The Emergency Pine Beetle Response Act of 2024 authorizes federal financial assistance to help private forest landowners and timber service businesses respond to pine beetle outbreaks that damage forests. The bill creates two main types of assistance: payments to individual landowners and timber businesses to cover costs of response measures like timber harvesting, prescribed burning, debris removal, and insecticide treatment, with the government covering up to 85 percent of landowner costs and 50 percent of timber business costs; and emergency loans to landowners covering at least 75 percent of response measure costs. To qualify, forest land must be located in counties designated as disaster areas due to drought in the previous year and must have confirmed pine beetle infestations verified by the Forest Service or state forestry agencies. The bill also allows state, tribal, and local governments to receive supplemental grants to help respond to and repair damage from pine beetle outbreaks. The legislation delegates implementation to the Farm Service Agency's local offices, which will determine eligibility and distribute payments to qualified applicants.
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