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Feinstein plans to hold a subcommittee markup July 30, with the full Appropriations Committee taking up the bill the next day, she told reporters. The schedule is in keeping with Chairman Robert Byrd's (D-W.Va.) desire for all Senate spending bills to be ready before the August congressional recess.

The California Democrat has blasted Forest Service cuts to preventive fire measures. Under the president's budget proposal, the Forest Service's fire suppression account would get a $148 million increase -- to just under $1 billion -- making it by far the largest part of the agency's $4.1 billion budget. But it also makes cuts to hazardous fuels reduction, fire preparedness and state and private forestry programs (E&E Daily, March 31).

While exact numbers were not available, Feinstein said the subcommittee's spending bill will include additional funds for wildfires in light of the influx of fires in California in recent weeks. "California could use up the whole appropriations, so we need to put additional money in," she said.

With more than 1,700 fires in California alone as of July 6 and the fire season not even half over, Feinstein also did not rule out that Congress may have to authorize emergency wildfire spending, such as the $500 million it approved last year.

Spending bill may be safety net for rural schools

Feinstein also pledged to find space for a one-year extension of payments to rural schools and counties in timber country.

The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act is a 2000 law that paid out billions to compensate Western counties for the steep decline in timber sales on federal lands in the 1990s. It expired two years ago but was extended for one year in the Iraq supplemental bill.

Several attempts were made, without success, last month to pass an extension, either as its own bill or as part of a larger spending package, and although lawmakers hope to have better luck this month, Feinstein said that at the very least there will be a one-year extension in the spending bill.

"If [SRS payments] are not somewhere else, I'll put them in," Feinstein said.

She admitted, however, that she was unsure whether her subcommittee's or anybody's budget would clear the Senate before the end of the year.

"All I know is the speculation, and the speculation is no, but speculation can be wrong," she said.

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