Bill Glude, Exec. Dir SE Avalanche Center with Rep Kerttula work toward securing federal funding for avalanche safety awareness.

In April 2003, U.S. Senator Ted Stevens introduced the Federal Land Recreational Visitor Protection Act of 2003 (S 931), which is sitting in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources awaiting its first hearing. S 931 would direct the Secretary of the Interior to work with the Secretary of Agriculture to establish an avalanche protection program that provides early identification of potential avalanches that could endanger the safety of visitors to public lands and to reduce the risks of avalanches to visitors, recreational users, neighboring communities, private operations, and transportation corridors. It also would authorize federal grants to be used for preventing, forecasting, detecting and mitigating avalanches, including the use of artillery or explosives for avalanche control; maintaining essential transportation and communications that could be affected by avalanches; and assisting public or private research on avalanche control methods.

Alaska would get a large percentage of the grant money available, which could be used by avalanche safety groups, private industry, communities, and transportation entities as well as government programs.