Congress demands real numbers on wildfire spending—finally
H.R. 204 — ACRES Act · Filed by Thomas Tiffany (R-WI) · Introduced Jan 3, 2025 · Passed chamber
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill requires the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to submit annual reports to Congress detailing how many acres of federal land they treated for hazardous fuels reduction (wildfire prevention) in the prior year, broken down by location, risk level, treatment type, cost, and effectiveness. The bill also mandates that both agencies implement standardized data-tracking procedures within 90 days and report those procedures to Congress, and directs the Government Accountability Office to study implementation within 2 years. No new funding is authorized.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core function is to impose standardized reporting and data-tracking requirements on federal agencies managing wildfire prevention, with public disclosure and GAO oversight. It is fundamentally a transparency and accountability measure, not a substantive policy change or funding mechanism.
What the text implies
- Standardized reporting may expose significant gaps or inefficiencies in current hazardous fuels reduction efforts, potentially creating political pressure for increased appropriations or policy reform.
- Public disclosure of cost-per-acre and effectiveness data could enable comparative analysis across regions and treatment types, informing future wildfire-prevention strategy.
- The requirement to distinguish wildland-urban interface acres from others may reveal that current efforts are not adequately protecting high-risk populated areas, shifting resource allocation.
- GAO study findings (due 2 years post-enactment) may identify systemic data-tracking failures that require legislative fixes or new appropriations to remedy.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill increases transparency and accountability for federal wildfire-prevention spending by requiring standardized reporting and public disclosure of hazardous fuels reduction activities. Citizens and Congress gain visibility into how effectively taxpayer dollars are being spent on wildfire risk reduction, enabling better oversight and policy decisions.
Named in the bill
Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of the Interior, National Forest System, Department of Agriculture, Department of the Interior, Government Accountability Office (GAO), Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003
Where it stands
- Jan 3, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 3, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Agriculture and House Committee on Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committee on Agriculture, for a period…”
- Jan 21, 2025 — Passed the House · Congress.gov: “On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill Agreed to by voice vote. (text: CR H244-245)”
- Jan 21, 2025 — Floor vote scheduled · Congress.gov: “Mr. Westerman moved to suspend the rules and pass the bill”
- Feb 12, 2026 — Hearing held · Congress.gov: “Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining. Hearings held”
- Mar 4, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Ordered to be reported without amendment favorably”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 4 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $4,545,758 in lobbying spend. A filing names 133 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Thomas Tiffany, the sponsor, reported $63,525 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Property Casualty Insurance Association — $3,540,000 on 2 filings
- National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies — $1,005,758 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 22, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (5,159 characters) on Jun 8, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 22, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Congress demands real numbers on wildfire spending—finally” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr204 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.