87 Seconds's video: How the GOP fumbled on the California Wildfires Prevention And Killed 25 People as a Result

The House and Senate Republicans completely failed California's wildfire prevention. The Californian wildfires of 2020 are completely devastating the west coast. As of the writing of this video, 3.6 million acres of gone up in flames and 25 people have died. The cause for all of this destruction? According to President Trump it would actually be the Republicans! More specifically, he said that the two main causes of the fires are: - A lack of removal for dead trees and fallen leaves - Lack of cuts into the ground to isolate the fires into a specific area He listed three countries that do a great job in controlling their fires: Austria, Finland, and an unnamed European “Forest Nation”. His words, not mine. In Trump’s defense, both of his listed practices do actually work really well controlling burns. Removing dry shrubbery removes an extremely efficient tinder for a flame’s ignition. And digging wide trenches creates a barrier preventing an already existing flame from reaching new sources of fuel, thus allowing it to slowly burn itself out. The issue which arises is that while the vast majority of the East Coast public land is state-controlled, but more than half of California’s public forests are controlled by the federal government. 57% to be precise. Meaning it falls largely under the federal government’s- HIS federal government’s purview to prevent wildfires like this. Despite owning just 3% of the total forests in California (47% are owned by private companies, families, and Native American tribes), the state has been trying to get some maintenance done. But it's been a real rough journey For starters, the wildfires in the area have been explosive the past couple of years. 2019 saw more than a quarter of a million acres torched. 2018 burned 2 million acres and cost the government more than 26 billion dollars. 2017 burned 1.5 million acres and cost more than 18 billion dollars. 2017 and 2018 are the two costliest years to date. These 20 billion dollar fires is a major issue because until 2018, the Forest Service hasn’t been able to get any funding increases . Despite more than a decade of lobbying to increase the funding. The reason why it took so long to grant the needed funding increases was because the some House and Senate Republicans wanted to include provisions limiting the environmental reviews and ensuring the longevity of the logging industry. To quote the Forest Service, “As more As more and more of the agency’s resources are spent each year to provide the firefighters, aircraft, and other assets necessary to protect lives, property, and natural resources from catastrophic wildfires, fewer and fewer funds and resources are available to support other agency work—including the very programs and restoration projects that reduce the fire threat” And mind you, this report was written in 2015. The year before which "only" burned 625,000 acres in California. Less than half of what burned in 2017 and less than 1/3 of what burned in 2018. So why have the fires been so destructive lately? It’s two words: Climate. Change. You remember what Trump’s first cause of the fires was? The lack of removal of dead and dry plants. Here’s a fun fact: plants aren’t as resilient against changes as us humans. When the climate heats up, plants die. When the temperature rises (like because of climate change for example), it dries out the deadwood turning them into- in Trump’s words “become very dry like a match stick” and “years of dry leaves on the ground. It just sets it up. It’s just fuel for the fire”. And as a result, the provisions the House and Senate Republicans insisted on which ensured the future of the nation’s logging industry is now kind of moot with half of California’s forests on fire. So yes, at the end of the day Austria and Finland do have an exemplary record in containing wildfires. But that’s because the government responsible for maintaining those forests has actually been doing the required maintenance. - In case it wasn't obvious, there's no such thing as a "Forest Nation". Trump keeps talking about unnamed "Forest Nations" and "Forest Cities". There's a theory that one of the "Forest Cities" Trump talked about in his debate with Joe Biden is Vienna, but absolutely nobody has ever referred to Vienna as a "Forest City" until Trump started spewing it out. But I promise that you won't be any mention of those two phrases being used anytime before 2020. Not even on the 15th page of Google search results. Comment below if you find one and I'll give you a prize.