Kerry Proposes Forest-Restoration Corps
Speaking of forests: John Kerry today unveiled his own forest plan, which among other things would trim $100 million in timber-industry subsidies to fund the creation of a Forest Restoration Corps that would tend to the long-term health of America’s national forests. The corps, with its echoes of Roosevelt’s Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, would create jobs while ameliorating damage to forests, streams, and rangelands caused by wildfires or mismanagement, the Kerry campaign claimed. The plan also promises to budget for federal firefighting costs — costs the campaign claims Bush has tried to obscure — and to restore a series of protections for California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. The Bushies mocked the plan as one more manifestation of Kerry’s allegiance to “extreme environmental organizations.”
