Posted on 04/11/2025 10:09:25 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
WASHINGTON — Months after wildfires ravaged Los Angeles County, California Sen. Alex Padilla is hoping his bill to overhaul forest management and prevent wildfires might be the first bipartisan measure for President Trump to sign.
“I don’t think anything could completely prevent wildfires, but through this work, if we can prevent just one more community from experiencing the heartbreak felt by the families in Santa Rosa or in Paradise or the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, then this effort would’ve been worth it,” Padilla said Thursday.
Padilla, who chairs the Senate Wildfire Caucus, joined with a bipartisan group of senators from the West — Sens. John Curtis (R-Utah), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) — to introduce the Fix Our Forests Act, which mirrors a bipartisan measure of the same name that the House passed in January.
The Fix Our Forests Act would usher in sweeping changes to how the federal government manages its land — which constitutes 45% of the uninhabited, wildfire-prone land in California, according to the Congressional Research Service. It would create a wildfire intelligence center to centralize federal management, require assessments of fireshed areas and streamline how communities reduce their wildfire risk. It also would ramp up research into wildfire mitigation technologies and change some forestation treatments.
Although the House handily passed the measure, it was not completely welcome among environmental groups. Dozens wrote a letter decrying the measure for rolling back protections for endangered species and removing accountability against “extractive industries.”
“Gutting wildlife protections and community input on managing our public lands have...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Controlled burns are your friend.
I don’t understand why Democrats just don’t outlaw forest fires. After all, forest fires are racist by impacting minorities more.
That sounds like Washington DC Namby-Pamby bullshit. Does it put PEOPLE, loggers, and dozers in the forests to thin them out, to remove understory brush, and reduce fire load?
That's the hard, boot-on-the-ground forestry work needed to restore forest health. That's what we see in our North Idaho forests all the time. What Padilla is suggesting is the soft office bullcrap that people in DC love.
Outlaw? The democrats are more happy taxing things in California, if there was a way they could tax the fires they would but have to settle for blaming and fining businesses for their malfeasances.
LOL. I stand corrected.
"Wildfire intelligence center to centralize federal management" is code for a bureaucratic agency that will study the situation.
Never mind “Fix our forests”...
What is needed is to “fix” the communist politicians who mismanage the state...
“Controlled burns are your friend”
Absolutely 100% correct.....Florida is the state lightning strike capitol and wildfires here are pretty rare because potential fuel for them is continually burned off.
California’s biggest problem is a bunch of trees hugging lunatic politicians.
“Centralize Federal Management”
That’s all I needed to hear. No.
CA politicians and environmental groups are responsible for the out of control fires. They stop management actions under the guise of environment and instead get the whole environment burned down.
As a Conservative Republican from California, this is the first time I’ve ever noticed this democrat politician associated with anything that wasn’t dictated by his party bosses and likely oriented towards class and race warfare. Therefore I would be very skeptical of anything coming from him. It is hopeful that the names of a few Republicans are included in the group mentioned in the article. Forest fire reduction is a much more worthy cause than party politics and social warfare. We shall see.
More Communism will fix our forests. Kick the Sierra Club out of the forests and manage them properly will save them.
Start cutting more trees and get rid of brush. Problem solved.
That would actually solve the problem. If we solve the problem we can’t have a bureaucracy evaluating the problem.
FOFA. At least it's not called FAFO.
The Fix Our Forests Act
= = =
FOFA are you kidding me?
We don’t need yet another agency.
All we need is the National Forest Service to do their job clearing dead fuel from forests.
And to get rid of Eucalyptus trees in CA.
Nearly all of them were brought in from Australia and they are very flammable
California’s biggest problem is a trees hugging lunatic elelectorate. But then, even stupid people need to be represented, right?
I’ll say it again, when they changed the name from California department of forestry to CalFire forest fires became big business.
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