Today, Interior Secretary Zinke and Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, held a briefing call on recent wildfires and forest management. They discussed the Trump administration’s plans to call upon Congress through the vehicle of the 2018 Farm bill for more authority to clear-cut forests, under the guise of “forest management.”
Sandra Purohit, Government Relations Legislative Counsel, Defenders of Wildlife issued this statement:
“The Trump administration is manipulating the California wildfires and the tragic loss of life and property for even more environmental rollbacks. Secretaries Perdue and Zinke asked Congress for more authority to log forests but this is not a problem of authority. Congress gave the Trump administration substantial new authority, legal tools and more money to address forest wildfires just this past January, yet not a single project has been completed under this newfound authority.
“Leading forest fire experts and hundreds of scientists are on record opposing the very measures that the Trump administration is calling for in the Farm Bill. The administration wants to point fingers, propose rollbacks and promote harmful logging practices rather than follow the science. We hope the Farm Bill reflects the science and not the administration’s rhetoric.”
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For nearly 80 years, Defenders of Wildlife has worked to protect and restore America’s wildlife at risk of extinction, advancing a vision of a future in which wildlife thrives, sustained by broad public support and a resilient network of healthy lands and waters. With a network of more than 2 million supporters, Defenders is an advocate for innovative solutions to safeguard wildlife for generations to come. To learn more, please visit https://defenders.org/newsroom or follow us on Instagram @defendersofwildlife.
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