Last week, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), co-chair of the bipartisan Senate Wildfire Caucus, introduced legislation to the Senate designed to “fix our forests.”
A bipartisan bill cosponsored by Sens. John Curtis (R-Utah), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), the Fix Our Forests Act has been celebrated as a rare bipartisan success in the effort to prevent climate change-related wildfires in the Western U.S. Still a handful of environmental groups have expressed dissatisfaction with the bill.
“As increasingly frequent and catastrophic wildfires in California make clear, we need durable solutions to confront the growing impacts of the wildfire crisis,” Padilla said, in a news release. “This bill represents a strong, bipartisan step forward, not just in reducing wildfire risk in and around our national forests, but in protecting urban areas and our efforts to reduce climate emissions. It prioritizes building fire-resilient communities, accelerating the removal of hazardous fuels and strengthening coordination across federal, state and tribal agencies, including through the creation of the first-ever National Wildfire Intelligence Center.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who recently set aside $170 million in state funds for wildfire resiliency, also lauded the bill as a step in the right direction.
“Extreme risk of catastrophic wildfires across the West demands urgent action. In California, we’re fast-tracking projects by streamlining state requirements and using more fuel breaks and prescribed fire,” Newsom said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The Fix Our Forests Act is a step forward that will build on this progress — enabling good projects to happen faster on federal lands. I’m appreciative of Sens. Padilla and Schiff and the bipartisan team of Senators who crafted a balanced solution that will both protect communities and improve the health of our forests.”
Supporters of the Fix our Forests Act also include environmental groups like the Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, National Audubon Society and Citizens’ Climate Lobby, as well as fire-prevention groups like the International Association of Fire Chiefs and Alliance for Wildfire Resilience and state agencies like CalFire.
A coalition of environmental groups including the Western Watersheds Project, Wilderness Watch, Los Padres Forest Watch, Project Eleven Hundred and WildEarth Guardians, however, have expressed strong opposition to the act. They say that the bill — which they characterize as “inaccurately named” — “directs the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to develop plans to ramp up logging, grazing and other destructive activities in the name of wildfire and fuels reduction.”
“At one of the most crucial moments for the future of our public lands, waters and wildlife, Congress is abandoning ship and handing over control to the cattle and timber barons who got us into this mess in the first place,” Josh Osher, public policy director for Western Watersheds Project, said in a news release. “What we need right now is a new paradigm that values life over profit and extraction, not the same tired ideas wrapped in deceptive new packaging.”
In contrast, the coalition said, there is legislation that “actually provides solutions to increased wildfire risk to communities.” They cite H.R. 582, the “Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act,” introduced by U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Raphael), as an example of positive legislative action.
The coalition claims, in particular, that a significant increase in grazing on public lands will have a deleterious effect on the environment, destroying habitat for native pollinators and even making those lands less fire resilient in the long run.
“This bad piece of legislation distracts from what really works — home hardening, defensible space in the immediate zone around structures and strategic community planning,” said Ben Pitterle, director of advocacy and field operations with Los Padres ForestWatch, in the coalition’s news release. “This bill is a disaster for forests, wildlife and only offers false hope to those living in fire-prone areas.”
A summary of the Fix our Forest Act’s wildfire prevention goals in California can be found at https://tinyurl.com/3rpwykr4.
Robert Schaulis can be reached at 707-441-0585.
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