The Choice is Easy

Nov. 2018: Lt. Gov. Newsom, Gov. Brown, Paradise mayor Jody Jones, Pres. Trump, FEMA Adm. Long (AP)

The Wall Street Journal editorial page takes the side of California Governor Gavin Newsom:

The Governor on Friday declared a statewide emergency to expedite 35 wildfire-prevention projects including prescribed burns and tree-thinning around 200 cities over the next year. The emergency finding will let the state waive certain bureaucratic obstacles to tree-clearing. This could prevent a reprise of the last two horrific wildfire seasons in which 1.7 million acres burned. The Camp Fire in the Sierra Nevada foothills last fall razed 14,000 homes and killed 85 people. [snip]

Yet Mr. Newsom is drawing fire from his friends on the left for waiving regulations such as the California Environmental Quality Act that produce mounds of paperwork and allow locales to veto sensible fuel-reduction projects for reasons unrelated to environmental protection. “The governor should reject this doomed, destructive approach” of thinning forests, the Center for Biological Diversity declared.

“Unfortunately, it’s a very Trumpian approach,” said Douglas Bevington, forest director of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.

Doomed, destructive, Trumpian--adjectives that inflame the leftist base. The WSJ doesn't often agree with a liberal governor, but when it's a choice between liberalism and environmental extremism that endangers people, the choice is easy.