Free Republic

<p>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.</p> <p>"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."</p>

In California, where overzealous environmentalism often trumps common sense, our forests are suffering from rampant disease and destruction. In just a matter of days, more than 600,000 acres of Southern California’s forests were reduced to mere kindling in part because of overgrown forests that have been infected by the largest bark-beetle infestation in the last 50 years. After decades of mismanagement, the thinning of these forests remains largely unpracticed within our state, leaving forests that historically contained just 30 to 40 trees per acre, now filled with 300 to 400 trees per acre. As the events of last week demonstrated,...

<p>WASHINGTON – Congress approved legislation Friday that lawmakers said would reduce the risk of wildfires in national forests by speeding removal of overgrown brush and diseased trees, especially near homes and towns.</p> <p>The Senate passed the bill by a voice vote less than an hour after the House approved it 286-140. The rapid-fire votes came after a three-year impasse on wildfire legislation.</p>

Congress Sends Bush Measure to Cut Trees on Federal Land, Reduce Wildfire Threat By Matthew Daly Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Ending a three-year impasse on wildfire legislation, Congress approved a compromise bill Friday to reduce the risk of fire in national forests, focusing much of the effort on areas near homes and towns. Supporters called the bill, the first major forest management legislation in a quarter-century, a landmark step to improve forest health and protect communities near public lands. Critics called it a giveaway to the timber industry that will limit public participation and leave old-growth trees and...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- Cockfighting and wildfires do not mix, at least not in Congress.</p> <p>House and Senate negotiators working Thursday on legislation aimed at reducing fires in national forests stripped a provision to increase penalties on illegal cockfighting.</p> <p>Lawmakers said the cockfighting measure, and a separate plan to limit use of the term "ginseng" in labeling herbs and other supplements, were cluttering up the forestry bill, itself the focus of intense debate for months.</p>

Agreement is near on a bill to speed logging and other tree-thinning projects that would reduce the fire danger in national forests, Sen. Tom Daschle said. The bill, introduced by President Bush and passed by the House last spring, remains one of a handful of bills being negotiated as lawmakers prepare to wrap up the year's business before Thanksgiving. "We're much closer to getting something passed than we were just last week," Daschle said. Senate Democrats were refusing to appoint members to a House-Senate conference committee, and House Republicans were chilly to Daschle's suggestion that interested parties meet informally....

<p>Terrible as it sounds, we're beginning to wonder if someone shouldn't spark another hundred-thousand-acre wildfire. That seems to be the only thing that will force Senate Democrats to take action on the rotting forests that cause the West's annual infernos.</p>

House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo (R.-Calif.) and other conservative experts on the U.S. government's land management policies said last week that long-standing environmentalist policies contributed to the severity of last month's disastrous wildfires in Southern California. The fires, though still burning, have been contained. But Congress continues to negotiate over the Healthy Forests legislation (HR 1904) designed to prevent such severe fires in the future. Pombo pointed to a GAO study released October 29 that found that 66% of fuel reduction projects planned by the U.S. Forest Service for national forests in California were stalled by administrative appeals—mostly filed by...

The chair of the House Agriculture Committee Wednesday asked Senate Democrats to quit dragging their feet on appointing conferees for Healthy Forest talks. Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) says while California smoulders, the Democrats' stalling is blocking completion of legislation that has passed both Houses of Congress. "It puts the voice of a minority in the Senate, who have long stonewalled this process, ahead of a bipartisan majority of House members who supported the Healthy Forest legislation when it passed this May," Goodlatte said in a release. "It is time to put partisan politics aside so that we can bring forth...

Subj: Fwd: [EF!] "Healthy Forest" legislation passes U.S. Senate! Date: 11/6/2003 11:05:22 AM US Mountain Standard Time BEWARE! BEWARE! BEWARE! FOLLOWING IS AN ALERT FROM RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS! THEY ARE PREPARING TO ATTEMPT TO BLOCK THE FOREST HEALTH BILL! PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATORS AND OPPOSE THEIR CRAZY IDEAS BEFORE WE LOSE MORE FORESTS TO UNNATURAL FOREST FIRES! Senator Wyden (D-OR) is slated for attack by the enviro-stalinists!!! Please consider calling and leaving messages of support and thanks for his heroic efforts on this bill!!!! He's going to need to hear from us in droves!!!!!!!!!!! Phone: (202) 224-5244 or (503) 326-7525 Fax:...

<p>Republicans are accusing Senate Democrats of using "a new tool of obstruction" to stall legislation designed to prevent the kinds of wildfires that devastated Southern California last month.</p> <p>The Democrats have refused to agree to routine appointments to a forest bill conference committee, saying they have been snubbed in the current Medicare and energy-bill conferences.</p>

<p>The wildfires that blackened more than 1,200 square miles of Southern California this past week were not simply "acts of nature." For most of the 20th century, the Forest Service has failed to properly manage our national forests while treating fire as a virtual moral evil (the California fires are burning in or near four national forests). Unless these policies are reversed, fires that consume millions of acres and inflict billions of dollars in damage will become more and more common.</p>

(CBS/AP) Congress is on the verge of ushering in a broad new land management plan aimed at reducing the threat of wildfires in the nation's forests by allowing for increased thinning of dead trees and underbrush. The forest plan was approved by the Senate late Thursday, 80-14, as Democrats joined Republicans in support of a program they said was clearly needed after years of devastating wildfires across the West. The dry underbrush and dead trees have turned some forests into tinderboxes, they said. In the House, meanwhile, lawmakers on Thursday approved, 216-205, a record $2.9 billion spending plan for forest...

The Senate just voted on the Healthy Forest bill 1904, and passed it 80-14. Fire up the Chain saws let's get rid of some beetle trees! (It still has to go back to the house.)

<p>WASHINGTON -- Feeling the heat of Southern California's spreading wildfires, the Senate is rushing today to finish long-delayed legislation to rid forests of excessive buildup of brush and shrubbery that can fuel such deadly disasters.</p> <p>After months of inaction because of Democratic discontent with "Healthy Forests" legislation proposed by the Bush administration and approved by the House of Representatives, the Senate on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a compromise intended to put more money into protecting homes and businesses while shielding old-growth forests from the increased thinning operations.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) - The House was set to approve a record $2.9 billion for firefighting and fire protection in federal forests, while the Senate debated a plan Thursday to make it easier to thin out forests so they are less susceptible to rapidly moving wildfires. The congressional action came amid the backdrop of raging wildfires in California and Colorado. The fires have raised renewed concerns among lawmakers over the management of the nation's forests. The House bill, part of a spending measure for the Interior Department, would provide $800 million for battling wildfires, an increase of nearly $300 million over...

WRITTEN STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD OF DR. THOMAS M. BONNICKSEN PROFESSOR DEPARTMENT OF FOREST SCIENCE TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY and visiting scholar and board member The forest foundation auburn, california OVERSIGHT HEARING ON Crisis on our National Forests: Reducing the Threat of Catastrophic Wildfire to Central Oregon Communities and the Surrounding Environment BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Deschutes County Fairgrounds Expo Center 3800 SW Airport Way, Redmond, Oregon Monday August 25, 2003 2:00 PM INTRODUCTION My name is Dr. Thomas M. Bonnicksen. I am a forest ecologist and professor in the Department of Forest Science at...

Fires: As Southern California burns, lawmakers may learn something about forests and safety. Perhaps harvesting a few trees isn't such a bad idea after all.It's too bad it takes 600,000 charred acres (at last count), at least 16 lost lives, some 1,600 homes destroyed and a damage tab of $2 billion or more to knock some sense into the nation's forest management.But Congress may have learned at least something from the wildfires in California. At this writing, the Senate was expected to get off the dime and finally consider a bill that would help prevent future disasters by giving greater...

This is a good summation of action so far on the Senate deliberations of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. FORESTS Senate accepts compromise forest-thinning language, 97-1 Dan Berman, Environment & Energy Daily reporter As devastating wildfires continue to smolder in Southern California, the Senate today moved to the brink of passing H.R. 1904, the "Healthy Forests Restoration Act," with an overwhelming 97-1 vote to approve a compromise forest-thinning amendment. The compromise amendment is expected to break a Senate impasse on the legislation, replacing Title I of a companion House-passed bill with language that protects old-growth forests in exchange for restrictions...

Smokey Bear meets al-Qaida, eco-terrorists Posted: October 30, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com I wonder how many Southern California homeowners sent $25 last month to one of the "environmental" organizations that just burned them out of their homes? Southern California fires – outgoing Gov. Gray Davis has called them the worst disaster in the state's history – are the direct result of the efforts of America's environmental organizations. As this column is written, there have been 16 deaths and 1,600 homes destroyed, and the fires are still raging. You and I will be expected to "shut up and pay the bill"...