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Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
Money to fight forest fires was diverted
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Money to prevent forest fires now ravaging the
West went
instead to President Clinton's prized lands legacy
initiative and
to his new national monuments.
Congressional and Interior Department aides
confirmed
the White House cut the Interior Department's request of
$322 million for fire preparedness, or prevention, to
$305
million for this year. At the same time, the White House
increased its budget request for land acquisitions from
$15
million to $49 million.
"Their priorities are using the money for land
acquisition
and a lot of different things, like building a visitor
center at a
new monument," said Les Rosenkrance, former director of
the National Interagency Fire Center.
The lands legacy initiative is Mr. Clinton's
conservation
effort to purchase land and preserve it as open space.
Mr.
Clinton also has declared nearly a dozen new national
monuments during his two terms in office.
Documents obtained by The Washington Times show an
even greater cut proposed for next year's firefighting
season.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) requested $400
million, which the White House slashed to $297 million
in its
2001 budget request -less than current funding.
At the same time, the White House increased the
agency's
land acquisition fund from $49 million to $60 million.
This summer's record-breaking fire season has
produced
nearly 69,000 fires, which have burned 5.5 million
acres of
land in more than a dozen Western states and Florida.
The
10-year average of acreage burned by Aug. 20 is 2.5
million
acres destroyed in 58,000 fires.
"There is another part of the story, and that is
the money is
there, and can be reprogrammed if we need to," said
Interior
Department spokesman John Wright, adding that Mr.
Clinton
recently released $150 million for firefighting from an
emergency contingency fund established by Congress.
"This administration has seen fit to make sure the
money is
there, and Congress aided in that endeavor," Mr. Wright
said. "It's not about the money, it's not about the
budget, it's
about the worst fire season we have ever had in the last
century."
Mr. Rosenkrance warned BLM officials in a January
memo that funding cuts for wild-land fire prevention
would
impair the agency's ability to prepare for the fire
season.
He said the agency has the prerogative to fund the
land
acquisitions and national monument improvements, "but my
argument is these programs don't put the public at
risk. By
curtailing preparedness projects like in this budget,
you put
people at risk."
An August 1999 report by the General Accounting
Office
credits the BLM with an efficient fire-control program,
but
warned that continued underfunding weakened
fire-prevention activities.
"Should calamity strike in the form of being
unprepared
for a severe fire season that results in injuries or
deaths
among fire personnel, the agencies will be held
accountable,"
Mr. Rosenkrance said in the memo.
Eight fatalities have been recorded this fire
season,
including a helicopter pilot who was killed in a crash
Aug. 13
while making water drops on a Nevada wildfire.
"Unfortunately, it did play out," Mr. Rosenkrance
said of
his memo's warning.
The budget cuts this year are "so extensive, and by
dropping below that, they're catching a lot less fires
than they
could have," said Mr. Rosenkrance, who retired in April.
Firefighters yesterday battled 98 fires in 11
states covering
1.3 million acres - the largest in Montana and Idaho.
In Yellowstone National Park, six fires are
burning on
more than 6,000 acres and the south entrance to the park
remains closed. Lack of resources and the safety risk to
firefighters are restricting park crews to battling
only one of
the blazes, which covers 3,200 acres.
Gov. Marc Racicot declared Montana a disaster area
last
week, and ordered evacuations in parts of the state.
More
than 365,000 acres, an area larger than the city of Los
Angeles, have burned there, including 169 buildings and
more
than 50 houses.
Thousands of firefighters have been called in to
fight the
Western fires, plus 500 soldiers from Fort Hood, Texas,
a
battalion of Marines from Camp Pendleton, Calif., and
firefighters from Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
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A vote for Bush or Gore is a vote to continue Clinton policies!
A vote for Buchanan is a vote to continue America!
Therefore a vote for Gore or Bush is a wasted vote for America!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for Patrick Buchanan!
Today, candor compels us to admit that our vaunted two-party system is a
snare and a delusion, a fraud upon the nation. Our two parties have become
nothing but two wings of the same bird of prey...
Patrick Buchanan
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