Feinstein introduces "Emergency Wildfire" act - Environmental Groups oppose it
Feinstein introduces "Emergency Wildfire" act
- Environmental Groups oppose it
See Feinstein's op-ed here:
http://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccob...4_15-56-29.png
Feinstein: Living with the growing threat of wildfire
DIANNE FEINSTEIN
REPRESENTS CALIFORNIA IN THE U.S. SENATE.
September 6, 2020, 6:34AM
Here's the joint press release in OPPOSITION from several environmental groups
Susan Jane Brown, Western Environmental Law Center, (503) 914-1323,
[email protected]
Randi Spivak, Center for Biological Diversity, (310) 779-4894,
[email protected]
Anne Hawke, Natural Resources Defense Council, (646) 823-4518,
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Blaine Miller-McFeeley, Earthjustice, (202) 745-5225,
[email protected]
Virginia Cramer, Sierra Club, (804) 519-8449,
[email protected]
Gwen Dobbs, Defenders of Wildlife, (202) 772-0269, [email protected]
*Feinstein-Daines Wildfire Bill Would Evade Environmental Laws, Compromise Community Protection*
WASHINGTON― Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.)
introduced legislation yesterday that would fast-track unsustainable
logging, increase wildfire risk and jeopardize community safety. The
measure stands in stark contrast to sensible, science-based legislation
sponsored by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), which would help communities
in fire-prone areas without backcountry logging.
The Feinstein-Daines bill, the Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act
of 2020, would limit environmental, judicial and public review
requirements. Among other things the bill requires extensive logging,
allows for truncated environmental review procedures for millions of
acres of harmful logging projects, and sidesteps procedures to protect
imperiled species.
“This legislation is a wish list from the timber industry, and would
create more controversy and legal uncertainty,” said Susan Jane Brown of
the Western Environmental Law Center. “The Feinstein-Daines bill will
further undermine public trust in the credibility of the federal land
management agencies, which is already at an all-time low.”
“This bill shows a fundamental lack of understanding about wildfires and
how to best protect communities,” said Randi Spivak, director of the
Center for Biological Diversity’s public lands program. “Many recent
wildlands fires in California burned through actively managed lands or
occurred on nonfederal grass and shrublands. This bill is a knee-jerk
reaction that defies science and will cause more harm than good.”
“This bill fails to meet the urgent need to create fire-safe
communities, yet it’s full of giveaways to logging interests,” said
Kirin Kennedy with the Sierra Club. “It will undermine strong forest
management even as science clearly shows that healthy forests are the
foundation of fire safety and key to helping combat the climate crisis
that is already escalating fire seasons.”
“This bill is a disaster for anyone who cares deeply about protecting
the best tools we have in the fight against climate change — our
forests,” said Blaine Miller-McFeeley of Earthjustice. “It would
eliminate bedrock protections that ensure people have a say in decisions
affecting their homes, their communities and their safety. Instead of
allowing this legislation to move forward, lawmakers should consider
Senator Harris’s more practical alternative, which will actually help
protect our communities from wildfires.”
“This bill not only takes an ax to the safeguards that lead to smarter
forest management and community safety, it succumbs to the myth that
protecting wildlife is somehow incompatible with forest health,” said
Lauren McCain of Defenders of Wildlife. “The indiscriminate logging that
his bill enables puts hundreds of imperiled wildlife species that depend
on America’s forests for their survival at risk with no clear public
benefit.”
“The ink is barely dry on the Trump administration’s illegal attempt to
dismantle the National Environmental Policy Act, and now comes this new
attack on the bedrock environmental protection law,” said Amy McNamara,
Northern Rockies director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“Now, more than ever, it is critical that local communities have a voice
in how their natural resources are managed.”
In November 2019 Harris introduced S.2882, the Wildfire Defense Act,
which authorized $1 billion per year to create a grant program for
communities to develop “Community Wildfire Defense Plans” to improve
community safety, retrofit critical infrastructure and homes, and apply
“defensible space” to create a buffer between communities and the
forest. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) introduced a companion bill, H.R.
5091, in the House of Representatives.
/The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit
conservation organization with more than 1.7 million members and online
activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild
places./
Re: Feinstein introduces "Emergency Wildfire" act - Environmental Groups oppose it
Have friends in other states? Please send this on to them, and ask them to write their US senators to vote No.
Re: Feinstein introduces "Emergency Wildfire" act - Environmental Groups oppose it
Thank you so much for posting this, and keeping us informed. I don't read the PD or follow the news, so I depend on WaccoBB post for news on important issues. I learn things from WaccoBB that I don't find anywhere else, and it's all in one place.
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Re: Feinstein introduces "Emergency Wildfire" act - Environmental Groups oppose it
Add Sonoma County Climate Activist Network (SoCoCAN!) to the list of groups opposing this.
https://www.facebook.com/SonomaCountyCAN
https://twitter.com/SonomaCAN
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Re: Feinstein introduces "Emergency Wildfire" act - Environmental Groups oppose it
From Sonoma County Climate Activist Network (SoCoCAN!)
Regarding S.4431 - Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020
Santa Rosa, California
September 16, 2020
We are opposed to S. 4431, a bill co-authored by Senators Steve Daines (R-MT) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). This week, the Senators are calling for S.4431, the “Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020,” while opposing organizations including the Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, and National Parks Conservation Association, and other organizations – collectively representing millions of Americans – are saying the bill would increase wildfire risks to communities and ignore environmental laws. Rather than focusing on making our homes and communities safer, the bill would result in increased unregulated logging in areas far from communities.
Congress needs to directly support communities in creating defensible space and hardening homes, rather than spending hundreds of millions for increased logging efforts – which have exacerbated recent fires in the West in areas where clear-cutting and thinning operations have removed the largest, most fire-resistant trees.
S. 4431 is calling for more biomass energy production, which spews carbon dioxide and other toxic byproducts into the air by the ton. This bill completely ignores the value of forests as storehouses of carbon.
Burning forest products in biomass plants is ineffective in protecting communities and forests during wildfire, is expensive, while masquerading as clean energy, and relies on government subsidies, hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars, so fewer dollars are then available for making us safer. Spending more on biomass would also take finite resources away from true clean energy sources.
S. 4431 is a discredited, unscientific initiative that will take us in the wrong direction. It is not a climate solution, will cause heavy increases in carbon released into the atmosphere and will drastically reduce the ability of forests to store and sequester carbon. The top fire scientists have shown us that we need to focus on defensible space and on creating and maintaining fire-safe homes. This bill needs to be completely modified, focusing on protecting homes and communities.
Sonoma County Climate Activist Network (SoCoCAN!)
467 Sebastopol Ave.
Santa Rosa, CA 95401
[email protected]
707-595-0320 (email contact preferred)
https://www.facebook.com/SonomaCountyCAN/
The Sonoma County Climate Activist Network (SoCoCAN!) is a strong and active network of 50+ local climate change groups and over 400 individuals working together to address and reverse climate change.
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