I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 435
To amend title 5, United States Code, to provide direct hire authority to
appoint individuals to Federal wildland firefighting and firefighting sup-
port positions in the Forest Service or the Department of the Interior,
and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JANUARY15, 2025
Mr. I
SSA(for himself, Mr. KILEYof California, and Mr. OBERNOLTE) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Over-
sight and Government Reform, and in addition to the Committees on
Natural Resources, and Agriculture, for a period to be subsequently de-
termined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions
as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
A BILL
To amend title 5, United States Code, to provide direct
hire authority to appoint individuals to Federal wildland
firefighting and firefighting support positions in the For-
est Service or the Department of the Interior, and for
other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Direct Hire To Fight 4
Fires’’. 5
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SEC. 2. DIRECT HIRE AUTHORITY TO APPOINT INDIVID-1
UALS TO FEDERAL WILDLAND FIREFIGHTING 2
AND FIREFIGHTING SUPPORT POSITIONS IN 3
THE FOREST SERVICE OR THE DEPARTMENT 4
OF THE INTERIOR. 5
(a) I
NGENERAL.—Chapter 96 of title 5, United 6
States Code, is amended by adding at the end the fol-7
lowing: 8
‘‘§ 9603. Direct hire authority to appoint individuals 9
to Federal wildland firefighting and fire-10
fighting support positions in the Forest 11
Service and Department of the Interior 12
‘‘(a) I
NGENERAL.—The Secretary of Agriculture 13
and the Secretary of the Interior may appoint, without 14
regard to the provisions of sections 3309 through 3318 15
of this title, and part 211 and part 337 of subpart A of 16
title 5, Code of Federal Regulations, qualified candidates 17
to any position described in subsection (b) in the Forest 18
Service or the Department of the Interior, respectively. 19
‘‘(b) P
OSITIONS.—A position described in this sub-20
section is any Federal wildland firefighting position, or 21
any position in support of such firefighting position, with-22
in any of the following occupational series (or any suc-23
cessor series): 24
‘‘(1) Forestry Technician Series, GS–0462. 25
‘‘(2) Aircraft Operation Series, GS–2181. 26
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‘‘(3) Miscellaneous Administration and Pro-1
gram Series, GS–0301, that supports firefighting 2
and is eligible for primary or secondary firefighter 3
retirement coverage. 4
‘‘(4) General Natural Resources Management 5
and Biological Sciences Series, GS–0401, that sup-6
ports firefighting and is eligible for primary or sec-7
ondary firefighter retirement coverage. 8
‘‘(5) Aviation Management Specialist Series, 9
GS–2101. 10
‘‘(6) Engineering Equipment Operator, WG, 11
WL, or WS–5716, that supports firefighting and is 12
eligible for primary or secondary firefighter retire-13
ment coverage. 14
‘‘(7) Dispatching Series, GS–2151, that sup-15
ports firefighting and is eligible for primary or sec-16
ondary firefighter retirement coverage. 17
‘‘(8) Equipment Specialist, GS–1670. 18
‘‘(9) Any additional occupational series devel-19
oped specifically for wildland firefighting.’’. 20
(b) C
LERICALAMENDMENT.—The table of sections 21
for such chapter is amended by adding after the item re-22
lating to section 9602 the following: 23
‘‘9603. Direct hire authority to appoint individuals to Federal wildland fire-
fighting and firefighting support positions in the Forest Service
and Department of the Interior.’’.
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SEC. 3. STREAMLINING AND TRANSPARENCY IN FEDERAL 1
WILDLAND FIREFIGHTING HIRING AT THE 2
FOREST SERVICE AND THE DEPARTMENT OF 3
THE INTERIOR. 4
(a) S
TREAMLINEDHIRING.—Not later than 1 year 5
after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secre-6
taries, in consultation with the Director of the Office of 7
Personnel Management, shall implement policies to recruit 8
and retain wildland firefighters that— 9
(1) reduce the amount of time required to hire 10
wildland firefighters and wildland firefighting sup-11
port personnel; 12
(2) address and eliminate redundancies in the 13
Federal hiring process for wildland firefighters and 14
wildland firefighting support personnel; 15
(3) streamline the process for hiring wildland 16
firefighters and wildland firefighting support per-17
sonnel who were employed by the agencies in prior 18
years; and 19
(4) reduce barriers for wildland firefighters 20
transferring between agencies. 21
(b) T
RANSPARENCY.— 22
(1) I
N GENERAL.—Beginning 1 year after the 23
date of the enactment of this Act and annually 24
thereafter, the Secretaries shall each submit a report 25
to the relevant Congressional Committees that in-26
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cludes the information described in paragraph (2) 1
not later than February 1st of each calendar year. 2
(2) R
EQUIREMENTS.—As part of the report 3
submitted under paragraph (1), the Secretaries shall 4
include information regarding— 5
(A) the number of wildland firefighters 6
and wildland firefighting support personnel the 7
agency anticipates it will need for that calendar 8
year, delineated by position; 9
(B) the number of hiring events the agency 10
is planning to hold that calendar year; 11
(C) the number of wildland firefighters and 12
wildland firefighting support personnel cur-13
rently employed by the agency, delineated by 14
position; 15
(D) the number of wildland firefighting va-16
cancies by State; 17
(E) any barriers the agency is facing to 18
meet the hiring goal outlined in subsection (a); 19
(F) the implementation of the direct hiring 20
authority provided in section 2; 21
(G) the implementation of the streamlined 22
hiring policies developed under subsection (a); 23
and 24
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(H) recommendations to Congress to fur-1
ther improve the recruitment and retention of 2
wildland firefighters and wildland firefighting 3
support personnel. 4
(3) P
UBLIC AVAILABILITY.—The Secretaries 5
shall each annually publish the report submitted 6
under paragraph (1) on a publicly available website. 7
(4) D
EFINITIONS.—In this section: 8
(A) A
GENCY.—The term ‘‘agency’’ 9
means— 10
(i) the Forest Service, with respect to 11
National Forest System lands; and 12
(ii) the Department of the Interior, 13
with respect to lands under the jurisdiction 14
of the Secretary of the Interior. 15
(B) R
ELEVANT CONGRESSIONAL COMMIT -16
TEES.—The term ‘‘relevant Congressional Com-17
mittees’’ means— 18
(i) the Committees on Oversight and 19
Government Reform, Agriculture, and Nat-20
ural Resources of the House of Represent-21
atives; and 22
(ii) the Committees on Homeland Se-23
curity and Governmental Affairs, Agri-24
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culture, Nutrition, and Forestry and En-1
ergy and Natural Resources of the Senate. 2
(C) S
ECRETARIES.—The term ‘‘Secre-3
taries’’ means the Secretary of Agriculture and 4
the Secretary of the Interior. 5
Æ
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