Helena Independent Record: Daines pushing for disaster funding for wildfires
U.S. Sen. Steve Daines said he is looking to add certainty to federal fire managers’ budgets by reforming the way the worst wildfires receive federal funding. Daines was in Clancy on Friday discussing the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act of 2015 with a roundtable of state and federal forest managers, conservation and forest dependent business interests. Daines signed onto the act as a senator in January, which would likely end the practice of “fire borrowing” when suppression funding runs out and must be pulled in from other programs. “The agencies have this cloud hanging over them,” said Richard Stem, retired deputy