Bush Signs Bill to Curb Wildfire Threat (Healthy Forests)

Yahoo News ^ | 12/3/03 | Robert Gehrke - AP

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) signed legislation Wednesday that he said would help prevent "sudden and needless destruction" from wildfires like the California blazes that destroyed thousands of homes.

AP Photo

Related Links

•	Healthy Forests Restoration Act [PDF] (house.gov)

"With the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, we will help to prevent catastrophic wildfires," Bush said in a signing ceremony at the Agriculture Department. He was joined by firefighters who fought the Western blazes.

"We're proud to be standing with them up here," the president said. He said wildfires had destroyed 11 million acres over the last two years, and killed 22 people in Southern California this year alone.

Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., who sponsored the House version of the legislation, compared the measure to President Theodore Roosevelt's call for the establishment of the National Forest system 99 years ago this week.

Critics, however, decried it as a payback to the timber industry, which will get greater access to pristine stands of old-growth trees.

"This law will not prevent every fire but it is an important step forward," the president said. Decrying what he said has been a "misguided forest policy," Bush said that "a lot of people have been well intentioned. They saved the trees. But they lost the forest. We want to save the forest."

"We'll help save lives and property and we'll help protect our forests from sudden and needless destruction," Bush said.

The Senate passed the bill by voice vote on Nov. 21 less than an hour after the House approved it, 286-140.

For three years, a deadlock in the Senate had prevented the passage of legislation intended to speed forest treatment. But 15 raging fires driven by Santa Ana winds through Southern California prompted Democrats to compromise on the bill. The wildfires burned more than 750,000 acres, destroyed 3,640 homes, 33 businesses and 1,141 other structures.

Even after the California fires, 2003 was slightly below average in terms of acres burned and nowhere near the severity of the 2000 and 2002 fire seasons. In the past year, 3.8 million acres have burned across the country. Twenty-eight firefighters died battling the blazes, according to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation.

The bill — the first major forest management legislation in a quarter-century — is similar to Bush's "Healthy Forests Initiative," which he proposed while touring a charred forest in Oregon in August 2002. The measure streamlines the approval process for projects to cut excess trees out of thick, overgrown forests or stands of trees killed by insect infestation.

Other elements of the president's proposal had already been enacted through administrative actions.

The Bush administration estimates roughly 190 million acres are at risk for a severe fire, an area the size of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming combined.

Sean Cosgrove, a forest expert with the Sierra Club (news - web sites), said some good may come from the increased spending on forest treatment, but there is bound to be unnecessary logging in roadless areas and wildlife habitat as the timber companies try to harvest valuable old-growth trees.

"The timber industry fought real hard for this bill for a reason and it's not because they want to remove brush and chaparral," Cosgrove said. "Through and through this thing is about increasing commercial logging with less environmental oversight."

Since 1999, the timber industry has contributed $14.1 million to political campaigns, 80 percent of it going to Republicans, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. Bush has received $519,350 from the industry in that period.

The timber industry also spent $23.8 million on lobbying efforts since 2000, according to figures compiled by Political Money Line.

The measure would authorize $760 million a year for thinning projects on 20 million acres of federal land, a $340 million increase. At least half of all money spent on those projects must be near homes and communities.

The bill also creates a major change in the way that federal courts consider legal challenges of tree-cutting projects.

Judges would have to weigh the environmental consequences of inaction and the risk of fire in cases involving thinning projects. Any court order blocking such projects would have to be reconsidered every 60 days.

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The bill is H.R. 1904.

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On the Net:

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov

National Interagency Fire Center: http://www.nifc.gov

Sierra Club: http://www.sierraclub.org

[NormsRevenge]

"This law will not prevent every fire but it is an important step forward," the president said. Decrying what he said has been a "misguided forest policy," Bush said that "a lot of people have been well intentioned. They saved the trees. But they lost the forest. We want to save the forest."

Ping

[NormsRevenge]

Wed Dec 3,11:39 AM ET

U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) appears to touch a small tree as he leaves the stage after signing the Healthy Forests Restoration Act during a ceremony at the Department of Agriculture in Washington December 3, 2003. The new legislation is intended to help prevent the devastating wildfires that have annually plagued the western states. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque REUTERS

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Thank You, Envirowackos, for all your misguided efforts in trying to keep the "home fires" burning.

Idiots!!!

[ysoitanly]

Please note that FEINSTEIN was quoted as 'urging' new legislation for protecting the forests AFTER a bill languished for a year and AFTER all the homes were burned. That's why when someone on this forum says 'write your senator/s', I don't bother. Boxer and Feinstein.

[NormsRevenge]

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President Bush (news - web sites) laughs during a ceremony at the Agriculture Department in Washington Wednesday, Dec. 3,2003, where he signed the Healthy Forest Restoration Act. From left are, Sen. Max Baucus (news, bio, voting record), D-Mont., Sen. Mike Crapo, D-Idaho, Rep. Richard Pombo (news, bio, voting record), R-Calif., Rep. Bob Goodlatte (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., Sen. Thad Cochran (news, bio, voting record), R-Miss., Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

[T Lady]

What do you think makes more sense, saving thousands of human lives and homes, thus preventing the increase of insurance premiums, or allowing numerous dead and rotting trees to create a virtual tinder box?

...Pose this question to an Environut and see what kind of answer you get.

Thank goodness this bill was finally passed.

-Regards, T.

[.cnI redruM]

JFKjr is saddened, deeply saddened.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[RonF]

What do you think makes more sense, saving thousands of human lives and homes, thus preventing the increase of insurance premiums, or allowing numerous dead and rotting trees to create a virtual tinder box?

Since when are the timber companies going to clear away dead and rotting trees? They're going to cut down live standing trees and leave the unsalable crap sitting right where it is now.

[AuntB]

I believe you are wrong. The way the timber industry...including entire communities have been destroyed, they will take what they can get.

[The Westerner]

Thanks, farmfriend for the ping. Heard it announced on the radio. Radio quoted some anti-capitalist Marxist who said that loggers would make a profit! As if it isn't a win-win situation for the government not to pay to have the trees cut down???

[RonF]

Then why didn't a logging company apply to clean out the forested areas that were denuded by the pine bark beetle? Thousands of trees were left standing and dead because of the beetle infection. They burned quite fiercely when the fires came. Logging companies would have had little trouble getting a permit cleaning those out, as they were a well-known fire hazard and next to residential areas. But they didn't apply to cut them down, as their commercial potential was limited.

[RonF]

Well, it's a win for the logging companies to cut down trees and make a profit. Profit is no evil in and of itself, it's what keeps us all employed. But I don't think it's much of a win for the public for live old-growth trees to be cut down while dead trees and chapparal are left lying around to catch fire anyway.

[Cuttnhorse]

Senator Mike Crapo, Idaho, is a Republican, not a democrat.

[Cuttnhorse]

Then why didn't a logging company apply to clean out the forested areas that were denuded by the pine bark beetle?

LOL!! You are kidding of course. You obviously are clueless how the system works.

Any attempt by a logging company to "clean out" diseased trees would be met by an apeal from some local screwball enviro group. That is if the USFS would even consider a "clean out"...the USFS is incompetent and is now made up almost entirely of employees with degrees in recreation and ecology, biology and wilderness studies. They are the first line of resistance.

But lets for the sake of argument say the USFS agrees to allow a salvage timber sale...say a couple of hundred acres. When the sale is advertised, the first thing that happens is an appeal is filed...don't forget with NEPA the USFS would have to complete an Environmental Impact Study. This normally takes the FS at least two to three years to complete.

Sounds easy, just go in and "clean out" the old dead trees...by the time it happens, if ever, the entire forest is dead.

[sergeantdave]

The states should declare the federal socialist forests natural disaster areas. Start condemnation proceedings. Sell the land to private property owners. Then the fires will stop.

[rintense]

It was my understanding that it isn't necessarily dead trees, bark beetles, etc. that add fuel to a forest fire, but it is more the uncontrolled undergrowth of junk trees that grow under the forest canopy. Hell, those trees are only good for pulp and mulch. Of course, from the envirowacko POV, someone will profit! Unfortunately, they don't see that the people and the environment will BOTH win by forest thinning.

[RonF]

The information I have read is that 90% of such requests clear in 60 days. And any environmental group knows that removal of diseased trees is desirable to keep the disease from spreading.

[RonF]

Any biomass can contribute to a fire. The normal situation is that the percentage of dead and standing trees is low; a certain percentage die every year, eventually fall down, rot, etc. But in this particular case you had a insect infestation that ran through a forest area and created an abnormal situation.