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A revived bipartisan measure in the House of Representatives farm bill claims it will save California’s giant sequoias from worsening wildfires.
The Save Our Sequoias Act, announced by former Rep. Kevin McCarthy before he retired in 2023, would allow officials to take emergency action to protect California’s iconic trees from catastrophic wildfires and other threats, including in Kings Canyon National Parks , Sequoia and Yosemite.
But many environmental groups say the law doesn’t live up to its name. Instead, they say that by bypassing normally required environmental reviews, the act could cause unintended harm.
“It’s just a fictional problem looking for a solution,” said Brett Hartl, director of government affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity.
Lawmakers from both parties and conservation groups say the bill addresses an urgent need to protect giant sequoias, which can live for thousands of years and are among the most fire-resistant trees.
Nearly 20% of the largest, oldest giant sequoias were lost during recent fire seasons, experts told a House committee last year.
“All Americans want to protect our environment,” McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, said in a statement last year. “The Save Our Sequoias Act provides a common-sense, bipartisan solution to the poor forest management and burdensome regulations that make it extremely difficult to protect California’s historic giant sequoias.”
Part of the bill would waive certain environmental reviews that require the federal government to examine the impact of proposed actions before taking them. The government requires analyzes under the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.
The worries
Hartl and others worry that forest management without environmental research could have unintended consequences and accelerate logging, which environmental groups say could harm the ecosystem. And the bill doesn’t address climate change, they said, a driving force behind worsening fires.
Lawmakers, especially Republicans, Hartl said in an interview, “just want to say, ‘more logging.’ Is it a shame that it’s bipartisan? Yes, because it’s just not a good answer to the problem. It is not particularly well based on facts.”
The groups favor forest thinning and prescribed burns, said Hartl and Anna Medema, deputy director of legislative and administrative advocacy at the Sierra Club. But federal agencies are already allowed to conduct forest management, they say: Federal dollars should focus on strengthening agencies that work in accordance with environmental laws.
“That is really our biggest objection to it,” Medema said in an interview. “It is not about opposing any management or treatment in a redwood forest, but it is about opposing management and treatment that occurs without proper scientific guidance and without public input as required by these two very important environmental laws.”
The Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity were among more than five dozen groups that wrote a letter last week to the House committee working on the farm bill, rejecting the Save Our Sequoias Act and other parts of the sweeping agricultural and food legislation that is normally disapproved. updated twice per decade.
Lawmakers in favor of the law say recent years of wildfires have proven the need for rapid intervention to protect California’s iconic trees before an environmental review can be completed.
“Like many Californians, I have loved the redwoods since childhood, whether they are in the Sierra Nevada or further up the North Coast,” Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, said in an interview. “When you see how they were affected by the recent fires we had in Kings Canyon Sequoia National Park. This is part of our legacy.”
“We must do everything we can do from a forest management perspective to protect, preserve and save our redwoods,” said Costa, an original Democratic co-sponsor of the bill. “I believe this legislation furthers the Biden administration’s efforts, which are proactive measures to protect them, and also includes authority for states to streamline NEPA.”
Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, said in a statement last year when House lawmakers reintroduced the measure as a separate bill that the law “will restore active management by providing land managers with critical tools to quickly implement projects for fuel reduction and reforestation. to save our precious redwoods for future generations.”
About 57% of California’s forests are federally owned; 40% is privately controlled and 3% is state owned.
When not catastrophic, fires are part of the regeneration of redwoods, many of which are between 800 and 300 feet tall. Fires on the forest floor cause the tree cones to dry out and release seeds. The timing of the fire burns debris, exposes the ground and allows sunlight to grow new trees when others in the area have fallen.
The farm bill
Congress is still a long way from passing a final farm bill.
The House of Representatives, which has a slim Republican majority, and the Senate, with a slight Democratic majority, are at odds over some of the biggest spending in the bill for things like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, crop insurance and commodity prices.
The redwoods measure, if passed into the farm bill, would give the existing Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition — a group of federal, tribal, state and local agencies and organizations — the authority to oversee much of the process of protection of the bushes.
Medema expressed concern that extending authority to the group instead of providing oversight within the Forest Service, a federal agency, “could muddy the waters of the process and take away some public involvement because there isn’t as much strict laws are to detain them.” accountability in a transparent process.”
A spokesperson for the Save The Redwoods League, a nonprofit affiliated with the coalition, declined to comment after The Bee contacted multiple coalition members. The spokesperson pointed to comments made by Joanna Nelson, the league’s director of Science and Conservation Planning, during a House committee meeting in May 2023.
“Today we hear about the challenges of wildfires – exacerbated by drought, climate change and fire exclusion practices – which are occurring with a frequency and severity that, if they continue at their current pace, could wipe out our irreplaceable and beautiful giant. redwood forests,” Nelson said, noting that nearly 20% of the largest and oldest sequoias have been lost due to the recent catastrophic fire seasons in 2020 and 2021.
“We are short on time in this emergency,” Nelson said. “We also know what we need to do to deal with this emergency. There is substantial evidence that active forest management reduces the risk of giant sequoia mortality during wildfires.”
