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48 Ariz. St. L.J. 1 (2016)

handle is hein.journals/arzjl48 and id is 1 raw text is: 






THE WILDFIRE MENACE: Will the West Learn

or   Burn?

Senator   Jon  Kyl*  &   Kris  Kiefer**


                                FOREWORD
   When   I was asked to make  this presentation, the first thing I did was to
check with  Kris Kiefer on Senator Flake's staff. Senator Flake and Senator
McCain   have been very active on pushing legislative reforms, and I wanted
to know  why,  with so many  announcements   of forward  progress on forest
management,   it still seemed that nothing on the scale required was getting
done. I will today summarize much  of the positive news, but also lay out an
agenda  of  un-finished  business, much   of which   is the object  of our
delegation's efforts.
   While  some of us have been working on forest management  and ecological
restoration since the 1980s, much of the interest and energy in forest health
began to take shape after one of Arizona's most damaging  fires, the Rodeo-
Chediski  in 2002. With more  than 462,000  acres of ponderosa pine forests
charred and hundreds of homes  lost, our earlier warnings finally took on some
urgency.'
   Governors  Hull and  Napolitano established committees  and councils on
forest health.2 Senator McCain  and I pushed legislation to advance federal
wildfire policy, such  as the  Wildfire Prevention  Act  of  2002  and  the
Southwest  Forest Health and Wildfire Prevention Act, which  eventually led
to the creation of the Ecological Restoration Institute at NAU.3 ERI has been

   *   Former Member, United States Senate (R-Ariz.). B.A. University of Arizona, 1964;
L.L.B. University of Arizona, 1966, Editor-in-Chief of the Arizona Law Review, 1966. Jon Kyl
represented Arizona in the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2013, serving as the Senate Minority Whip
from 2008 to 2013. Prior to that he served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, and
he currently is Senior of Counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Covington & Burling LLP.
   **  B.A. University of Rochester, 2002; J.D. Syracuse University, 2005, Editor-in-Chief of
the Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce, 2005. Kris Kiefer serves as General
Counsel to Senator Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), and he previously served as Legislative Counsel to
Senator Kyl. Prior to that he worked in the Phoenix office of Snell & Wilmer LLP.
   1.  Historically Significant Wildland  Fires, NAT'L INTERAGENCY FIRE CTR.,
https://www.nifc.gov/firelnfo/firelnfo stats-histSigFires.html (last visited Feb. 12, 2016).
   2.  Arizona Exec. Order No. 2001-16 Creating the Governor's Forest Health/Fire Plan
Advisory Committee (Aug. 7, 2001); Arizona Exec. Order No. 2003-16 Creating the Governor's
Arizona Forest Health Advisory Council (May 22, 2003).
   3.  The Wildfire Prevention Act of 2002, S. 2670, 107th Cong. (2002); Southwest Forest
Health and Wildfire Prevention Act of 2003, S. 32, 108th Cong. (2003); see also Southwest Forest

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