The massive wildfires in California are a reckoning for the state's Democratic lawmakers who have repeatedly chosen to please the green lobby over fire prevention, The Wall Street Journal wrote in its editorial.
Instead of being outraged at President Donald Trump for calling them out on it, California lawmakers should instead own up to their own audacity for spending 10 times more on electric car subsidies than efforts to clear dead trees, the WSJ wrote.
"Governor Jerry Brown keeps lecturing Californians that they need to adapt to a new 'climate normal,' yet the state government has done little to prepare for warmer and drier times if that is the future," WSJ writes. "Lawmakers instead have subordinated fire prevention to pleasing the green lobby.
"Nearly 130 million trees in the state have died from drought, providing fuel for fast-spreading fires, and about half of the state’s 33 million acres of forestland needs restoration," the WSJ writes.
That's just like Democrats to "exploit natural disasters … to promote their anti-fossil fuels agenda" but then attack the president for "daring to fight fire with fire by making a connection between California’s wildfires and destructive green policies."
California "Democrats also have spent billions on high-speed rail, but only this year did they get around to appropriating $101 million to replace a dozen or so Vietnam War-era helicopters unequipped with modern technology that enables night-flying for fire-fighting," WSJ wrote.
"Imagine the damage that could have been averted — and lives saved — if the state had replaced the antiques earlier and cleared millions of dead trees in lieu of building the train whose costs are careening toward $100 billion and may never be finished.
"But instead of examining their own priorities, the state’s politicians will blame the damaging fires on climate change and Donald Trump," WSJ concluded.
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