Bennet, Neguse Celebrate $2.6 Million in ‘Joint Chiefs’ Funding for Headwaters of the Colorado

Sep 5, 2025| Press Releases

Washington, D.C. - Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet and Colorado U.S. Representative Joe Neguse issued the following statement celebrating $2,612,692 in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Joint Chiefs Landscape Restoration Partnership Program (Joint Chiefs) for the Headwaters of the Colorado Initiative. The Joint Chiefs program supports efforts to mitigate wildfire risk, improve stream health, and restore healthy forest ecosystems:

"As Federal representatives for the headwaters of the Colorado River, we know how important protecting vital water sources, strengthening wildfire mitigation, improving watershed health, and building forest resilience is to our communities. That's why we're honored to welcome more than $2 million in 'Joint Chiefs' funding for critical investments that will do exactly that.

"This funding is a step in the right direction. It represents forward momentum in supporting collaborative, science-based efforts to restore and preserve the lands spanning the Colorado River Basin. And it underscores the importance of reauthorizing the Joint Chiefs' Landscape Restoration Partnership Program in a bipartisan manner, so we can continue advancing watershed, forest, and grassland restoration across our nation's treasured lands."

Since its launch in 2014, the Joint Chiefs Landscape Restoration Partnership has invested $423 million in 134 projects across 42 states, Guam, and Puerto Rico to reduce wildfire threats to communities, protect water quality and supply, and improve wildlife habitat for at-risk species.

Bennet and Neguse have long championed the Joint Chiefs initiative. In 2021, they introduced the Joint Chiefs Landscape Restoration Partnership Act to formally authorize the program, successfully enacting it later that year in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Since then, the lawmakers have led efforts to expand the Joint Chiefs initiative to better support forest and grassland restoration projects across public and private lands. In July of this year, Bennet and Neguse introduced the Joint Chiefs Reauthorization Act to reauthorize the Joint Chiefs program and expand it to better support forest and grassland restoration projects across public and private land.

Learn more about the Headwaters of the Colorado Joint Chiefs Landscape Restoration Partnership Project HERE.

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