September 16, 2019 10:15 a.m.
Oregon’s U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and Congressman Greg Walden pressed the U.S. Forest Service to explain why it has failed to award any “call when needed” contracts to providers of wildfire-fighting large air tankers.
In a letter to Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen, the law makers noted that the “call when needed” solicitation was originally issued in July of last year, and closed in April of 2019.
A release from the group said the letter reminded Christiansen that CWN allows the Forest Service to put approved aircraft into service when those aircraft are needed and does not require the department to pay for those aircraft when they are not needed. The letter said, “we are particularly concerned that LAT companies have responded to this solicitation in good faith, but have been left in limbo now for several months due to inaction by the United States Forest Service”.
The letter said that failure to award the contracts hurts the Forest Service’s firefighting work because it lacks access to several next-generation large air tankers, and because several of those tankers are available at lower rates than current aircraft in use, which could save taxpayer money.
A copy of the complete letter is posted here: https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/091619%20Wyden%20Merkley%20Walden%20CWN%20LAT%20letter.pdf