Jon Kyl, October 31, 2003

Arizonans didn’t need any more evidence documenting the precarious condition of America’s national forests. Still, the devastating fires that have ravaged Southern California - which may ultimately rank as one of the worst disasters in that state’s history - sound yet another alarm about the further destruction in store if we fail to take immediate action to improve forest health.

This week - after more than a year of obstruction and debate - the Senate finally passed "Healthy Forests" legislation to help forest managers and other on-the-ground personnel provide critically-need treatments - such as forest thinning and other forms of hazardous fuel removal - to some of the areas at extreme risk of catastrophic wildfires or where endangered species habitats are threatened. It would also provide some help to states such as Arizona to combat insect infestations that have contributed to the sickly and fire-prone state of forests (also one of the factors contributing to the severity of the California fires). The administrative and legal processes would be expedited so that some needed treatments can be applied more quickly.

This bipartisan compromise - which I helped forge -- is far from a panacea. But it has the potential to be a good start. That is, if the bill actually becomes law.

Unfortunately, opponents have a strategy to keep that from happening. The ordinary procedure after a bill passes the Senate and is slightly different than one approved by the House of Representatives is to send the bill to what’s called a House-Senate Conference Committee, where differences can be reconciled. Senate Democratic leaders have already threatened to block that procedure or oppose even the most minor of changes to the Senate bill. This blockade would effectively kill the legislation.

Thus, while publicly expressing support for a forest health compromise, the Democratic leadership signaled it intends to use procedural tactics to obstruct the bill behind the scenes.

These continual delays have exacted a terrible price. While the Senate has been bogged down in debate, millions of acres of beautiful, pristine forests have been destroyed by fires, property damage estimates have reached into millions, and countless fragile ecosystems have been displaced or destroyed. Most tragically, people have died, including fire fighters trying to contain a wildfire’s damage.

After the Rodeo-Chediski fire in Arizona - which destroyed half a million acres - I thought we’d finally get some action in the Senate. Whole towns were evacuated, people lost their lives, and property damage totaled in the millions. This year, the Aspen fire near Tucson destroyed 350 homes. And similar disasters affected many other states. Surely after these tragedies, I thought, we could finally reach a compromise.

Yet forest health opponents - consisting generally of a small number of radical, but powerful, environmental groups - continued to exert enormous pressure on their Democratic allies in Congress to block any meaningful compromise. They have an unjustifiable and unshakable fear that forest thinning today will one day open the door to commercial "logging" of entire forests. And they’ve angrily attacked those of my colleagues - such as California Senator Dianne Feinstein -- who dared to stray from the party line.

It’s time for some accountability here -- and not just from members of the Senate. After every massive fire, there’s invariably some public official who complains that the Bush administration hasn’t devoted enough money to fire prevention. Over the years, of course, we’ve allocated millions toward fire prevention and suppression - but that hasn’t solved the problem. The Forest Service now estimates that nearly 40 cents out of every dollar it receives is devoted to complying with duplicative and unnecessary legal requirements and staving off nuisance lawsuits filed by fringe "environmental" groups. And those hurdles delay treatments for months, if not years - often until it’s too late.

Yet few of the same officials so quick to criticize a Republican administration appear willing to push a recalcitrant Democratic minority in the Senate to end its stubborn blockade of a bill that would address this problem. Fewer still make much of the fact that people calling themselves environmentalists are fighting tooth and nail to grind to a halt a bill that nearly all experts agree will protect the environment!

Arizonans can certainly share my frustration. We’ve lost some irreplaceable treasures during the last few fire seasons. To come so close to a workable compromise - imperfect as it may be - only to face the likelihood that it will be undercut through backroom dealings is extremely disappointing.

We will keep working for this bipartisan legislation. We don’t have the option of giving up.

Jon Kyl is a Republican senator from Arizona.