Press Release Regarding S.4431 - Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020

[SoCoCAN!]

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Regarding S.4431 - Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020

From Sonoma County Climate Activist Network (SoCoCAN!)

Santa Rosa, CA

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Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Steve Daines (R-MT) have co-authored a bill, S.4431, the “Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020” which would increase wildfire risks to communities and ignore environmental laws. Opposing organizations including the Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, and National Parks Conservation Association, collectively representing millions of Americans, are saying that rather than focusing on making our homes and communities safer, the bill would result in increased unregulated logging in areas far from communities.

Congress needs to directly support communities in hardening homes and creating defensible space, rather than spending hundreds of millions for increased logging efforts – which have exacerbated recent fires in the West in areas where clear-cutting and thinning operations have removed the largest, most fire-resistant trees. 

S. 4431 is calling for more biomass energy production, which spews carbon dioxide and other toxic byproducts into the air by the ton. This bill completely ignores the value of forests as storehouses of carbon.  

Burning forest products in biomass plants is ineffective in protecting communities and forests during wildfire, is expensive, while masquerading as clean energy, and relies on government subsidies, hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars, so fewer dollars are then available for making us safer. Spending more on biomass would also take finite resources away from true clean energy sources.

S. 4431 is a discredited, unscientific initiative that will take us in the wrong direction. It is not a climate solution, will cause heavy increases in carbon released into the atmosphere and will drastically reduce the ability of forests to store and sequester carbon. The top fire scientists have shown us that we need to focus on defensible space and on creating and maintaining fire-safe homes. This bill needs to be completely modified, focusing on protecting homes and communities.
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Sonoma County Climate Activist Network (SoCoCAN!)
467 Sebastopol Ave.
Santa Rosa, CA 95401
SonomaC...@gmail.com
707-595-0320

The Sonoma County Climate Activist Network (SoCoCAN!) is a strong and active network of 50+ local climate change groups and over 400 individuals working together to address and reverse climate change.