Scott Dane, the executive director of the Associated Contract Loggers and Truckers of Minnesota, said at the Republican National Committee’s convention on Wednesday that President Donald Trump tried to prevent wildfires like the ones burning in California today, but his efforts were thwarted by environmental extremists backed by Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
“Under Obama-Biden, radical environmentalists were allowed to kill the forests,” Dane said. “Wildfire after wildfire shows the consequences. Managed forests—the kind my people work in — are healthy forests.”
“Under President Trump, we’ve seen a new recognition of the value of forest management in reducing wildfires,” Dane said. “And we’ve seen new support for our way of life—where a strong back and a strong work ethic can build a strong middle class.”
“We want to build families where we’re raised and stand by communities that have stood by us,” Dane said. “We want that way of life available for the next generation, and we want our forests there too.”
“President Trump, thank you for helping us do just that,” Dane said.
As Breitbart News reported, Trump and his Department of Interior and related agencies have been working to implement forest management practices that remove fuel for fires, including dead vegetation and thick tree groves. But environmentalists and the courts have resisted the effort:
The Trump administration has been working to prevent the deadly wildfires that have plagued the West by putting in place forest management practices, including thinning forests in Oregon to reduce fire fuel.
But environmental activists have taken the matter to court and found judges in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit who ruled the United States Forest Service put the plan in place “without assessing its environmental impact.”
Courthouse News reported on the legal battle:
In 2018, several conservation groups sued the agency over plans to sell timber harvested from about 12,000 acres of public land, including roughly 4,000 acres of old-growth conifers in Mt. Hood National Forest. The Forest Service dubbed it the Crystal Clear Restoration Project, saying the tree-thinning would reduce wildfire risk.
But Cascade Wildlands, Bark, and Oregon Wild argued that mature tree removal may not actually help with fire suppression, pointing to articles from The Open Forest Science Journal and Forest Ecology and Management, as well as other expert sources to support their claims.
“Logging has been a part of the Great American Story from the beginning, Dane said. “In fact, if you go to the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and look up, you can see loggers on one of the panels—New England settlers carving out a new world from the wilderness.”
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