As a wildfire rages in the iconic Yosemite National Park, “green” federal policies are being blamed for adding literal fuel to the fire.
While members of Congress stop short of saying environmental policies caused this fire, it’s clear that the massive firestorms of the past decade would not have happened without the fuel to feed them. California House members have been trying for years to pass laws that would resume clearing tinder, but they have repeatedly been voted down.
“The U.S. Forest Service used to have a 10 a.m. policy that fires reported one day needed to be put out 10 a.m. the next morning,” said Republican Rep. Tom McClintock, whose district includes Yosemite. “[Democrats] believe we should leave the forests alone and nature will take care of them. A policy of benign neglect.”
Environmental laws from the 1970s stopped paper mill loggers from removing dead and overgrown trees to keep the forests healthy and create firebreaks. California had 149 paper mills in 1980, and today, that number has shrunk to 27.
As a result, 50 years of neglect have created forests that are 400% denser than what the land can support, McClintock said. In drought-ridden California, a lack of water only heightens the problem.
Now, a “human start” fire has consumed 3,772 acres with only 17% containment as it gobbles up fuel in Mariposa Grove, where more than 500 giant sequoias top 200 feet. President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation in 1864 protecting the grove and surrounding areas from encroachment.
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McClintock said he toured Mariposa Grove a week ago and was told by a federal official that fires need to occur at 14-year intervals as nature’s way of clearing out timber.
“I couldn’t believe my ears, but there it is,” McClintock said.
Today, I’m at Yosemite National Park in CA-04 with my House colleagues where we discussed preserving the park for future generations. A key to making this goal a reality is restoring active forest management practices to prevent the threat of catastrophic wildfire. pic.twitter.com/fvVLbBBZwF
— Tom McClintock (@RepMcClintock) July 6, 2022
Now, with the Washburn fire, McClintock called the USFS and demanded to know if they were fighting the fire. The answer was yes.
Last year, another wildfire got dangerously close to 2,200-year-old General Sherman, the largest tree in the world at 275 feet tall. The sequoia made national headlines when firefighters covered its base with foil blankets as protection from flames.
“We are talking about giant sequoias here, every kid in school learns about these trees and their size,” said Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA), who has an adjacent district that was ravaged by fire last year. “It’s nonsense that we are in the position that the forest service isn’t aggressive about the prework [to stop fires].”
Trying to clear forests of dead trees is a cumbersome process that requires environmental reports that take years and cost millions of dollars. The minute any tree is removed, environmental groups file a lawsuit citing endangered species of birds seen in the area, LaMalfa said.
Now, it has come down to whether the Democrats want General Sherman to burn in order to keep their ideology, La Malfa said.
“Ultimately that’s the choice they are given,” he said. “They will say, ‘We don’t want General Sherman to be burned,’ but their actions cause differently. They want to save a woodpecker.”
The timber pileup is so massive that it will take a decade to clear, he said.
Every year, LaMalfa, McClintock, and others in California introduce legislation aimed at curbing wildfires. Most bills die in committee, but LaMalfa was able to pass a bill that created a 50-foot firebreak under power lines, one of the most common fire starters.
But McClintock points to one shining example where teamwork can equal results. He successfully passed a 2016 bill that cut down on red tape for environmental logging permits from four years to four months. It was limited to the Lake Tahoe area. When the deadly Caldor wildfire swept the area last year, forests remained intact because they were cleared of overgrowth, McClintock said.
Last month, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) introduced a bipartisan bill called Save Our Sequoias that will expand the 2016 law nationwide.
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“The irony is that these [current] laws are supposed to improve, and instead, they are destroying our forests,” McClintock said. “The excuse we hear from the environmental Left for their failure is that we shouldn’t be putting out forest fires.”
