Citizens hold Reps. Dooley and Cardoza accountable for
Wednesday fire vote
They urge community protection from wildfires - not industry profits
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- April 29, 2003
Contact: Jason Swartz, California Wilderness Coalition: (530) 758-0380
Peter Mayfield, Yosemite Guides, 209-379-2231
Davis, CA -- A diverse group of homeowners, business owners, conservation
organizations and citizens throughout Northern California are calling
on U.S. Representatives Cal Dooley (D-20th) and Dennis Cardoza
(D-18th) to be accountable to local California communities and
provide homes with real protection from wildfires, not support timber
industry profits.
Representatives Cardoza and Dooley will have a chance tomorrow April
30 when the House Resources Committee on which they sit, will mark-up
wildfire legislation at 10:00 AM Eastern time. The bill, introduced
by Representative Scott McInnis (R-CO), like the Bush
administration's so-called Healthy Forests Initiative, does not 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 will allow the Forest Service and
Department of Interior to continue to conduct misguided logging
projects deep in the backcountry in the name of "fuel reduction." In
fact, these plans would help timber companies far more than they
would help fire-threatened and cash-starved communities.
Representatives Cardoza and Dooley have a choice. They can support
the McInnis bill or they can support a bill introduced by Rep. George
Miller (D-CA) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) that focuses scare
federal resources on true community protection.
"The best science says the way to reduce the risks of fires to homes
and lives is to focus on forest areas immediately around communities.
Yet, Rep. McInnis and the Bush Administration insist on spending
scarce dollars on logging the backcountry instead of focusing on
protecting communities," said Ryan Henson, policy director for the
California Wilderness Coalition, comprised of 200 conservation groups
and business sponsors and 3,000 individual members. "We encourage
Representatives Dooley and Cardoza to vote responsibly tomorrow, with
California's forest-adjacent communities in mind."
"As a business owner and longtime resident I want to preserve
wilderness in the Sierra Nevada, where so many people come to
experience wilderness," said Peter Mayfield, owner of Yosemite Guides
in El Portal, Mariposa County. "We need a wise plan that preserves
the integrity of our wilderness and focuses fuel reduction on our
communities - and that's a different plan than the McInnis bill.
Proper forest management would protect communities and leave our
old-growth timber as it is."
The Miller/DeFazio bill would provide funds directly to states and
communities 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. This approach would put the
limited available funds to use where they are most effective: at the
sites where forest fires pose a real threat to human lives and homes.
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 in
backcountry far from any community, and provides virtually no funding
for fuel reduction on non-federal lands. What scant funds the McInnis
bill would provide local communities are buried within new programs
in the bill that are not dedicated to protecting communities from
wildfire.
In McInnis' "Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003," four lines of
a 47-page bill discuss prioritization for communities and watersheds.
Yet this prioritization specifically falls under the title of
hazardous fuels reduction on federal lands far from communities at
risk. McInnis' bill also seeks to rewrite environmental and public
participation laws -- an unnecessary provision that does nothing to
provide immediate assistance to states and communities -- and to
steer efforts towards battling insects and disease in the backcountry
well away from homes.
Conservation groups are also concerned about the chilling effect that
the McInnis bill, like the Bush administration proposal, would have
on the basic democratic principle of public participation in the
management of public lands. The McInnis proposal seeks to eliminate
the most important part of the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) - the requirement that an agency consider alternatives to its
proposed actions. The courts have called this consideration of
alternatives the "heart of NEPA."
The McInnis bill also seeks to interfere with our nation's
independent judiciary. It requires a court to limit preliminary
injunctions of logging projects carried out under the bill to 45
days, unless the court affirmatively acts to renew the injunctions.
It also seeks to force any courts, including appellate courts, to
issue a final ruling on a case in 100 days (this means illegal
logging could occur simply because a backlogged court was unable to
rule within 100 days). It even attempts an astounding change in the
American legal standard that governs how courts determine equitable
relief for an injured party.
"Two wildfire camps seem to have developed in Washington," said Ryan
Henson of the California Wilderness Coalition. "One draws on the
widespread consensus that the vast majority of lands at risk are
non-federal lands around communities, and that we should direct
resources to states and communities to reduce fire risk within this
Community Protection Zone. The other camp refuses to acknowledge
these facts, intent on adopting legislation that would fail to steer
funds to the areas of greatest need, while promoting logging in the
backcountry. Responsible legislation needs to specifically
prioritize state and private community risk reduction."
Founded in 1976, the California Wilderness Coalition defends
the pristine landscapes that make California unique, provide a home to our wildlife,
and preserve a place for spiritual renewal.
# # #
|
Just three miles off of Interstate 80, 
