House Lawmakers Propose Opposing Approaches to Wildfires

[Judi Lynn]

IULIA GHEORGHIU | MAY 18, 2017 | 04:56 PM

Partisan debate over climate change and the environment crept into another issue this week, with lawmakers from opposing parties wrangling over how to deal with wildfires.

The issue has come to the fore because the United States has seen a rising rate of wildfires across the country, with nine of the years with the largest recorded number of wildfires occurring since 2000, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, scorching acres of land in states from New Mexico to Oregon.

At a hearing this week, Congressional Republicans said giving commercial loggers access to public lands would prevent wildfires by thinning trees in overgrown national forests, bolstering existing Forest Service efforts with support from the private sector.

The barrier to commercial logging on public lands was established over 40 years ago with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.

More:
https://morningconsult.com/2017/05/18/house-lawmakers-propose-opposing-approaches-wildfires/

[Freethinker65]

1. But the timber industry prefers, and usually insists on, clear cutting and destroying forests

Thinning is more difficult, more time consuming, as far less profitable.