ACRES Act
Latest action. Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Accurately Counting Risk Elimination Solutions Act or the ACRES Act
This bill requires the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of the Interior to submit accurate reports regarding hazardous fuels reduction activity.
Hazardous fuels reduction activity means any vegetation management activity to reduce the risk of wildfire but excludes the award of contracts to conduct hazardous fuels reduction activities.
Specifically, USDA and Interior must
include in the materials submitted in support of the President's budget each fiscal year a report on the number of acres of federal land on which such activities were carried out during the preceding year, and
implement standardized procedures for tracking data related to such activities.
The standardized procedures must include
regular, standardized data reviews of the accuracy and timely input of data used to track hazardous fuels reduction activities;
verification methods that validate whether such data accurately correlates to such activities;
an analysis of the short- and long-term effectiveness of such activities on reducing the risk of wildfire; and
for hazardous fuels reduction activities that occur partially within the wildland-urban interface, methods to distinguish which acres are located within and which located outside the wildland-urban interface.
The Government Accountability Office shall (1) conduct a study on this bill's implementation, and (2) submit a report to Congress with the results of the study.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Reported to House, Part I" stage on September 8, 2023. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on September 14, 2023: Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the House
- Passage by the Senate
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 118th Congress (2023-24), 274 of the 16,565 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 1.7 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
Thomas Tiffany (R-WI) introduced it on March 10, 2023, and 1 member has since signed on as a cosponsor.
They are 1 Republican.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on March 10, 2023, 1280 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 1092 days ago, on September 14, 2023.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 118th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2025 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseIn committee, no floor vote yet
- SenateAwaits House passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers