EXTRA! Save Our Sequoias Act back in play
McCarthy, others, announce reintroduction on Arbor Day
Extra Edition - Friday, April 28, 2022
Perspective
On Arbor Day in Washington, D.C., Speaker of the House and Congressman of California’s 20th Congressional District Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, R-AR, Rep. Scott Peters, D-CA, and a bipartisan group of members reintroduced the Save Our Sequoias Act,
McCarthy called it a bill “to enact commonsense solutions to fix our broken forest management system to protect our giant sequoias.”
Versions of the bill were introduced last year in both the House and Senate, but the bills died with no action taken before the end of the last Congress. A copy of the latest House version was not available for review at the time of this post.
Although last year’s House version was supported by a number of groups including the Save the Redwoods League, it drew criticism from other groups including Earthjustice, the League of Conservation Voters, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Forest Legacy, John Muir Project of Earth Island and — how can I resist including this group — Great Old Broads for Wilderness.
The Senate version appeared to address some of the concerns raised by those groups.
Latest version
Speaker McCarthy and a bipartisan group of members gathered together to have a conversation about the bill on U.S. Capitol grounds, referencing a giant sequoia in the background.
Other original co-leads of the SOS Act include Rep. Tom McClintock, R-CA, Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-CA, Rep. David Valadao, R-CA, Rep. Jim Costa, D-CA, and Rep. John Garamendi, D-CA.
“In the last few years, we’ve lost 20 percent of our groves and trees because of fire,
McCarthy said in the statement. “A lot of that is because of the mismanagement or the regulations that are holding us back to save them. We put our minds together on how we can get in front of this and save the trees we have left for the next generation, and that’s how we got the Save Our Sequoias (Act).”
“The giant sequoia is the most iconic tree on the planet,” Westerman said. “The solution is easy — we need to reintroduce low-intensity fire on a regular interval, and we can restore these forests and make them healthy, not just for generations, but for millennia to come.”
“…The Save Our Sequoias Act is such a smart, sensible, science-based, targeted, circumscribed way in which we can reduce those dead and dying fuels and let people know this is not about clear-cutting, this is not about deforestation – it’s about stewardship,” Panetta said.
“Excess timber is going to come out of a forest in only one of two ways: either we’ll carry it out, or nature will burn it out,” McClintock said.
Referencing the bill’s use of categorical exclusions to some review required by the National Environmental Policy Act, McClintock said that would be of benefit to giant sequoias.
“When we got a categorical exclusion from these laws for the Tahoe Basin, we saw the environmental studies go from four years down to less than four months…that same provision is in this bill to protect the Sequoia groves.”
“The damage created by these fires is going to be everlasting – it’s going to change the history of that area,” Valadao said. “[This bill] has a benefit for us, for our health, for our community, has a benefit for our tourism, and it’s an overall good package.”
Costa and Peters were not present for the announcement, but their remarks were included in videotaped segments.
“I’m proud to join with my colleagues here from California to other parts of the country that understand the importance of America’s inheritance, our natural inheritance. And these giant sequoias are part of America’s and California’s inheritance that we must preserve and protect,” Costa said.
“The Save Our Sequoias Act creates a comprehensive approach to protecting giant sequoia groves against wildfire and restoring recently burnt groves,” Peters added. “This vital piece of legislation [is] going to save California’s truly great treasure.”
Background
Background provided by McCarthy included the fact that over the last several years, nearly 20 percent of the world’s total giant sequoia population has been lost to catastrophic wildfires.
According to the Speaker, this was “exacerbated by overreaching regulations that make it extremely difficult for the Forest Service and National Park Service to do their jobs. To remedy this, the SOS Act would work to ensure that land managers have tools for success while streamlining emergency procedures to identify high-priority giant sequoia groves at the most risk of wildfire and implement grove protection projects to reduce that risk.
In a news release, the sponsors said the SOS Act would:
Improve interagency coordination;
Use science to target high-priority areas;
Expedite environmental reviews for grove protection projects using streamlined emergency procedures already in place; and
Provide land managers with new resources to get the job done.
I’ll follow up with a comparison of the new bill to the House and Senate versions from last year in an upcoming newsletter (once the text is released).
Thanks for reading!