East Coasters are getting a smoky taste of what folks in the West experience when wildfires rage out of control. Maybe it will light a fire under Congress to reverse the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’s destructive Cottonwood decision that is impeding better forest management.
The smoke engulfing the East Coast is expected to linger into next week and maybe longer if Canadian fires aren’t controlled. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday blamed climate change, which is the scapegoat for every government policy failure that magnifies damage from natural disasters.
The main culprit for raging fires in Canada and the U.S. is resistance by environmentalists to thinning overgrown forests. While a forest management awakening has occurred in government in recent years, U.S. Forest Service officials are hamstrung by the 2015 Cottonwood decision.
Cottonwood’s consultation requirement buries officials in paper and delays urgent management projects. It also conflicts with a Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals decision. This means the Forest Service may have to manage forests differently in Ninth Circuit states, including Alaska, Montana, Idaho, California, Oregon and Washington.
Sens. Steve Daines (R., Mont.), Jon Tester (D., Mont.), James Risch (R., Idaho), Mike Crapo (R., Idaho), and Angus King (I., Maine) have pushed legislation to reverse Cottonwood. “The ruling has opened the door for frequent litigation, delaying critical wildlife habitat and forestry projects and diverting federal resources away from important conservation works,” they wrote to President Biden in January.
More than 100 forest plans will have to go through consultation because the rider has expired. A bipartisan Senate fix in May passed the Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a voice vote, but pleas to the White House have been heard like a tree falling in the forest.
Sen. Tester faces re-election next year, and if he wants the legislation to pass, he could beseech the White House to get behind it. The smoke blanketing Washington, D.C., isn’t new to Members of Congress from Western states. But here’s hoping it might cause Mr. Biden to wake up to the real problem.
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