This is the third in a series of talking points for you to share with your family and friends. The Protecting Public Lands Workgroup of EDP is sending out these informational alerts highlighting Tom McClintock’s dismal record on the environment. Most environmental issues in California cut across party lines so these are good points to bring up with your friends.
The following is a comparison how Morse and McClintock differ on 3 key environmental issues. Go to their websites for a more complete picture of where they stand. morse4congress.com and tommcclintock.com
WATER
Morse states, “I will work to direct resources toward our communities' needs rather than big water projects that don’t benefit us. Not only do big dams serve mainly to ship water out of our district, they are a far more dangerous and less cost effective approach than investing in the health of our watersheds."
McClintock believes, "We will not solve water shortages until we build new reservoirs. And we cannot build new reservoirs until we overhaul the radical environmental laws that have made their construction endlessly time consuming and ultimately cost prohibitive."
FIRE
Regarding the current increase in catastrophic wildfires, Morse states, " We know why they rage: clear cutting at the turn of the century and decades of fire prevention policy have led to overly dense forests. Investing in fire prevention would have dramatically diminished the devastation we are experiencing this week by thinning our forests, finding uses for skinny trees and forest waste, and issuing thoughtful permits for grazing and selective logging. These solutions would not only keep our community safe, they would create local jobs that cannot be outsourced.”
McClintock believes, “.. that excess timber comes out of the forest one way or another. It is either carried out or it burns out. When we carried it out, we had resilient healthy forests and a thriving economy as excess timber was sold and harvested before it could choke our forests to death."
This issue is not quite as obvious as McClintock would imply. He supported HR 2936, The Resilient Forest Act, which would severely undermine sustainable forest management and roll back critical safeguards for our nation’s forests. This legislation would allow large-scale timber projects to skip needed environmental reviews.
PUBLIC LANDS
Morse states, "The public lands in our district are not only treasured for their beauty and unique ecosystems but also because they are some of the greatest assets in our communities. Tom McClintock has pushed bills that would allow for the clear cutting of forests and sale of public lands across the West that-like our own- are for the enjoyment of all Americans."
McClintock voted against an amendment to HR3354, which would have forbidden the sale of public lands to private ownership. In fact, he urged Zinke to revoke the Berryessa Snow designation as a national monument and to reduce the size of all the other California monuments except the Sand to Snow National Monument. (LA Times 8/24/17)