Congress OKs bill to cut wildfire threat

[goobergunch]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress approved legislation Friday to reduce the risk of wildfires in national forests by speeding removal of overgrown brush and diseased trees, especially near homes and towns.
The Senate passed the bill by a voice vote less than an hour after the House approved it 286-140. The rapid-fire votes came after a three-year impasse on wildfire legislation.

The final bill, which now goes to President Bush for his signature, resembles the president's "Healthy Forests Initiative" that would streamline approval of projects to thin overgrown forests.

The measure would limit appeals and environmental reviews so that forest-thinning can be completed within months rather than years. The combination of dry underbrush and legal opposition had turned some Western forests into tinderboxes, supporters of the bill said.

more...http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-11-21-congress-wildfires_x.htm

H.R. 1904, to improve the capacity of the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior to plan and conduct hazardous fuels reduction projects on National Forest System lands and Bureau of Land Management lands aimed at protecting communities, watersheds, and certain other at-risk lands from catastrophic wildfire, to enhance efforts to protect watersheds and address threats to forest and rangeland health, including catastrophic wildfire, across the landscape, and for other purposes.

ON AGREEING TO THE CONFERENCE REPORT

H R       1904
            YEAS NAYS PRES NV 
REPUBLICAN  216     9       3 
DEMOCRATIC   70   130       5 
INDEPENDENT         1     
TOTALS      286   140       8
TIME REMAINING          0:00

Vote No. 656

:puke: :puke:

On to the Senate.... :(

UPDATE: The Senate has just passed the bill. On the House, they just got a message saying that the Senate has agreed to it. Looking for a link. Yuck. :puke: :puke:

Clear-cutting time....

[displacedvermoter]

1. Bernie Sanders voted YEA?!?

Or is there another Independent I'm unaware of? Doesn't sound like Bernie.

[goobergunch]

2. My mistake - fixed (sorry)

When I copy that from the House vote page, the Independent vote sometimes goes into the wrong column.

[displacedvermoter]

3. Thanks

I kinda freaked there!

[DeathvadeR]

4. How much farther can we reverse back?

How in the fuq are they gonna thin a forest when they have shown that selective tree cutting doens't produce enough revenue. Cleer cutting the entire forest down? Is that thinning?

[tom_paine]

6. Back to the 1890s...back to the 1590s

or perhaps just back to 1933...Germany

[goobergunch]

5. UPDATE: SENATE PASSES TOO

Just received message in the House...no link yet.

[goobergunch]

7. kick

:kick:

[dusty64]

8. The Senate's use

of the voice vote is disgusting and unethical. I guess these Washington insiders do not think that they are working for the People anymore. There is now no way to determine who endorsed this rotten idea, though I've got a good idea. The events this week in Congress have really brought my feeling about the whole process to a head and opened my eyes to the reality of whats really going on here.

A genuine opposition party is desperately needed in this Country and it will probably have to be built from the ground up well after these corporate puppets have caused GREAT damage. I do not think I've EVER been quite as revolted by whats going on as I am right now. The system is irreparably broken and I am unsure of a solution. I simply do not know what to do! :shrug:

[buddhamama]

9. misleading language from the USAToday

(surprise surprise NOT!)

"...speeding removal of overgrown brush and diseased trees..."

it should read, 'speedy removal of trees creating more brush and increasing the likelihood of fires.'

[MasonJar]

10. Bush is such a hypocrite

California had been asking the Bushies for six months to give them money to get rid of the dead trees. The administration turned them down a few hours before the conflagration began.