Free Republic

FLAGSTAFF – A familiar Washington, D.C., scene made its way to Flagstaff Friday: People carrying signs protesting Republican federal forest proposals while standing outside a congressional hearing. But alongside them was a more unusual sight: even more people carrying signs to show support for those proposals. Mark Rey, undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, makes a point. They were people from the mountains of Arizona who have seen firsthand the devastation of ponderosa pine forests from catastrophic wildfire – residents of the White Mountains, where the 467,000-acre Rodeo-Chediski Fire ran rampant this past...