Finally, a forest policy

OC Register ^ | 11/24/03 | Op/Ed

[NormsRevenge]

It took the most destructive fires in California history to ignite reform, but on Friday both houses of Congress passed a more sensible policy on clearing forests to prevent future fires.

"House and Senate negotiators led by Republican Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California agreed Wednesday on controversial forest-clearing legislation they hope will curb increasingly dangerous wildfires across the West," reported the San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday. "The accord, developed at informal talks led by the Bay area lawmakers, merges widely divergent versions of legislation drafted after President Bush unveiled his Healthy Forests initiative in September 2002."

[NormsRevenge]

Ping

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

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[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!

[Brilliant]

Chiseling away at Clintonism takes a long time.

[Cuttnhorse]

Great news, but more forests will burn before things change.
Have you ever driven through the Stanley Basin, Idaho, in the Sawtooth National Rec Area, (soon to be a national park)? Between 30 to 50% of the trees are either dead or dying...entire slopes are orange from beetle-killed trees. The entire area is just one match away from a total stand replacement fire. The entire basin has been protected to death.

[Cuttnhorse]

Chiseling away at Clintonism takes a long time.

The 8-years of Clintonism didn't help any, but the total neglect and deterioration of our national forests has been going on for decades...since about the time the environmental movement started gaining un-earned political power.

In the little Idaho town I lived in and still have property, 25-years ago there were 5-sawmills within 30-miles of town. Now, there are none. There hasn't been a live tree timber sale in the local national forest in 10-years.

One of the problems is the infiltration of the USFS by the green movement. All the old guys with forest and timber management degrees are all sitting around waiting to retire...I don't think a person can get a job in this forest unless he or mostly she, has a degree in recreation, biology, or some ecology program.

[farmfriend]

Read Carry_Okie's post. It is long and written about oil and gas but applies to the forest industry as well. Well worth the read and shows the corruption that is going on.

[sergeantdave]

This is great news - the federal government, through this legislation, has publicly admitted its national socialist forests are a disaster waiting to happen.

What needs to happen next is for a state - Montana, New Mexico, whatever - to declare the federal forests within its bounds a natural disaster area and start condemnation proceedings. (Washington has no business "owning" forests anyway.)

Condemn the property and sell every federal twig to private property owners. Then the fires will stop.