WASHINGTON, June 25 -- Sen. Ben Ray Lujan issued the following press release:
U.S. Senators Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Adam Schiff (D-CA), John Curtis (R-UT), and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) introduced the bipartisan Hazardous Fuels Transportation Assistance Act to help communities and forest managers remove woody biomass-material left behind from forest thinning operations meant to prevent wildfires-that, if left in place, actually increases wildfire risk.
When forests are mechanically thinned to reduce wildfire risk, the process generates large volumes of woody biomass. Transporting the material out of the forest is costly without financial support, so it gets left behind in piles, increasing wildfire risk and limiting the eff...