\u201cGavin Newsom famously said, \u2018Oh, this fire, it was caused by global warming,’\u201d Zybach recalled. \u201cAnd he\u2019s sitting in the ruins of a fire that was set by the Forest Service \u2026 it\u2019s very revealing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cAnybody that says it\u2019s global warming is an idiot,\u201d Zybach said. \u201cThey\u2019ve either been indoctrinated or they\u2019re just not that bright and they\u2019re just repeating what they were told.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2025\/06\/23\/california-democrats-wildfires-donald-trump-regulations\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n
<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\nJOSH EDELSON\/AFP via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n By Thomas English<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As California braces for another wildfire season, forestry experts warn that decades of regulatory mismanagement \u2014 not climate change or Trump-era budget cuts \u2014 have left forests dangerously overloaded with fuel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democrats have blamed climate change<\/a> and agency rollbacks<\/a> for creating tinderbox conditions, but forestry experts see a self-inflicted wound that began festering as far back as the Clinton administration. Three decades of environmental litigation, they say, has warped forest management into a Byzantine maze of legal delays and procedural dead ends \u2014 leaving millions of acres to accumulate fuel faster than anyone can clear it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The blame game intensified Friday as Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom took to X to point fingers at President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDonald Trump isn\u2019t just threatening CA\u2019s disaster aid, he\u2019s also pushing for dangerous cuts ahead of wildfire season,\u201d the governor said Friday. \u201cA 63% REDUCTION in the U.S. Forest Service\u2019s budget. A 30% REDUCTION in workforce \u2014 10,000 employees \u2026 He is literally playing politics with people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nDonald Trump isn\u2019t just threatening CA\u2019s disaster aid, he\u2019s also pushing for dangerous cuts ahead of wildfire season \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A 63% REDUCTION in the U.S. Forest Service\u2019s budget. A 30% REDUCTION in workforce \u2014 10,000 employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The agency is the nation\u2019s largest firefighting entity.\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/YrVKfyaBPv<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 20, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Newsom then accused Trump of \u201csabotage\u201d in a follow-up post<\/a> Saturday, citing a San Francisco Chronicle article<\/a> that reported less than 20% of National Guard troops deployed to Los Angeles were actually on the ground fighting the state\u2019s seven ongoing fires \u2014 the worst of which is the Monte Fire<\/a>, which burned over a thousand acres and was 90% contained as of Monday<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Bob Zybach, an author and wildfire expert who has led the Oregon Websites and Watersheds Project since 1996, sees a different cause for California\u2019s chronic wildfire problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe problem isn\u2019t all these massive numbers of wildfires,\u201d he told the Daily Caller News Foundation. \u201cThe problem is the financial end of it. It\u2019s not Trump, it\u2019s the people, the litigants, who keep suing to shut down the timber industry which has allowed the fuels to build up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Newsom\u2019s office did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThis documentary of the 1962 Bel Air Fire presents a better analysis of the 2025 Fires than anything I\u2019ve seen currently. The warnings of unmanaged chaparral and Santa Ana winds coupled with wooden buildings and inadequate water pressure seems to have been ignored \u2014 in fact, it\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Bob Zybach (@BobZybach) January 20, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Democrats have already begun a chorus of preemptive condemnations against Trump ahead of wildfire season. California Sen. Alex Padilla said<\/a> in February he expects the president\u2019s \u201cflagrantly illegal\u201d cuts to environmental agencies will \u201cjeopardize communities that depend on a robust federal response to our wildfire crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similarly, Newsom accused<\/a> Trump\u2019s cuts to the Forest Service of creating \u201crampant uncertainty ahead of peak wildfire season\u201d in May, sentiments echoed in stories from The New York Times<\/a> and the Los Angeles Times<\/a> in mid June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the numbers tell a story of long-accelerating destruction: before 2000, California experienced<\/a> 45 mega-fires over an entire century, but since then, 35 mega-fires have scorched the state in just 25 years, with 2020 alone burning 4.3 million acres and causing $19 billion in economic devastation, according<\/a> to Frontline Wildfire Defense. Zybach credits this worsening regulatory logjam to environmental lawsuits funded through the Equal Access to Justice Act<\/a> (EAJA), which pays plaintiffs\u2019 attorney fees when they beat the government in civil cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have paid these people to shut down the work that would, one, produce good income for our rural counties and rural families, but two, would greatly reduce wildfire risk,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The transformation began with the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan<\/a>, Zybach said, which started as the Clinton administration\u2019s bid to save a species of owl by designating 7.4 million acres of its habitat as completely off-limits to logging \u2014 ultimately resulting in a reduction of Pacific Coast timber harvests by 80-90%<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn the 1970s and \u201980s, California and Oregon didn\u2019t have these fires,\u201d Zybach explained. \u201cThen we put in the Clinton plan, the Northwest Forest Plan \u2026 I was on the cover of the national magazine Evergreen in 1994 and said, \u2018If we put in the Clinton plan, we\u2019re going to have catastrophic wildfires.\u2019 And my predictions were accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
California\u2019s wildfire response is handicapped by the National Environmental Policy Act<\/a> (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act<\/a> \u2014 two bills introduced by Democrats but signed into law by former President Richard Nixon \u2014 according to Nick Smith, a spokesman for the American Forest Resource Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe greatest obstacle to doing more forest management, especially on National Forest lands, is the cost and time requirements of federal environmental regulations,\u201d Smith said. \u201cNEPA alone typically adds an average of three-and-a-half years of planning time to thin one stand of overstocked forest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The human cost was shown in Berry Creek, California, destroyed in the 2020 North Complex where 16 people died<\/a> after protective forest thinning projects sat trapped in California Environmental Quality Act reviews, according<\/a> to the San Francisco Chronicle. The fire consumed 180,000 acres in 24 hours<\/a> through untreated forests, Sierra Forest Legacy reported<\/a>, incinerating the elementary school, fire station<\/a> and most homes while planned treatments languished in bureaucratic limbo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BERRY CREEK, CALIFORNIA \u2013 SEPTEMBER 14: A view of burned classrooms after the Berry Creek School was destroyed by the Bear Fire on September 14, 2020 in Berry Creek, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n \u201cGavin Newsom famously said, \u2018Oh, this fire, it was caused by global warming,’\u201d Zybach recalled. \u201cAnd he\u2019s sitting in the ruins of a fire that was set by the Forest Service \u2026 it\u2019s very revealing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By exploiting EAJA, outfits like the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) built a business model around suing the government, then billing taxpayers for it, Zybach said. Smith explained that even when these groups lose cases, they receive compensation for partial victories, creating a litigation industrial complex that profits while forests collect deadly fuel loads. The Center has collected at least $4 million in EAJA awards since 2001, according<\/a> to federal records<\/a>. CBD has disputed such characterizations in past congressional testimony<\/a>, telling lawmakers it \u201creceives little income from federal litigation fee and cost recovery\u201d and that any awards merely offset out-of-pocket expenses. The CBD did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Congress let EAJA\u2019s public reporting requirement lapse in 1995, only being reinstated<\/a> in 2019 \u2014 so for two decades there was no easy way to tally who was being paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But records show<\/a> agencies paid out more than $119 million in total in fiscal year 2024 for attorneys fees under EAJA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CBD has disputed such characterizations in past congressional testimony<\/a>, telling lawmakers it \u201creceives little income from federal litigation fee and cost recovery\u201d and that any awards merely offset out-of-pocket expenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUntil Democrats in particular are willing to stand up to the anti-forestry lobby and make significant changes to how these public lands are managed, it\u2019s going to be very difficult to manage these forests at a scale where we can really bend the curve of these destructive wildfires,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
California\u2019s forest management crisis reaches peak absurdity, Smith said, when governors must declare emergencies to perform basic maintenance \u2014 revealing a system wherein saving trees requires suspending laws designed to save trees. Newsom has repeatedly<\/a> invoked emergency powers to bypass California Environmental Quality Act<\/a> (CEQA) requirements, most recently in March<\/a>, a tacit acknowledgement that normal regulatory processes have become incompatible with forest survival. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnybody that says it\u2019s global warming is an idiot,\u201d Zybach said. \u201cThey\u2019ve either been indoctrinated or they\u2019re just not that bright and they\u2019re just repeating what they were told.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A good overview article of the problem, but these two quotes below are hilarious. \u201cGavin Newsom famously said, \u2018Oh, this fire, it was caused by global warming,’\u201d Zybach recalled. \u201cAnd he\u2019s sitting in the ruins of a fire that was set by the Forest Service \u2026 it\u2019s very revealing.\u201d \u201cAnybody that says it\u2019s global warming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12464,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12462\/revisions\/12464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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