Act will correct misguided forest policies of the past
Rep. Scott McInnis is a Republican member of the House of Representatives serving Colorado
The newly enacted Healthy Forests Restoration Act is a good bet to go down in history as one of the most significant environmental and forest management reforms to be passed by Congress in the last 100 years.
The legislation will dramatically reduce the large numbers of catastrophic wildfires that have ravaged Western states. In so doing, it will eliminate millions of tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants released as smoke. Carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas many scientists think is the chief culprit in global warming.
Swift passage of the bill, first proposed in August 2002, was ignited by the wildfire infernos that raced through huge swaths of California in October, scorching nearly 750,000 acres of land, causing 22 deaths, and destroying more than 3,600 homes.
The need for this legislation is clear: America's forests and rangelands were being decimated by wildfire on an unprecedented scale long before this fall's conflagrations in California. This growing crisis stems, in large part, from well-intentioned but misguided forest management policy.
For decades, land managers have moved quickly to snuff out wildland fires in all forms, including nature's own frequent, low-intensity fires, which serve to clear out forest buildups and rejuvenate ecosystems. Without these natural periodic cleansings, tree densities in many areas have been allowed to increase tenfold, accelerating insect and disease scourges that create dry, combustible timber. These methods have turned our forests and rangelands into powderkegs. Communities and lives have been lost, millions of once pristine woodland acres have been charred, and countless threatened and endangered species' habitats have been incinerated.
The effects on air quality and water purity have been equally staggering. A recent scientific study found that wildfires emit incredible amounts of dangerous pollutants into the atmosphere. In 2002, wildfires are thought to have released more mercury into the air than all U.S. power plants. Significant amounts of lead and arsenic are also released each year from burned areas into streams and reservoirs, often contaminating municipal and agricultural water supplies.
Federal and state land managers estimate that more than 190 million acres are at risk of large-scale wildfires - 25 times more land than the amount burned in California two months ago.
With record-setting blazes occurring each year - like Southern California's Old Fire in 2003 and Oregon's Biscuit Fire in 2002 - it is clear that we are far from the end of this fiery nightmare.
By employing 21st-century forest management techniques, land managers can control this destructive tide. But excessive analytical requirements coupled with confrontational administrative and judicial processes have created a maze of bureaucratic impediments that eat up time and attention that land managers could devote to this pressing problem.
In one prominent case, forest managers waded through three years of bureaucratic hurdles and appeals to treat wildfire-prone areas in Colorado's Upper South Platte Watershed - Denver's largest supplier of water. While still under appeal in 2002, the huge Hayman fire wiped out large parts of the treatment area - contaminating the water supply and destroying hundreds of homes.
Sadly, this case is far from unique. With thousands of lives, environmental resources and delicate ecosystems at risk to wildfire, it would be negligent - if not downright criminal - to continue to impair our land managers in this disastrous manner.
I authored this bill to remove these bureaucratic impediments and allow real reform in managing the wildfire threat to homes, people and the environment. It will re-empower our land management professionals, giving them the tools needed to effectively address this crisis.
For years, we've sought the right way to aid our ailing forests. Now, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act will inject the cool voice of common sense into wildfire policy and free us from a logjam of overheated rhetoric.
Scott McInnis was the author of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act and is chairman of the House Resources Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health. His Web site is www.house.gov/mcinnis/.
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