Sequoia Portal

Kevin McCarthy’s HR 8168 – so called
“SAVE OUR SEQUOIAS BILL”
IS
COUNTERFEIT!

• This Bill is a dream come true for the timber industry and their cohorts! It could dismantle our Southern Sierra Forests and Groves. IT IS A LIE! IT IS A TROJAN HORSE

THERE is NO EMERGENCY! The groves are regenerating after fire as they have for centuries!

• It sidesteps EVERY BEDROCK ENVIRONMENTAL LAW that protects our most fragile and vulnerable public lands! NEPA, ESA, Clean Water Act, FACA and the Wilderness Act! In this Bill, agencies are REQUIRED to use Categorical Exemptions from the National Environmental Policy Act! Projects are predetermined to NOT violate the Endangered Species Act and specifically names the Pacific Fisher and the California Spotted Owl.
• The Bill applies to Sequoia, Sierra and Tahoe National Forests, the Case Mountain Management Area (BLM), Kings Canyon National Park, Sequoia, and Yosemite National Parks—and it would amend the Wilderness Act to allow projects!
• The Bill’s powerful “Coalition” (already formed!) that makes recommendations and decisions exempt from the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) The public is locked out! It is overwhelmingly pro-commodity extraction and human manipulation!
• The Bill approves specific timber management (commercial logging) strategies— “site prep” (clear out every living thing before planting), “release” (remove non-tree species), “chemical treatments” (Round-up and strychnine for rodent control) mastication, thinning, removal of dead trees, dying trees and trees at risk of dying (ANY tree), AND expands the market for biochar and biomass! Each project can be up to two thousand acres inside groves and three thousand acres outside of groves! Projects can be almost anywhere in our forests!
• The Giant Sequoia National Monument was established to PROTECT the groves from Sequoia National Forest’s prior invasive logging inside and around their groves. We thought Monument designation stopped that! This Bill will undo ALL Sequoia Monument protections AND allow destruction of ANY forested areas on public lands ANYWHERE THROUGHOUT THE SEQUOIA’S RANGE.
• There is NOTHING in this Bill to protect or help sequoia groves! Recently burned groves are RESTORING THEMSELVES - as they have done for more than one hundred centuries! Millions of sequoia seedlings carpet these burned groves- Do they think the public is stupid enough to think that any agency can replace full-grown 3200-year-old red barked sequoias? ALL the iconic ancient giants started as tiny seedlings, and they are already growing– immediately seeded by their scorched giant sequoia parents! As it has always been in the groves. And the majority of the largest giants are NOT DEAD.

••• THE ONLY prudent course of action is to OBSERVE, MONITOR and DOCUMENT natural grove response to fire. NO INTERVENTION in burned groves should be planned for at least a decade and ONLY if a unique situation exists. Prescribed fire should be prudently used in groves and forests not recently burned. NOTE: Real hazard trees were removed immediately after post fire and can be removed for public safety anytime. This has always been true!

This Bill is a warning shot to ALL protected lands nationwide! If the EFFECTS of climate change can be an excuse to breakdown environmental protections, then EVERY square inch of earth is a target for “projects!’ The ONLY VALID PROTECTION FOR OUR PUBLIC LANDS AND OUR EARTH is to fight like hell to slow and reverse the human causes of CLIMATE CHANGE!

ACTION NEEDED!

••• HELP! These GOOD Members of Congress co-sponsored this Bill! THEY WERE DUPED!! Are you or your friends in their Districts? CONTACT THEM NOW! Urge them to withdraw their sponsorship of the SOS Bill! Sequoia champion, Martin Litton, would be in Anna Eshoo’s office banging on the desk!! And it isn’t too early to talk to your Senators!         

https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/sequoias_opposition_letter_6-21-22.pdf         
https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/hr8168/BILLS-117hr8168ih.xml