November’s tragic California wildfires brought a Twitter war between President Trump, who argued the fires were due to forest mismanagement, and Leonardo DiCaprio who asserted (big surprise) climate change is to blame. I cannot speak to the specifics of these fires and any proximity to national forests, which have been so terribly mismanaged (as pointed out in by Chuck DeVore and more recently by Matthew Vadum). I can provide, however, a view from the Rocky Mountains.
It is an oft-repeated truth in the West to call the federal government the “world’s worst neighbor,” and nowhere is that more true than the U.S. Forest Service’s mismanagement of national forests. Beginning with President Jimmy Carter’s War on the West, which continued under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the ability to engage in prudent forest management is under attack.
Of course, the Forest Service has help in the endless lawsuits by radical (is there any other kind?) environmental groups to prevent timber harvesting. Even after a fire, when salvageable timber remains, the groups sue to prevent logging. One radical in Oregon opined that such harvests were “like raping a burn victim.” Judges have abused the National Environmental Policy Act by stopping harvesting for more studies. The studies, which cost millions, continue until the burned timber is not salvageable, a fire sweeps through and destroys the timber up for sale, or the local timber companies go out of business. Here in Colorado, as elsewhere in the West, the timber industry has been reduced to a fraction of its former self and its ability to service national forests.
We had a case in Montana a couple of years ago where residents banded together with local, state, and federal authorities to conduct a limited harvest of timber that, once the subject of a cataclysmic fire, would prevent residents from escaping and firefighters from battling the blaze. Of course, a radical group sued before a judge who usually could be counted on to rule in their favor. Even he saw the need for this project and held that it met National Environmental Policy Act standards. At the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, in response to our argument that “people will die if the plan is not carried out,” one judge asked, “How many?”
Apparently not enough, because the 9th Circuit reversed and ordered more studies on the impact on elk habitat. Fortunately, the study was completed and the timber harvested before the fires we feared. Unfortunately, that is often not the case.
Meanwhile, counties, states, and American Indian tribes are not so hampered. They understand the vital need, not just economically but ecologically and environmentally, to engage in science-based forest management. A few years ago, for example, deadly Arizona fires stopped at tribal boundaries.
The climate change nonsense asserted by Gov. Jerry Brown, D-Calif., DiCaprio, and radical groups is a new excuse. Back in the 1990s it was the northern spotted owl, or sustainability, or National Environmental Policy Act compliance. Just like the argument of the “leave it in the ground” radicals regarding energy, these anti-harvesting radicals demand “nature’s way” in the management of the national forests, which means, as it did before the country was settled, periodic massive blazes to make way for a new forest. Today, however, millions of Americans live in or near where those forests will burn.
Winter approaches in the Mountain West, but with the spring and summer will come more devastating fires because of the actions of the federal government. Nonetheless, Congress does next to nothing and lacks the courage to fix the National Environmental Policy Act by removing judicial review as a weapon to kill forest management. Meanwhile, we pray for those whose lives were changed unalterably by the fires in California and hope they will pray for us when we face a similar fate. And sadly, we will.
William Perry Pendley is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, has argued cases before the Supreme Court and worked in the Department of the Interior during the Reagan administration. He is the author of Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan’s Battle with Environmental Extremists and Why It Matters Today.
