Lujan Urges U.S. Funding to Fight Forest Fires

Signaling a likely reversal of Reagan Administration policy, Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. said Friday that he has urged the White House to restore more than $140 million in federal funding to fight forest fires that start on public lands.

The issue has been a matter of contention since the cost of fighting last summer’s massive blazes soared to unprecedented levels, burdening federal coffers and prompting suggestions that state and local authorities pick up some of the tab.

At the urging of former Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel, outgoing President Ronald Reagan included the burden-sharing proposal in the budget that he submitted to Congress last month.

Use of Supplemental Funds

But Lujan told reporters at his first news conference Friday that he has urged the Office of Management and Budget to strike that provision and instead use supplemental federal appropriations to pay for unexpected fire costs.

His proposal could require more than $80 million in added expenditures by the Interior Department, which oversees the Park Service, a department official said. He estimated that it would add more than $60 million to the budget of the Agriculture Department, which has authority over the Forest Service.

Lujan sought on another matter to deflate expectations of a change in course, going out of his way to say that he did not expect Bush to set aside “a lot of money for acquisitions” of federal lands.

Environmentalists had held out hope in the wake of Reagan’s seven-year moratorium on land acquisitions that Bush might take a markedly different line. But Lujan emphasized Friday that “we have to work within budget constraints” and indicated that he would not support any large-scale land purchases.

“To be frank,” the New Mexican said, noting that his native state is largely owned by the federal government, “I have not ever been too crazy about adding any new lands to federal ownership.”

Generally, however, Lujan maintained in the news conference the passive manner he already has exhibited in his confirmation hearings. He answered reporters’ questions more than a dozen times with “I don’t know,” and he said that the forest fire-fighting proposal is the only issue on which he has stated a forceful case to the White House.

He declined in particular to take a stand on the renewal of water contracts in California’s Central Valley. Critics have opposed renewal on grounds that they would extend costly federal subsidies for up to 40 years and that they could pose hazards to the environment.

Lujan said only that the department’s past position--recommending that the contracts be renewed before an environmental impact study could be conducted--is under review.

But the department’s principal antagonist in the controversy, the Environmental Protection Agency, moved Friday to take the matter out of Lujan’s hands, referring it to the White House Council on Environmental Quality and asking that it settle the dispute.

Acting EPA Administrator John A. Moore requested that Interior “take no action” on the contracts, the first of which comes due Feb. 28, “until the council acts upon this referral.”