WASHINGTON, D.C. – Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, is asking Congressional leaders to include language in the final Department of Interior Appropriations Bill that would block plans to spend $2.8 million on wildland fire management in Washington, D.C., a district without a single forest.

"For a bureaucrat sitting behind a desk in Washington, D.C., wild fires aren’t as real as they are for someone who has smelled the acrid air and seen first-hand the devastation to property and land," said Rehberg, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and the Western Caucus. "Spending millions of dollars on fire management in the District of Columbia is a poke in the eye to the American taxpayer, and a slap in the face to the people living in real wildfire danger zones."

Rehberg is sending a letter to Conferees who will produce the final version of the FY 2010 Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. Language was added by the Senate to forbid spending stimulus dollars on wildland fire management in Washington, D.C., and Rehberg’s letter urges that language to be included in the final version.

"We’ve all heard that where there’s smoke there’s fire, but in this case, that’s not true," said Rehberg. "This time, it’s just our tax dollars going up in smoke."