USDA official accused of pressing staff to boost response near his ranch
Three US senators are calling for a formal investigation into Michael Boren, the Department of Agriculture undersecretary who oversees the US Forest Service, over allegations that he pressured agency staff in July to commit additional firefighting resources to a small blaze near his private Idaho ranch.
In a letter sent Thursday to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Senators Ron Wyden, Amy Klobuchar, and Martin Heinrich accused Boren of “inappropriate interference” in wildfire response and demanded a full accounting of his involvement with the Cabin Creek Fire, according to the letter, which was seen by the Guardian.
The letter follows reporting in the Washington Post earlier this month, in which six current and former forest service officials — speaking on condition of anonymity — said Boren contacted agency staff multiple times in mid-July to question why more aircraft were not being used against the Cabin Creek fire. Those officials described the response to that fire as greater than would typically be expected for a blaze of its size.
The senators said they want “a full investigation into the nature and extent of Boren’s involvement in response to the Cabin Creek Fire and a detailed accounting of the safeguards the agency has implemented or plans to implement to prevent political interference and conflicts of interest in wildfire response.”
Boren serves as undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment. According to the Washington Post, he owns a 480-acre ranch in the Sawtooth national recreation area. The Cabin Creek fire, which burned in Idaho’s Sawtooth national forest, began on July 12 as an unattended campfire and was 100% contained by July 15, ultimately burning seven acres.
The senators wrote that during “this record setting fire season, fires of much larger size have not received even a fraction of the same commitment of resources.” They argued that Boren’s reported actions “constitute potentially a misuse of taxpayer funds and put American families at further risk by diverting scarce resources from high-priority wildfires threatening communities elsewhere in the region and country.”
Communications reviewed by the Washington Post reportedly confirmed that Boren personally contacted forest service staff about the fire. The officials who spoke to that paper said the fire posed no significant threat to life or property.
The USDA did not respond to a request for comment on the senators’ letter. In a statement last month responding to the initial Washington Post report, a USDA spokesperson said Boren “is expected to have regular contact with the agencies he oversees” and that “the fact that a senior government official would be monitoring and communicating with other government officials about an event he oversees is a non-story.”
“Undersecretary Boren did report a fire that was near property he owns, just as one would hope any citizen in an area under threats from wildfires would do,” the spokesperson added. “However, at no point did he pressure leadership or order more resources to fight this or any other fire.”
The senators wrote that “the personal interests of political employees should not be a factor that influences the allocation of wildfire resources to communities threatened with devastation” and that “political interference in wildfire response jeopardizes lives, property and federal resources.”
Wyden, Klobuchar, and Heinrich asked the Department of Agriculture to respond by September 10, detailing how the agency will “prevent this type of inappropriate interference, or even the appearance of it, in wildfire response going forward.”
The senators argued in the letter that any preferential allocation of firefighting resources to one official’s property during what they described as “this record setting fire season” risked diverting scarce resources from communities facing larger blazes elsewhere in the region and country.