Sponsors (3)
Introduced November 18, 2025 by Young Kim · Last progress November 18, 2025
The bill accelerates testing and deployment of wildfire detection and suppression technologies—improving response, commercialization, and oversight—but does so at taxpayer expense, with privacy risks for rural and tribal communities, potential disadvantage to small vendors, and uncertain long-term sustainment after a 7-year sunset.
Rural and tribal communities will see faster detection and response to wildfires through real-time testing of remote sensing and detection technologies.
Local and state fire agencies will gain access to tested, scalable suppression and communications tools that can improve firefighting effectiveness.
Taxpayers could get better value because program evaluations will prioritize cost-efficiency and identify technologies that deliver stronger outcomes per dollar.
Rural and tribal residents could face increased privacy and surveillance risks from expanded remote sensing and tracking technologies used in demonstrations and deployments.
Taxpayers may incur new costs to fund demonstrations, procurement, and scaling of technologies over the program's 7-year duration.
The program's 7-year sunset could limit long-term adoption and maintenance of effective technologies after the pilot ends, reducing sustained benefits for states and communities.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes a 7‑year joint USDA–Interior public–private pilot to test and deploy technologies for wildfire prevention, detection, response, and mitigation and requires regular reports to Congress.
Creates a federal public–private pilot program run jointly by the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior to test, demonstrate, and deploy technologies for wildfire prevention, detection, communication, response, and mitigation. The agencies must identify priority technology areas, connect private/nonprofit/academic teams with federal and other covered agencies for real‑time testing, set evaluation criteria, coordinate procurement and partnerships, solicit applications, report to Congress within 180 days and annually, and end the pilot seven years after enactment.