Bush accused of shortchanging wildfire preparation

Washington, D.C.:

Trying to avoid a repeat of the failures of Hurricane Katrina, the White House is taking pains to respond quickly to the escalating emergency posed by the Southern California wildfires. But a leading Democrat says the Bush administration has shortchanged funding for removing dead trees and dry shrubbery that provided the fuel for the fast-moving blazes. And a leading Republican member of the state's delegation called on Congress to quickly provide $1 billion in emergency funds to help pay the costs of firefighting and disaster relief.

President Bush plans to visit the Southland on Thursday. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and David Paulison, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, arrived in the state today. But as the White House scrambled to stay on top of the crisis, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the administration had not put a high enough priority on preventing catastrophic fires in the West. "We have fought for years during this Bush administration to have money for wildfire suppression," Reid said. "It takes effort to prepare the landscape so that these fires don't burn the way they have been."

After the fires of 2003, Congress authorized $760 million a year for "fuel reduction" -- clearing away dead trees. But less than half of that has been provided.

-- Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and James Gerstenzang