OLYMPIA, WASH. — In what can only be described as a perfect lesson in consequences, the state of Washington is watching its forests burn while $15 million in federal wildfire-prevention grants sit unspent because the state refused to sign the USDA’s entirely reasonable paperwork.

The terms were simple. Federal money must go to Americans. Federal money must not fund diversity bureaucracies. That’s it. That’s the whole controversy — a controversy that has now left roughly 10 Washington communities waiting on Community Wildfire Defense grants while the smoke rises, as the Washington state forester himself has confirmed, over the very areas the money was meant to protect.

"We offered them the money in February. We offered it again in April," said a USDA official who asked to remain anonymous, presumably to avoid being thanked. "The paperwork is 14 pages. The fire doesn't need 14 pages. The fire doesn't need any pages. The fire has never once asked about page 6, subsection C, which is more than I can say for the state of Washington."

Instead of signing, Washington joined 19 other states and the District of Columbia in suing the USDA back in March, calling the new conditions “coercive” — a word the state’s lawyers reportedly typed 400 times into a 312-page complaint while, somewhere in central Washington, the first of this season’s fires was quietly getting started without a permit, without a hearing, and without a single diversity consultant present.

Critics of the USDA’s terms will tell you the conditions were unconstitutional. Supporters will tell you they were common sense. The state will tell you the money is stuck in litigation. The trees, meanwhile, have expressed no opinion, because trees, as everyone knows, are not litigants, though the state is reportedly looking into that.

The frustrating part, from the federal perspective, is how preventable this all was. The application process was clear. The requirements were modest. The signature line was at the bottom of page 14, in a box, exactly where signature lines belong. And yet the state chose to send its best lawyers instead of its best fire crews, which is a little like responding to a house fire with a defamation suit against the fire.

COMMUNITY WILDFIRE DEFENSE GRANTS: THE TERMS THAT WERE TOO MUCH

  • Page 3: Confirm that federal funds will not be used for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Shock.
  • Page 6: Verify that grant recipients are citizens or legal residents. Outrage.
  • Page 9: Agree not to spend wildfire money on consultants who have never seen a wildfire. Unconstitutional.
  • Page 14: Sign your name. The entire state of Washington declined.
  • Total federal dollars held up: $15 million. Total fires prevented by refusing to sign: also zero, reportedly.

The good news is that the money is not gone. It is held up, which is different. It is being held in a federal account, in Washington, D.C., where it is safe from fire, flood, and, most importantly, from being spent. The state can have it any time, provided it signs the paperwork, drops the lawsuit, and acknowledges, preferably in writing, that the terms were reasonable all along.

At press time, the state had reportedly begun drafting an emergency request for the very funds it declined, with a cover letter noting that the smoke made the paperwork increasingly difficult to read, and a request that the signature line be moved to page 1, on account of the fire.