The House will vote on legislation this week to protect sequoias from wildfires and to safeguard the use of lead ammunition for hunting on public lands.
The “Save Our Sequoias Act” would speed and expand forest thinning and related actions in and around groves of giant sequoia trees, which are threatened by worsening wildfires in California.
Having passed the Natural Resources Committee by unanimous consent, H.R. 2709 is poised to get overwhelming bipartisan support when lawmakers consider it on the fast-track rules that require a two-thirds majority for passage.
“When I was in forestry school, we were under the impression that you really couldn’t destroy a giant sequoia by fire,” said Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) during a markup in March. Westerman is a Yale University-trained forester.
