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House passes wildfire emergency authority bill allowing state suppression and AG cost recovery
Summary
The Idaho House approved legislation that lets the governor declare emergencies to send state resources to suppress wildfires and directs the attorney general to seek cost recovery; the measure passed 63–6 with one absent.
The Idaho House passed a measure to authorize the governor to declare an emergency and deploy state resources to suppress wildfires — including fires on federal land — and to authorize the attorney general to seek cost recovery through civil action. The House approved the measure by recorded vote, 63–6 with one member absent.
The sponsor, identified in the transcript as the representative from District 9, said the bill "does is if there is a fire, like a lightning strike, and it's in the summer, and it's really hot, and we know things are gonna explode, the governor can issue an emergency and send state resources up up to put out that fire before it becomes thousands and thousands of acres. And then we ask the attorney general to try to recover the costs for that fighting with a civil action." The sponsor described the bill as necessary to protect watersheds and communities.
Supporters framed the measure as a response to federal inaction; one member said federal agencies "let these fires grow" and accused them of managing fires so they become "project fires" that then justify large agency expenditures. Opponents, including a member who spoke at length, raised legal concerns and cited the Idaho Master Cooperative Wildland Fire Management Agreement and a 2016 Idaho Attorney General opinion saying unilateral state abatement on federal lands could be unconstitutional and leave the state financially exposed if the federal government declined to reimburse.
The debate recorded in the transcript included questions on statute-of-limitations language: one member objected to a 10-year statute of limitations in the bill for private suits while the Tort Claims Act imposes 180-day notice for suits against the state. That member said a 10-year civil window is "very, very unusual" in Idaho code and could disadvantage defendants and witnesses over time.
After floor debate closed the clerk reported the vote as "63 aye. 6 nay. 1 absent. Excuse majority having voted in favor of house bill 3 89." The bill will be transmitted to the Senate.
