Just before Christmas President Trump issued an Executive Order (EO) to address forest management to limit wildfire risk. It’s a good start. It makes sense.
Left-wing activists say it’s global warming. Trump’ Executive Order is a sop to big timber. They don’t like it.
I can’t speak to the timber sops, but let’s play along with the former. Why wouldn’t better forest management practices reduce global-warming influenced forest fire damage?
Well?
NH’s Biomass Bailout Does What Again?
It’s a fair question in New Hampshire. Democrat’s were not shy about their support for a biomass bailout. A bill that forces ratepayers to fund what amounts to a sop to big timber. Easy money for “waste wood” sold for fuel to generate electricity sold at above market rates that power companies must buy.
Mr. Trump’s “sop to big timber” doesn’t say anything about any of that but it does what the Biomass Bailout Bill advocates say needs doing.
Would Democrats be happier if Trump’s EO forced power companies to pay more for electricity? Here’s the headline. Trump EO finds Fuel for green energy. Ratepayers hit hardest. It’s a win-win-win.
Just ask the Biomass Magazine.com. In October of this year, they reported that over 90 groups from all over the spectrum recognize,
“the importance of holistic solutions to mitigate the effects we are already seeing in U.S. forests due to climate change. Using excess biomass resources that are produced from existing forest management activities as well as wastes from the forest products sector supports forest health while reducing wildfire risk. These activities also create economic opportunity for rural America in the form of local jobs and economic activity.
Doing what Mr. Trump’s executive Order asks appeals to a bipartisan purpose. It creates jobs, makes the wooded bits healthier, and reduces wildfire risk. What’s not to love? Aside from the Global Warming rubbish?
Did anyone tell Mr. Obama?
There are those who believe that the opioid crisis is a problem that solves itself. Eventually, users overdose and die. The same thinking appears to apply to forest management. Yes, burning is part of that toolbox. Uncontrolled wildfires are not. They accomplish something similar to letting opioids kill users – unacceptable risk at an intolerable cost.
Which begs us to wonder why the enlightened and environmentally conscious Obama administration went out of its way to make forest fires harder to fight. Back in 2012, the Colorado Gazette reported that,
“Less than a year ago, the same administration seemed to be doing its best to leave the Forest Service ill-equipped to deal with the mounting wildfire threat, by summarily canceling a contract with a company that furnished roughly one-third of the wildfire-fighting tankers in the agency’s already-depleted fleet. That action might loom large as calls mount for an investigation into why the agency’s air assets seem inadequate to meet the threat.”
At a time when tens of thousands of acres were burning, you’d be right to guess that there was inadequate liberal outrage to meet the threat. Why? Uncontrolled fires served some other “better” master.
Selling the Narrative
The Left needs stories to sell their apocalypse. Creating j0bs for veterans and homeless people to clear deadwood makes for a beautiful personal interest story. But it doesn’t have a lasting impact. Thousands of acres burning out of control makes the news every night for weeks. People fleeing their homes. Property destroyed. It buys earned media for environmentalists and narratives that promote a Leftist political solution. The press eagerly provides it.
Mr. Trump isn’t interested in that game. Not here. He was presented with a problem and reacted sensibly. Let’s get in front of this. Protect, the land, the people, and their stuff.
Goals. (a) To protect communities and watersheds, to better prevent catastrophic wildfires, and to improve the health of America’s forests, rangelands, and other Federal lands, the Secretaries shall each develop goals and implementation plans for wildfire prevention activities and programs in their respective departments. In the development of such goals and plans:
There are a lot of goals. Cooperation and coordination with state and local communities are emphasized. It’s a huge task and this is a drop in the bucket. But we have a bucket. And a plan to have a plan to fill the bucket.
Hey Progressives, Isn’t this Progress?
Open-minded folks will agree that this is a better place to be than where we were. That it is necessary. And it has a manifold of benefits that appeal to groups across the spectrum as long as they agree not to politicize it.
On that, there will be those who cannot agree. The problem is more valuable to them than any solution that does not advance the goals of the Climate Cult. Even a goal like biomass energy.
So, I’d be interested to see any comment from Granite Stae leftists on this EO. Their support for the Biomass Bailout tells us this Executive order is a proper response. Their knee-jerk objection to it would not surprise me.
Feel free to pass on anything you find.
| EO
| Daily Caller
| Biomass Magazine