{"id":2000564,"date":"2023-08-14T20:24:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T00:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lawmakers-push-for-forest-management-reform-after-deadly-blazes\/"},"modified":"2023-08-14T20:30:20","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T00:30:20","slug":"lawmakers-push-for-forest-management-reform-after-deadly-blazes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lawmakers-push-for-forest-management-reform-after-deadly-blazes\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers urge forest management reform post deadly blazes."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Flawmakers-push-for-forest-management-reform-after-deadly-blazes%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2000564&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div data-post-content=\"true\" class=\"post_content\" id=\"post_content\">\n<p>A group of congressmen \u200dmet \u200bin Yosemite National Park to push for more reasonable regulation regarding\u200c <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/white-house-releases-list-of-president-trumps-accomplishments-and-it-is-historic\/\" title=\"White House Releases List of President Trump\u2019s Accomplishments \u2013  And It Is Historic!\">forest management<\/a>. The lawmakers asked that the same measures that\u200d saved California&#8217;s South Lake Tahoe from the 2021\u200d Caldor fire should be applied to other areas of the nation before the \u2063damage \u2063becomes irreversible.<\/p>\n<p>The House Committee \u200bon Natural Resources, led by Chairman Bruce\u200c Westerman (R-Ark.), hosted the committee&#8217;s outdoor hearing at the Curry Village Amphitheater in Yosemite National Park on Aug. 11,\u2064 pointing to the need to preserve the \u2063national park from what many believe to be the \u200dinevitable devastation of future fires.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re loving our forests to death,&#8221; <strong>Mr. \u200dWesterman said<\/strong> in his opening statements, outlining the need to &#8220;embrace a new conservation ethos&#8221;\u200b and correct mistakes to &#8220;conserve our nation&#8217;s bountiful lands and resources.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>Related Stories<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/world\/helicopter-pilot-dies-fighting-alberta-forest-fire-third-firefighter-death-this-month-5412000\">Helicopter Pilot Dies Fighting Alberta Forest Fire, Third Firefighter Death This Month<\/a><br \/>\n        <br \/>\n        <span>7\/20\/2023<\/span>\n      <\/li>\n<li>\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/world\/wildfires-quebec-ends-ban-on-open-fires-inside-forests-for-first-time-since-may-5403496\">Wildfires: Quebec \u200dEnds Ban on Open Fires Inside Forests for First Time Since May<\/a><br \/>\n        <br \/>\n        <span>7\/17\/2023<\/span>\n      <\/li>\n<li>\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/us\/california-prevents-insurance-cancellations-on-homes-near-forest-fires-4009448\">California Prevents Insurance \u2064Cancellations on Homes Near Forest Fires<\/a><br \/>\n        <br \/>\n        <span>9\/21\/2021<\/span>\n      <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The lawmaker\u200b went on to point out that for the\u200b majority\u2064 of U.S. history, California has maintained roughly 64 trees per acre. That number \u200dis now over 300 trees per acre.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These overstocked forests become susceptible to insects, disease, and\u200b ultimately stand-replacing fire, as trees are forced to compete for \u2062the limited \u200bresources they need to survive\u2014water, nutrients, and sunlight,&#8221; Mr. Westerman said.<\/p>\n<p>According to the lawmaker, wildfires have burned more\u2064 than 72 million acres in the last 10 years, and California has seen 8.7 million acres burned\u200c in just \u2064the last five years, a figure that makes up around 22 \u200cpercent of total burned acres nationwide.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Behind these wildfires are lost lives, communities\u2062 destroyed, their\u200b ecosystems and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lawmakers-push-for-forest-management-reform-after-deadly-blazes\/\" title=\"Lawmakers urge forest management reform post deadly blazes.\">wildlife habitat irreparably damaged<\/a>, access and opportunities for outdoor recreation taken away. Air and water polluted, billions of dollars in economic losses \u200byear after year, and millions more tons of carbon gasified and needlessly jettisoned into \u2063the global atmosphere,&#8221; \u2064Mr. Westerman said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The self-inflicted devastation is widespread, but perhaps nothing\u2062 exemplifies our welfare process more than the loss of 20 percent of the world&#8217;s Giant \u2064Sequoias in just two short years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>Effective Changes<\/h2>\n<p>Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) asserted in his\u200c opening statements that the kind of forest management that kept fires at bay prior to the 1970s has \u200cgone by the wayside since the action to be able to harvest timber has\u2063 become &#8220;endlessly time-consuming, and ultimately cost prohibitive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to Mr. McClintock, forest management plans take around four and \u200dhalf years to complete, and\u2064 the necessary environmental studies alone are around 80 \u2062pages\u2062 long\u200c and \u2062cost millions more to complete than the value of the timber harvested.<\/p>\n<p>Because of these and other hurdles, harvesting in his\u2064 district in California \u200chas dropped 80 percent since\u2062 the 1970s. However, the carveouts \u200cenacted in the Tahoe Basin seven years ago worked to save South \u2062Lake Tahoe from the Calder fire in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With the \u2064federal timber supply cut off, the number of mills has shrunk from 149 in 1981 to just \u206339 today. And so, nature has returned to remove the \u2062excess timber by burning it up,&#8221; Mr. McClintock said.<\/p>\n<p>Those changes, similar to the <a href=\"https:\/\/naturalresources.house.gov\/news\/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=413151\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Save Our Sequoias<\/a> bill and <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.house.gov\/meetings\/II\/II10\/20230523\/115955\/BILLS-118HR188ih.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HR\u2063 188<\/a>, reduce\u2063 the \u200ctime to approve a forest management plan from four years to about four months\u2062 and\u2062 reduce the environmental study\u200d requirements from 800 pages to just a few dozen.<\/p>\n<p>According to Mr. McClintock&#8217;s \u200baddress, the changes \u200bmade in the Tahoe Basin, in addition \u200cto saving cities from devastation just a few years ago, resulted in nine\u200c times greater timber \u2063harvesting over \u2062the years when the area was governed by legislation that covers most of \u2062the state.<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers were faced with the possibility of their action being too late to completely mitigate damage,\u200c Dave Daley, a rancher \u200dand past \u200cCalifornia Cattlemen\u2019s\u200b Association President,\u200d testified before the group.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Because of the fuel loads that we now have,\u2062 nothing can stop even the controlled wildfires that we&#8217;d\u200d like to have in place,&#8221; said Mr. Daley, \u2063who is \u2062also a professor emeritus of animal science\u200c at Cal State Chico.\u2063 &#8220;We are at a point\u200d now that it is going to be extremely difficult to get the genie back in the bottle. \u2064And I&#8217;m not sure \u2063how we will do so.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>Proposed Legislation<\/h2>\n<p>With more than 50 original cosponsors, the\u200d bipartisan Save Our Sequoias bill would offer land managers the emergency tools and resources needed \u200cto &#8220;save these remaining ancient \u2063wonders from\u200b the \u200dunprecedented peril threatening their\u200c <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/republicans-vowed-to-elect-more-women-they-did-just-that\/\" title=\"Republicans Vowed To Elect More Women...They Did Just That\">long-term survival<\/a>,&#8221;\u2063 according to a committee&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/naturalresources.house.gov\/news\/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=413151\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">press\u2063 release<\/a> in April.<\/p>\n<p>The legislation would\u200c strengthen the collaboration of federal, state, tribal, and local land managers through shared stewardship agreements alongside the formal establishme<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A congressional delegation convened in Yosemite National Park, advocating for sensible forest management regulations. They urged for the implementation of measures that successfully protected South Lake Tahoe from the devastating Caldor fire in 2021, emphasizing the need to act swiftly before irreversible harm occurs. The House Committee on Natural Resources spearheaded this effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1843,"featured_media":2000565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2000564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1843"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2000564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2000564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2000564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2000564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}