The time is right for some real leadership

Candidates for public office always tout their “leadership,” well there’s never been a greater need in Northern California.

This year we have lost 1.6 million acres of private and federal forests to fire, and it’s still August.

Who in the federal government will show real leadership and take real action now? The president, the House of Representatives, or the Senate? My vote in the next election cycle will tend on their response or lack of it.

The state and private forests are covered. The state of California mostly exempts private forests from bureaucratic and environmental red tape and allows private land owners to remove fire killed timber before it rots. Harvest and replanting projects are underway.

On the other hand, our charred National Forest acreage is a different story. Onerous laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act allow litigants to tie up USFS harvest and replanting projects in court until the trees are rotten and worthless. Also, the lack of sawmills that were closed by 25 years of “Spotted Owl Management” and export restrictions makes selling NF logs next to impossible.

We need an exemption from all the bureaucratic morass so we can harvest and lock up the carbon in those dead NF trees and replant to start cleaning the air again.

— Bill Smith, Chico