Garberville, CA - The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote today on a bill introduced by Rep. Scott McInnis (R-CO) that claims to reduce the risk of wildfire but in reality does next to nothing to protect homes and communities in the West. The bill stands in sharp contrast to a proposal by conservation groups that would help communities and homeowners protect themselves from wildfire.
The McInnis bill, like the Bush administration's so-called Healthy Forests initiative, fails to focus scarce federal funding and resources where they would do the most good: in the Community Protection Zone adjacent to at-risk communities. Instead, the bill would continue to allow the Forest Service and Department of Interior to conduct misguided logging projects deep in the backcountry in the name of "fuel reduction." An alternative proposal introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-CA) would require that necessary resources be focused on responsible fuel reduction projects immediately around communities.
Among other things, the McInnis bill would:
- allow the Forest Service to conduct large-scale, environmentally damaging logging projects without considering any alternatives or their relative environmental impacts;
- eliminate the statutory right of citizens to appeal Forest Service logging projects;
- impose unprecedented limitations on judicial review and give lawsuits challenging Forest Service projects priority over virtually all other civil and criminal litigation.
"The McInnis bill is simply a trojan horse that would cut the public and the courts out of the process and turn over management of our national forests to the timber and biomass industries," said Anthony Ambrose of the Environmental Protection Information Center. "The McInnis bill will do nothing to protect communities at risk from wildfires, and would misuse taxpayer dollars for questionable logging projects in the back country, miles away from communities. The federal government needs to focus very limited financial resources on providing protection for communities by focusing hazardous fuels treatment in the areas immediately adjacent to homes."
The McInnis bill relies heavily on claims of "analysis paralysis" to limit citizen participation and judicial review by cutting the heart out of the nation's bedrock environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) -- the requirement that alternatives to agency actions be considered. However, a report issued by the General Accounting Office (GAO) last week analyzed 762 Forest Service fuel reduction projects proposed during the past two years, of which 95 percent were ready for implementation within the standard 90-day review period [724 of 762]. These findings contradict the very premise on which the McInnis bill -- and the Bush Administration's plan -- is based. The latest GAO report supports previous findings from a 2001 GAO report and a 2003 report from researchers at Northern Arizona University.
"The new GAO report clearly demonstrates that the appeals process is working. Projects are being approved within the required time frame," said Randi Spivak of American Lands Alliance, a national group that represents citizen's nationwide working to protect forests. "This new GAO report is yet another study that demonstrates that the very premise on which the McInnis bill and the administration's so-called "Healthy Forests Initiative" is patently unfounded. Claims that "analysis paralysis" is stopping hazardous fuel reduction projects from being implemented are just not true."
Conservationists support a common sense, science-based plan that advocates that fuel reduction projects and "firewise" protections be focused along the boundaries of communities adjacent to forestlands.
Through grants to states and funding for communities, the Community Protection Plan would provide funds for fuel reduction on private, state and tribal lands--which comprise 85 percent of the forested land near vulnerable communities--as well as on federal lands. In contrast, the McInnis bill does not prioritize projects that would create a crucial defensible space around western communities. Instead it calls for logging 20 million acres of federal lands, often far from any community, and provides virtually no funding for fuel reduction on non-federal lands.
Dr. Tim Ingalsbee, a member of the WGA Stockholder Group, which developed the Strategy's Implementation Plan and Performance Measures, said that claims by Rep. McInnis that his bill would help codify and implement the Western Governors' Association's (WGA) Ten-Year Comprehensive Wildfire Strategy is a serious distortion of both the letter and spirit of the WGA Strategy. The WGA strategy states that the WGA Implementation Strategy should not alter the responsibilities or statutory authorities of participating Federal or State agencies. Ingalsbee, who is Director of the American Lands Alliance's Western Fire Ecology Center, said: "The sweeping changes to federal laws and agency regulations proposed by the McInnis bill does not adhere to the WGA Strategy's core principles, and would thwart community-based collaborative efforts to effectively protect communities from severe wildfires."
