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'Catastrophic Blazes' Are Ravaging U.S. Forests. A GOP Lawmaker is Pushing Congress to Act

January 30, 2019

GOP Rep. Bruce Westerman wants to put federal forest management at the top of Congress's list of priorities for 2019 and avoid a repeat of 2018's deadly wildfire season.

Westerman wants to amend the House Committee on Natural Resources' rules package and carve out a specific policy jurisdiction on managing federal forests, a move the Arkansas representative hopes will force lawmakers to focus on crafting policies that include more active forest management.

The year "2018 was one of the worst fire years on record, as catastrophic blazes turned millions of acres to ash and threatened thousands of lives," Westerman said in a statement to The Daily Caller News Foundation. "Democrats are loving our trees to death, believing that a hands-off approach is the safest way to protect forests. In reality, the opposite is true."

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