Last week, the East Coast experienced the kind of smoky conditions Idahoans live with every summer. As I told my colleagues in Washington, DC: “Welcome to our air in the West.”
Decades of federal mismanagement have turned the West’s forests into tinderboxes and filled our summer months with smoke.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s an easy solution to clear up our skies and protect our communities: active forest management.
Actively managing our forests is the best way to prevent catastrophic wildfires, protect our watersheds, and provide healthy habitats for fish and wildlife.
During last week’s Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, I outlined my bill, the FIRESHEDS Act, to move this solution forward.
Extreme fuel buildup due to federal mismanagement is what causes these fires to become catastrophic. My FIRESHEDS Act is the solution to our forest health crisis and will empower on-the-ground land managers to reduce fire risk.
I’ve also worked with Senator Daines for quite some time to get the Cottonwood Fix passed to prevent resources from needlessly being duplicated and disrupting the progress we’ve made toward active forest management.
Active forest management is crucial to protecting our forests.
For wildfire resources, please visit www.risch.senate.gov.
