Perdue Promotes Importance Of Forest Management Plan

After a visit earlier this week to fire-ravaged California Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue says there's an urgent need to more than increase suppression efforts.  Purdue said there's an urgent need to increase preventative treatments, and on Capitol Hill Thursday he unveiled a plan that requires states and environmental groups collaborating more closely and sharing resources.

"Working with the states will provide us with a strategic plan of where we need to prioritize first, these are going to be joint decisions,” Perdue noted.

He said the federal government doesn't have enough resources to remove dead growth and underbrush and perform preventative burns, but can partner with states to do those things proven to prevent fires..

“This is not federal superiority.  This is a recognition of shared stewardship working with states and local communities, local emotionalists and others to make a plan, to make it all better with our healthy forests”

Senators Maria Cantwell and Jeff Merkley were also on hand for last week's announcement, and support the plan.

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