[IMC-Editorial] Senate Tricks Us All As California Continues To Smolder

[CEI Media]

Contact for Interviews:     
Judy Kent, 202.331.2266
Jody Clarke, 202.331.2252
 
 
Day 14-America Held Hostage,
Senate Tricks Us All As California Continues To Smolder, Claims Enviro Scholar

 
Washington, D.C., November 13, 2003—Two weeks ago and after months of stalling, while southern California was going up in flames and all eyes of the country were on them, the U.S. Senate finally voted to pass its compromise version of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003.  However, instead of moving quickly to finalize the bill with the House, the Senate is stalling.  

"It was a trick, not a treat," reports Robert J. Smith, senior environmental scholar with the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  "Senate Democrats only voted for their compromise healthy forests bill on Halloween Eve because they could no longer hide.  The deaths and destruction in California forced them to vote, but they tricked us all." 
 
"It's Day 14 of America Held Hostage by the U.S. Senate Democratic leadership, who refuse to hold a conference committee meeting with the U.S. House to agree on a final healthy forests bill, which would help to ensure the safety of America's forests, wildlife, communities, and people from catastrophic forest fires," Smith notes.
 
The fires are out now, snow and rain have arrived, and they are hoping the issue of forest management and fires will be "out-of-sight, out-of-mind" with the public.  "What a gross injustice to the people out west.  California is still smoldering, families' lives were destroyed, 22 people have died, and 3,600 homes burned to the ground.  And yet, the Senate's actions seem to suggest that they are hoping the public will forget and they will be off the hot seat in terms of sending a bill to the President," Smith says. 
 
Smith cites figures which show to date, 3.816 million acres have burned this year, including 750,000 acres in southern California alone.  And, he adds, over the last five years, 28.4 million acres have burned, an area larger than the state of Virginia.  The House, reports Smith, passed its healthy forests bill in May, six months before the Senate finally took action.   

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