(Via Kim du Toit) Fox News' title is Senate Rule Stalls Forest Fire Prevention Measures, but it's really about Plurality Leader Tommy Daschle:
Arguing "what is good for the goose should be good for the gander," Western senators are scratching their heads over Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's delay on the Interior spending bill, which sets aside cash to help prevent forest fires.Tommy is already in trouble with the Ecoweenies, but their knickers will really get knotted if the "exemption" moves beyond Tommy's home state.
They say that after 6.5 million acres of western forests burned to the ground this summer, the South Dakota Democrat, who ushered through legislation this summer to protect his state's lands, should be quick to speed through passage of the measure.
"We've been asking that question, and so have the people in the rest of the western states -- as have his own Democratic colleagues," said Mike Tracy, spokesman for Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. "It's frustrating to watch the duplicity."
Craig has offered an amendment with Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to the Interior appropriations bill that would extend forest-thinning measures to high-risk public lands in western states. But the Craig amendment -- and a host of similar, competing proposals -- have been languishing as the Senate delays taking up the Interior spending bill.
Tracy said Craig's amendment mirror's language added by Daschle to an emergency spending bill this summer that exempts certain lands in South Dakota from the red tape and lawsuits that often plague forest-thinning projects in targeted high-risk areas by the U.S Forest Service.
At the time, Daschle said the language merely codified an agreement already reached by the government, environmental groups and the timber industry.
"Americans understand that Sen. Daschle's bold action was necessary - but they don't understand why it's only a good idea for South Dakota," wrote Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Montana, in a statement to FoxNews.com.
Western lawmakers are concerned that old growth in national forests has created a virtual tinderbox of public lands in their states, and has been responsible in part for the 65,000 nearly uncontrollable blazes that killed 20 firefighters this summer.
Daschle would not return repeated calls for comment.
