Sep 5, 2000 - 07:44 PM
Senators to Examine Clinton Administration's Role in Western
Fires
By John Hughes Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Western senators said Tuesday they will examine
whether the Clinton administration was adequately prepared to
fight wildfires and whether administration policies have put more
public land at risk.
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, questioned whether the administration
underfunded fire prevention to secure money for acquiring lands
for environmental protection.
"I'm sure that at the time the president had money taken from
these fire budgets he didn't understand that his lands legacy
would be millions of acres of charred trees and lost wildlife
habitat," Craig said.
Craig said he would hold hearings on the administration's role in
the fires in coming weeks in the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee's forests and public land management
subcommittee, which he chairs.
An administration official said there is no evidence that
administration policies have caused the fires.
A bipartisan congressional report last week showed little or no
connection between wildfires and the decline in timber harvests
on federal land, Agriculture Department Undersecretary Jim Lyons
said.
"Politicizing the situation and trying to turn it into a debate
over administration policies is not conducive to our working
together," said Lyons, who oversees the Forest Service.
The Agriculture and Interior departments as early as next week
are expected to ask President Clinton to request roughly $1.2
billion from Congress to repair lands damaged by the fires this
year and prevent fires next year.
Western senators made the criticisms on the Senate floor during
their first day back from more than a one-month recess.
The senators told of going home to their states and seeing smoke
from fires that have burned nearly 6.6 million acres across the
nation. Some said Clinton policies, such as a proposal to ban
road building in 43 million acres of national forests, would only
worsen the fire threat in coming years.
"I want to express my deep concerns over the mismanagement of the
national forest system that's led to one of the worst fire
systems in the history of the United States of America," said
Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyoming.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said the administration has made no
plans to reduce the thick growth of trees and brush to reduce the
fire risk in forests.
"It's been a fear that if you clean this up, you're logging," he
said.
Environmentalists accuse the GOP of trying to use the fires to
boost national forest logging levels, which have declined about
70 percent over the last decade.
A Washington state environmental group, the Pacific Biodiversity
Institute, released a study Tuesday that found only 38 percent of
the land that was burned was in roadless or wilderness areas.
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