The White House on Tuesday called on Congress to provide expanded authority to thin out the West’s tinder dry forests, in an attempt to help prevent the kind of cataclysmic wildfires that have ravaged California over the past two weeks.
President Donald Trump in a statement called on Congress to give his administration expanded powers in the pending farm bill to ramp up the removal of trees in overgrown forests. A House version of the bill contains some of those powers, while the Senate’s doesn’t.
Trump last weekend toured the town of Paradise, Calif., virtually destroyed by the 151,373 acre Camp Fire, which has killed at least 81 people and destroyed 12,600 homes.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said Tuesday they hope Congress will give their agencies powers including streamlined regulatory approvals to increase the removal of trees in overgrown forests, which many forestry experts blame for the growing number of wildfires in California and other Western states.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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