Healthy Forests Passes

I don't have time for a lot of posting, so I'll just point you to a nice little post by Matt Reading on the passage of the Senate's version of the Healthy Forests Initiative, which is a slightly better version of the House bill (providing such things as a requirement that half the thinning be done in the wildland-urban interface, which would limit the kind of backcountry logging that timber companies would like to do). Now we just have to count on the conference committee not to take the House's side. I'm pessimistic about that, which means that the Senate will be forced to make an up-or-down vote on the worse version, with the fact of the California fires and the threat of being accused of wanting to do nothing hanging over them.