An Associated Press story carried by the Bozeman Daily Chronicle today has some interesting spin from the gov's office on who's to blame for spending cuts for fire suppression. The story finishes with this: "(Budget Director Dave) Ewer said he thinks lawmakers should remember that Schweitzer asked to have more money on hand to fight fires, a task that appears to be getting increasingly expensive for the state.  The measure, carried by a Republican, died in the GOP-led House."

The big question is, why are we even pointing fingers?  The legislature has historically not funded fire suppression to the extent needed because it's impossible to forecast exactly how much money will be necessary.  The usual method for funding fire fighting is to "borrow" money out of agency budgets, primarily DNRC, and pay the agency back later through supplemental appropriations.  But this governor smells blood in the water and he just can't resist playing partisan games.

Since he brought it up, let's talk about who cut fire suppression funding.

There were two stand-alone bills to increase funding for fire fighting, both sponsored by Republicans.  The first, HB 66 by Rep. Ray Hawk would have established a fund for fire suppression costs set at $25 million using state and federal money.  The second, HB 150 by Rep. Jack Ross, would have increased the Governor's Emergency fund to $25 million, but it was not earmarked for fires, which is part of why it was killed.

Both these bills found themselves on the scrap pile because House Republicans preferred to fund firefighting costs through the main budget bill, HB 2.  Republican Rep. Rick Ripley amended HB 2 to add $10 million for firefighting costs.  When that bill reached the Senate, Democrat Senator Dave Wanzenried amended out the $10 million for firefighting and reallocated $9.8 million to the Dept. of Revenue and $0.2 million to the Historical Society.  Here's a copy of the Wanzenried amendment.

Again, this whole blame game is pointless in our book, but since Schweitzer started the spin on it and wrongly accused Republicans of cutting fire suppression costs, we thought we'd set the record straight.  What's really going on here is that Gov. Schweitzer is gearing up for a special legislative session to pay the bills for this year's wildfires, and he's trying to set the stage to blame Republicans for not funding fire fighting.  We think there's no blame to spread around in this case since this legislature treated fire funding in the historic method.  We just hope the Montana media gets it right this time and recognizes the gov's blatant partisan attitude for what it is.