There are three ways to dramatically reduce the severity of forest fires and their environmental impact.
Spend money thinning vulnerable forest areas that are overgrown.
Spending money identifying fires fast, then acquire equipment and manpower to stop them before they get large, spread and get out of control.
Complain about Global Warming.
Can you guess which two will produce any tangible result?
A Smoke Signal on Forest-Fire Management
Fighting fires should include overturning the Ninth Circuit’s 2015 Cottonwood ruling.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ
June 8, 2023 6:36 pm ET
East Coasters are getting a smoky taste of what folks in the West experience when wildfires rage out of control. Maybe it will light a fire under Congress to reverse the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’s destructive Cottonwood decision that is impeding better forest management.
The smoke engulfing the East Coast is expected to linger into next week and maybe longer if Canadian fires aren’t controlled. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday blamed climate change, which is the scapegoat for every government policy failure that magnifies damage from natural disasters.
Fires have occurred in Canada’s boreal forests of conifers, birch and poplar for thousands of years. The number has generally been declining since the early 1990s, and 2020 had the fewest in three decades. The acreage burned has nonetheless climbed as more timber fuel has accumulated, and this year may set a record.
The main culprit for raging fires in Canada and the U.S. is resistance by environmentalists to thinning overgrown forests. While a forest management awakening has occurred in government in recent years, U.S. Forest Service officials are hamstrung by the 2015 Cottonwood decision.
That decision requires the agency to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service on its land management plans whenever a new endangered species is listed or a “critical habitat” is designated. There are more than 1,300 species listed as threatened or endangered, and green groups push for new listings.
Cottonwood’s consultation requirement buries officials in paper and delays urgent management projects. It also conflicts with a Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals decision. This means the Forest Service may have to manage forests differently in Ninth Circuit states, including Alaska, Montana, Idaho, California, Oregon and Washington.
A 2018 appropriations bill rider exempted recent forest management plans from Cottonwood’s consultation requirement when new species are listed or critical habitat is designated for five years. But this partial fix lapsed in the spring, so the Forest Service is hostage again to the left.
Sens. Steve Daines (R., Mont.), Jon Tester (D., Mont.), James Risch (R., Idaho), Mike Crapo (R., Idaho), and Angus King (I., Maine) have pushed legislation to reverse Cottonwood. “The ruling has opened the door for frequent litigation, delaying critical wildlife habitat and forestry projects and diverting federal resources away from important conservation works,” they wrote to President Biden in January.
More than 100 forest plans will have to go through consultation because the rider has expired. A bipartisan Senate fix in May passed the Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a voice vote, but pleas to the White House have been heard like a tree falling in the forest.
Sen. Tester faces re-election next year, and if he wants the legislation to pass, he could beseech the White House to get behind it. The smoke blanketing Washington, D.C., isn’t new to Members of Congress from Western states. But here’s hoping it might cause Mr. Biden to wake up to the real problem.
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