Did President Biden Make Fires Worse at the Beck and Call of an Environmentalist Group?

As fires ravage the Carolinas and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster declares a state of emergency, I remember how my brother and I spent long, hot summers in rural Colorado, cleaning up dry brush and dead wood to protect our mountain home from fires. My father, a volunteer fireman, taught us the importance of forest management from a young age, because it was essential to protect us from harm.

For this reason, I was horrified to learn that President Joe Biden had issued an executive order that might prevent this forest clearing in the name of protecting “old-growth forests.” Rather than allowing for the three strategies to prevent forest fires—targeted logging, controlled burns, and cleaning brush from the forest floor—his administration promoted a top-down bureaucratic approach that might have contributed to some of the horrific wildfires Americans have suffered in California and the Carolinas this year.

“The Biden administration unquestionably diverted time and energy away from addressing the overwhelming wildfire and forest health crisis that is the true threat to forest stands of every age class,” Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., told The Daily Signal.

Westerman, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, warned that “mismanagement of our forests can have dire consequences.” However, he promoted the bipartisan “Fix Our Forests Act,” which he claimed will “help land managers address this issue head on.”

The issue has taken on renewed importance amid devastating fires on both coasts. In January, major fires like the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire burned more than 47,000 acres of land in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. California released new statewide fire maps that show 1.4 million acres of land in high and very-high risk zones, up from roughly 800,000 in older maps. At least 29 people have died in the fires. (Read more from “Did President Biden Make Fires Worse at the Beck and Call of an Environmentalist Group?” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr