With President Biden’s climate change agenda on a collision course with the West’s wildfire pandemic, I can only imagine that the President has Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack, on speed dial from the Oval Office.
The Agriculture Secretary oversees a $146 billion annual budget. Most of it – 65 percent - is allocated to food and nutrition programs that target the needy. Five percent goes to “forestry,” mainly the U.S. Forest Service and mostly – about 55 percent – to battle forest fires.
The shrinking remainder of the Forest Service’s shriveling $5.345 billion budget goes to the management side where, theoretically at least, it is used to address the underlying causes of the wildfire pandemic that is sweeping the West. About $510 million.
The President must have been horrified by the latest Congressional Research Service wildfire statistics published January 4. Given that the U.S. Forest Service is part of Secretary Vilsack’s kingdom, he surely drew the short straw when it came time to deliver the bad news. The conversation probably went something like this:
Secretary Vilsack: Good afternoon, Mr. President. Thanks for fitting me into your busy schedule. I know you have a lot on…
Your tax-deductible contribution allows us to continue providing science-based forestry information with the goal of ensuring healthy forests forever.
DONATE NOWMcLeod and Douglas recorded their observations in daily journals that describe miles of sparse prairie burned clear of most vegetation, punctuated by scattered groves of trees - mostly oak with some conifer, more so on the eastern slopes of the Coast Range. There was no "sea of old growth" – or even second growth.
Global warming is real and urgent, and is primarily caused by the burning of carbon-based fuels
Now that Tom Vilsack is back in the driver's seat at the Department of Agriculture, it’s time for him to stroll over to the White House and have a heart-to-heart chat with President Biden about the West’s wildfire pandemic. Here’s how it might go:
We bring you this letter by rancher Dave Daley that tells of his harrowing experience last summer when the Bear Fire struck his property and destroyed his land and cattle. We ask you read this and remember just what is at stake each day our forests go unmanaged. This letter has been split into two parts
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DONATE NOWsixty years ago today - March 1, 1961 – less than two months after his presidency began, John Fitzgerald Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924, creating the Peace Corps. In the ensuing years, more than 235,000 American volunteers have served in 141 countries around the world.
Tom Vilsack is back in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He is almost a cult hero among midwestern farm, ethanol and biotech lobbies.
Why do those who purport to care so much about western Oregon's forests continue to ignore and/or deny such a vast storehouse of history – information that sheds an illuminating light on the past, to say nothing of the future?
A speech by Jim Petersen on the state of western watersheds.
Now DeLuca has immersed himself – and the College of Forestry he leads – in an eyebrow-raising proposal that could cost the forestry school dearly. At issue is the political fate of the Elliott State Forest, an enormously valuable natural asset...
Your tax-deductible contribution allows us to continue providing science-based forestry information with the goal of ensuring healthy forests forever.
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