introduction of several wildfire-related bills that could become part of a future farm bill. The devastating wildfires in Southern California in early 2025, as well as the growing risk of greater wildfire activity and damage across the country, have pushed this issue to the forefront of legislators’ minds. The Southern California wildfires caused billions of dollars in property damages and led to at least 30 deaths.
Current Provisions
The current farm bill, passed in 2018 and extended past its original expiration date in 2023, contains several wildfire provisions. Most of these are located in the Title VIII Forestry section. The Forestry Title is intended to serve a variety of functions related to the responsible management, conservation, and utilization of the nation’s 765 million acres of forestland. Wildfires are one of the many risks to forest health that the Title addresses. Some notable programs in the current Farm Bill include:
- §8201: Defines “at-risk community” in a wildfire context.
- §8202, 8204, 8403: Amend the Healthy Forests Act of 2003 to expand wildfire provisions.
- §8413: Adds wildfire risk management to collaborative forest management restoration program.
- §8414: Provides for public-private wildfire management technology development and testing.
- §8416: Allows for timber sales in national forests when necessary to reduce wildfire risk.
- §8418: Provides for contracts with Tribal authorities to carry out prescribed burns.
- §8419: Utilizes grazing to lower wildfire risk.
- §8434: Prioritizes forests with high wildfire risk for biochar1 projects.
- §8504, 8505, 8506, 8507, 8512: Protect sequoias.
- §8703: Requires wildfire risk assessment in hazardous fuels reports.
Wildfire provisions also exist in other Titles of the current Farm Bill. These include:
- Conservation Title §2406: Adds wildfire coverage to the Emergency Conservation Program.
- Research Title §7204, 7208, 11016: Provide for wildfire research.
- Horticulture Title §10213: Restricts courts from enjoining wildfire suppressant chemical dispersal.
Proposed Bills
Both houses of Congress have introduced dozens of wildfire-related bills that could be included in a new farm bill. In the House, 19 bills that address wildfire management have been introduced. In the Senate, two wildfire management bills have been introduced. While most of these are supported by a bipartisan coalition of cosponsors, several rest on single-party support. Below is a list of bills that, due to bipartisan support and similarities to provisions in the existing farm bill, may be more likely to make it into a future farm bill.
Senate:
- S. 602 Wildfire Resilience Through Grazing Research Act: Amends Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 to support research towards utilizing grazing to mitigate wildfire risk.
House:
- H.R. 178: Sets requirements for wildfire suppression techniques to be carried out by the Forest Service.
- H.R. 204 ACRES Act: Standardizes reporting requirements for hazardous fuels reduction tracking and data reporting.
- H.R. 345 Fire Department Repayment Act of 2025: Sets standard operating procedures for reciprocal fire suppression cost share agreements between local, state and federal governments.
- H.R. 472 Fix Our Forests Act: Establishes requirements for managing forests on federal land, including wildfire threat reduction.
- H.R. 836 Emergency Wildfire Fighting Technology Act of 2025: Requires assessment and reporting on the effectiveness of the container aerial firefighting system.
- H.R. 1045 Utah Wildfire Research Institute Act of 2025: Creates new Institute under Southwest Forest Health and Wildfire Prevention Act of 2004.
- H.R. 1110 Grazing for Wildfire Risk Reduction Act: Requires Secretary of Agriculture to develop and implement new strategies to use grazing for wildfire risk reduction.
Other House bills establish wildfire grant programs (H.R. 582), call for research on new and existing wildfire management and mitigation techniques (H.R. 1923, H.R. 3553, H.R. 3922), or amend the Healthy Forests Act (H.R. 3637). However, following passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Congressional reluctance to commit to new spending commitments may prove an obstacle to securing funding for such programs.
1. Biochar refers to the remnants of carbon-containing biological waste, such as wood or vegetative matter, which emerge after a heating process, called pyrolysis, breaks the matter down into its component parts. Biochar may be used as a soil amendment to improve water and nutrient retention and possibly boost plant growth. Additionally, the pyrolysis process has the effect of stabilizing about half the carbon in a given piece of waste media, meaning that its warming potential as a greenhouse gas is neutralized for potentially hundreds of years.
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