Bush signs a bill he says will curb wildfire threat

WASHINGTON — President Bush signed legislation Wednesday that he said would help prevent "sudden and needless destruction" from wildfires like the California blazes that destroyed thousands of homes.

"With the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, we will help to prevent catastrophic wildfires," Bush said in a signing ceremony at the Agriculture Department. He was joined by firefighters who fought the Western blazes.

"We're proud to be standing with them up here," the president said. He said wildfires had destroyed 11 million acres over the past two years and killed 22 people in Southern California this year alone.

Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., who sponsored the House version of the legislation, compared the measure to President Theodore Roosevelt's call for the establishment of the National Forest system 99 years ago this week.

Idaho Sen. Michael Crapo, among the Republicans who negotiated the final version of the plan, said the bill creates "the potential for some of the most effective environmental legislation in decades.

"Now we must implement this law with the same pragmatic thinking to realize its potential to protect our communities, heal our environment and ecosystems and create jobs in rural and forested areas," he said.

Critics, however, decried it as a payback to the timber industry, which will get greater access to pristine stands of old-growth trees.

"This is opening the gates to the timber industry," said Denise Boggs, executive director of Utah Environmental Congress. "The fires in California had nothing to do with national forests, period. This legislation is not going to prevent catastrophic fires. Teddy Roosevelt is turning in his grave that they dare use his name. It's not going to stop wildfires."

The vast majority of wildfires occur on private land, Boggs added. So when wildfires break out next summer and the next, "Mr. Bush and his administration are going to have a difficult time explaining to the American people how this legislation is not going to be a panacea for wildfires."

President Bush acknowledged that it wouldn't prevent all wildfires.

"This law will not prevent every fire, but it is an important step forward," the president said. Decrying what he said has been a "misguided forest policy," Bush said that "a lot of people have been well-intentioned. They saved the trees. But they lost the forest. We want to save the forest."

"We'll help save lives and property and we'll help protect our forests from sudden and needless destruction," Bush said.