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The fires are not due to climate change. Properly managed private forests are not the source of the wildfires in CA. The areas burning have been neglected for decades due to inane and destructive extreme enviro policies. The quoted and linked article provides good insight.
What many do not know, is that California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bipartisan wildfire management bill in 2016, despite unanimous passage by the Legislature, 75-0 in the Assembly and 39-0 in the Senate. SB 1463 would have given local governments more say in fire-prevention efforts through the Public Utilities Commission proceeding making maps of fire hazard areas around utility lines. In a gross display of politics, this is especially pertinent given that Cal Fire and the state’s media are now blaming the largest utility in the state for the latest wildfires.
While hindsight is always 20-20, California was on fire when this bill made its way through the Legislature and on to Jerry Brown’s desk.
The 129 million dead trees throughout California’s state and national forests are now serving as matchsticks and kindling.
.....
Traditional forest management had simple guidelines: thin the forest when it becomes too difficult to walk through; too many trees in the woods will compete with one another, because the best trees will grow at a slower rate.
The U.S. Forest Service used to be a profitable federal agency, McClintock said. “Up until the mid-1970s, we managed our National Forests according to well-established and time-tested forest management practices.”
“But 40 years ago, we replaced these sound management practices with what can only be described as a doctrine of benign neglect,” McClintock said. “Ponderous, byzantine laws and regulations administered by a growing cadre of ideological zealots in our land management agencies promised to ‘save the environment.’ The advocates of this doctrine have dominated our law, our policies, our courts and our federal agencies ever since.”
.....
Prior to FSC Certification, environmentalists refused to acknowledge that timber had been prized as a renewable, recyclable natural resource, and the timber industry prioritized proper care of forests.
In 1998, the Clinton Administration and the Forest Service implemented a roadbuilding moratorium which restricted the use of or building of roads near 50 million acres of forest. “The nearly 50 million acres of roadless areas in our National Forests are an American treasure,” Earth Justice proclaims—apparently because no one is allowed to see the National Forests.
By 2001, President Clinton issued the Roadless Area Conservation Policy directive, “ending virtually all logging; roadbuilding; and coal, gas, oil, and other mineral leasing in 58 million acres of the wildest remaining undeveloped national forests lands,” Earth Justice reported.
Fast forward to the George W. Bush administration: “In June 2009, a federal judge sided with environmentalists and threw out the Bush planning rule that determines how 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands develop individual forest plans, governing activities from timber harvests to recreation and protecting endangered plants and animals. Clinton appointee, Judge Claudia Wilken of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, ruled that the Forest Service had failed to analyze the effects of removing requirements guaranteeing viable wildlife populations,” Greenwire reported.
In 2012, the Obama administration issued a major rewrite of all of the country’s forest rules and guidelines....
CA Gov. Jerry Brown Vetoed 2016 Wildfire Management Bill While CA Burned
What many do not know, is that California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bipartisan wildfire management bill in 2016, despite unanimous passage by the Legislature, 75-0 in the Assembly and 39-0 in the Senate. SB 1463 would have given local governments more say in fire-prevention efforts through the Public Utilities Commission proceeding making maps of fire hazard areas around utility lines. In a gross display of politics, this is especially pertinent given that Cal Fire and the state’s media are now blaming the largest utility in the state for the latest wildfires.
While hindsight is always 20-20, California was on fire when this bill made its way through the Legislature and on to Jerry Brown’s desk.
The 129 million dead trees throughout California’s state and national forests are now serving as matchsticks and kindling.
.....
Traditional forest management had simple guidelines: thin the forest when it becomes too difficult to walk through; too many trees in the woods will compete with one another, because the best trees will grow at a slower rate.
The U.S. Forest Service used to be a profitable federal agency, McClintock said. “Up until the mid-1970s, we managed our National Forests according to well-established and time-tested forest management practices.”
“But 40 years ago, we replaced these sound management practices with what can only be described as a doctrine of benign neglect,” McClintock said. “Ponderous, byzantine laws and regulations administered by a growing cadre of ideological zealots in our land management agencies promised to ‘save the environment.’ The advocates of this doctrine have dominated our law, our policies, our courts and our federal agencies ever since.”
.....
Prior to FSC Certification, environmentalists refused to acknowledge that timber had been prized as a renewable, recyclable natural resource, and the timber industry prioritized proper care of forests.
In 1998, the Clinton Administration and the Forest Service implemented a roadbuilding moratorium which restricted the use of or building of roads near 50 million acres of forest. “The nearly 50 million acres of roadless areas in our National Forests are an American treasure,” Earth Justice proclaims—apparently because no one is allowed to see the National Forests.
By 2001, President Clinton issued the Roadless Area Conservation Policy directive, “ending virtually all logging; roadbuilding; and coal, gas, oil, and other mineral leasing in 58 million acres of the wildest remaining undeveloped national forests lands,” Earth Justice reported.
Fast forward to the George W. Bush administration: “In June 2009, a federal judge sided with environmentalists and threw out the Bush planning rule that determines how 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands develop individual forest plans, governing activities from timber harvests to recreation and protecting endangered plants and animals. Clinton appointee, Judge Claudia Wilken of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, ruled that the Forest Service had failed to analyze the effects of removing requirements guaranteeing viable wildlife populations,” Greenwire reported.
In 2012, the Obama administration issued a major rewrite of all of the country’s forest rules and guidelines....
CA Gov. Jerry Brown Vetoed 2016 Wildfire Management Bill While CA Burned
