Has The Liberal Enviro Nazi Movement Succeeded?

[Walter]

Living here in Southern California and witnessing first hand the irreversible damage caused by the Environmental Movement prohibiting even common sense brush clearance, it's clear that the Liberals have achieved total success.

Thousands of homes and businesses destroyed and hundreds of thousands of acres of land and trees burned off. The Liberals must be rejoicing. Their drumbeat of lawsuits against anyone doing anything they don't like have done the job.

For example, it is illegal to prune any dead wood over 2" in diameter from any trees in the Lake Arrowhead area.

Here's an article written a year ago that describes the Sequoia problem: Environmentalists Endanger Sequoias

Here's Tom Daschle's, wonderful support of the environmental movement: Daschle: Logging for Me But Not For Thee

All, however, is not rosy with the Enviros. Dianne Feinstein has broken ranks. She is actually supporting Bush's current bill. (No word about Boxer yet.): Even Feinstein Wants to Pass Bill

But the New York Times comes to the rescue. They would save the Liberals if their editors had their way. I will copy their editorial as a reply to this post. (Their website requires a registration and password).

Thanks Libs. Your interest in the environment is deeply appreciated. It's all blackened now. Hope you like ash and mudslides this winter that are the outcome of your misguided and myopic zeal.

At least you protected that endangered species, the rare BARK BEETLE

[Walter]

New York Times, October 28, 2003
A Fire Bill to Fight Fires

Californians are no strangers to the deadly confluence of heat, low humidity and high winds that have created an implacable crescent of fire in Southern California, destroying woodlands, brush, homes and lives. The worst damage is along the ridges and hills where suburbia meets the forests; the danger is sure to increase as runaway development turns the stretch between Los Angeles and San Diego into one giant suburb.

Regrettably, some in Congress have wasted no time in using these devastating blazes to promote a deeply flawed fire bill, patterned after President Bush's Healthy Forests initiative, that awaits action in the Senate after being passed by the House. The bill is hopelessly vague. It would not require that money be spent where it was most needed, which is (as California's fires show anew) at the suburbanized edge of forests. Its mandate is so broad that it would invite commercial logging in remote areas of the national forests, where fires pose little threat to people or property but where the timber industry is most eager to ply its trade. The bill would also weaken environmental protections, reducing the opportunity for public appeals and judicial review.

Because the bill has inspired fierce protests from environmentalists and governors in fire-prone Western states, a Senate group led by Dianne Feinstein and Ron Wyden has drafted a compromise. That bill would promise less damage to environmental law, offer some protection for old-growth trees in remote forests and require that half the money be spent on thinning, prescribed burns and other fire-prevention techniques in the overgrown woods adjacent to vulnerable communities.

Some Westerners, notably Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Barbara Boxer of California, would strengthen even this proposal by tightening protections for old-growth trees and devoting at least 70 percent of the money to protecting communities. A bill sponsored by Ms. Boxer and Patrick Leahy would also allow spending on nonfederal lands, where most threatened communities are actually located. Either way, the Senate cannot let the House bill become law. It should pass a bill that protects both people and the larger environment, and insist on it in conference.