Some Democrats and environmentalist groups oppose a bill aimed at saving California’s iconic sequoia trees from wildfires, according to The Washington Post’s The Climate 202.
The Save Our Sequoias Act, pushed by Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California, would expedite environmental reviews to carry out “Protection Projects” like controlled burns, forest thinning, and other activities to protect the sequoias from wildfires. [emphasis, links added]
While the bill has bipartisan support, some Democrats and environmental activists accuse its backers of trying to undermine “bedrock environmental laws” like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), according to The Climate 202.
“I would hope that taking bites out of NEPA would give my colleagues pause,” Democratic California Rep. Jared Huffman told The Climate 202.
The bill, which would provide over $300 million in sequoia-protecting initiatives over the next decade, will be marked up Wednesday by the House Natural Resources Committee, according to The Climate 202.
Save Our Sequoias Act would allow the U.S. Forest Service to bypass NEPA’s review and the Endangered Species Act’s analysis ahead of launching the projects.
It's time to #SaveOurSequoias
Learn more: https://t.co/AeKiLEsy2V pic.twitter.com/Eue9T3V7pf
— House Committee on Natural Resources (@NatResources) May 11, 2023
The legislators pushing the bill must hold off on “these horrific attacks on our bedrock environmental laws,” Blaine Miller-McFeeley, a senior legislative representative at Earthjustice, told The Climate 202.
Earthjustice is one of many liberal environmental groups that signed on to a letter last year to Congress in opposition to the bill, along with the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters.
The bill’s proponents insist that the legislation wouldn’t water down environmental regulations, including two of the act’s co-sponsors, according to The Climate 202.
“The agencies still have to go through the NEPA process,” Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas told The Climate 202. “It just allows them to do the work in an emergency situation. And this actually would be better for endangered species because you’re saving their habitat.”
“If NEPA turns out to be the thing standing in the way of us protecting the environment, we’ve really got to look ourselves in the mirror and say, ‘Let’s modernize it,’” Democratic Rep. Scott Peters of California told The Climate 202.
Sequoias draw particular conservationist interest as they are some of the oldest and largest trees that have persisted over thousands of years, with some growing to more than four feet in diameter, according to the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition.
From 2015 to 2021, over 85% of sequoia fields have burned in wildfires, and the coalition reports losing 13% to 19% of mature giant sequoias in the past two years.
Read rest at Daily Caller
THIS IS TOTAl BS ALL ROUND. WHEN I WENT 1ST TO YOSEMITE ITWAS WELL KNOWN THAT THE SEQUOIAS SURVIVE BY FIRE IN THE FOREST FLOOR, THEY HAVE FIREPROOF BARK AND THE HEAT TRIGGERS THEIR CONES TO DEPOSIT EQUALLY FIRE PROOF SEEDS IN THE FRESHLY CLEARED GROUND SO THEY HAVE THE BEST CHANCE IF THRIVING,. WHICH THEY DID THROUGH REGULAR FIRES BEFORE HUMANS INTERFERRED, AND STARTED CLEARING THE FLOOR AND PUTTING OUT FIRES, ALL AGAINST THE NATURAL CYCLES OF BURN OFFS. FFS
The Dumb-O-Carts and the Eco-Freaks don’t want simple solutions for this forest management they would rather see the forests burned up and ruined
They oppose any sensible plan to save these trees but would happily destroy them all to put up windmills.
I remember driving north on the Pacific Coast Highway in the late ’70’s. We ended up behind a slow moving logging truck. It carried two small logs and one humongous log, the likes of which I’d never seen. I still have a picture of it. I was told that it was okay (at the time) to cut the sequoias as long as they were not visible to the tourists from the road.
I think they should putt hose Environmentalists activists who get arrested block traffic or climbing up buildings and bridges to unfurl their signs made from Fossil Fuels and put them on the Fires so they can learn some real responsibility