Editorial: Western senators misleading on fires

Thursday, Sept. 7, 2000 | 9:41 a.m.

On Tuesday, their first day back from a month-long recess, Republican senators from the West couldn't pass up a cheap shot. From the floor of the Senate they claimed the Clinton administration bears part of the responsibility for the wildfires that have ravaged the West. Senators argued that the administration hasn't reduced the abundant growth of trees, a buildup that they contend has contributed to the fires. Talk about a smoke screen.

The GOP senators conveniently omitted from their criticisms a bipartisan report prepared by the Congressional Research Service that said there was little -- if any -- connection between wildfires and the drop in timber harvests on national forest lands. For that matter, some of the worst fires have occurred on lands that have undergone logging.

All that's going on here is a Republican push to please the powerful timber industry, which has chafed under the Clinton administration's timber policies. The timber industry wants to increase its logging on national forest lands and has bitterly opposed Clinton's proposal to ban road building in 43 million acres of national forests, a policy that would preclude much logging. Many Western states have been devastated by these fires, but politicization of this issue is shameless.