Quote:

---

In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy violently swept across New England, devastating New Jersey and New York. The superstorm caused over $60 billion in damage, destroyed thousands of homes, left millions without electrical power, and resulted in over 70 deaths, most of which occurred in the previously mentioned states. In the aftermath of the storm, Republicans almost immediately rejected disaster aid for those affected, including Senator John McCain, Senator Jeff Flake and Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona. GOP refusal to act delayed a relief funding bill for months until the Senate and the House finally passed a $50 billion package in January 2013, much to the chagrin of most Republicans. http://smd12364.newsvine.com/_news/2013/08/15/20034885-arizona-republi
cans-who-rejected-sandy-relief-now-whining-about-arizona-not-getting-disaster-aid]

---

Quote:

---

In light of sequestration and budget tightening, FEMA has limited funding and cannot respond to every single flood, fire, and other issue that hits. Last week, the agency announced that it would not declare Yarnell, Arizona, a federal disaster area.

FEMA spokesman said Monday that the agency had provided assistance with firefighting efforts during the blaze and he noted that aid was still available from a number of other federal agencies. But ultimately, the damage to Yarnell did not rise to the level of a federal disaster, said Dan Watson.

“In this case, based upon the findings of the joint federal, state and local preliminary damage assessment teams, it was determined that the damage to uninsured private residences from this event was not beyond the response and recovery capabilities of the state/local governments, and voluntary agencies,” Watson said in an emailed statement.

But state officials have not given up on FEMA aid.

“I am deeply troubled by the Obama administration’s decision to deny much-needed recovery assistance in the wake of Arizona’s deadliest wildfire,” Governor Jan Brewer said in a statement Friday, after the FEMA denial was announced.

That was echoed by Arizona Republican Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake, who issued a joint statement Friday expressing their disappointment. They said they would talk with Brewer “and begin exploring with her options for appealing this decision.” http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_northern_az/prescott/yarnell-fire
-fema-denial-no-surprise-to-yarnell-residents-who-vow-to-press-on-after-fire#ixzz2c40tdTPw]

---

Quote:

---

McCain and Flake, who had partnered to ask for a federal disaster declaration, issued a joint statement Monday, lamenting that it was “a shame that FEMA couldn’t find it within their mission to help rebuild their homes and lives.” A riled McCain added that in light of the 19 firefighter deaths and the 134 destroyed homes, “the damage that was done was very substantial and, I believe, qualified. So, we’re going to do everything we can to urge the president to change his mind. Including, I will be making some phone calls.”

Gosar, who had also requested an emergency designation, released a statement of his own, saying, “The people of Yarnell do not ask much from the federal government,” but that here it was “reasonable to expect FEMA to step in.”

Gosar even voted against a barebones $9 billion funding increase for FEMA for Sandy relief — one of just 67 members to do so. Gosar, a climate change denier, has blamed “extreme environmental groups” for Arizona’s many wildfires. http://www.lipstickalley.com/f50/three-republicans-who-opposed-sandy-r
elief-now-demand-disaster-aid-arizona-556397/

---

Quote:

---

Whenever there is a big outbreak of wildfires in the West, out come the ignorant to blame “radical environmentalists” and promote a return to excessive levels of industrial logging.

So it was earlier this week when a House panel held a hearing in Phoenix on forest health. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) was quick to blame “extreme environmental groups” and “the loss of Arizona’s timber industry” for a vicious fire season that has included the largest fire in the state’s history.

Gosar was joined by the incoming president of the Arizona Cattle Growers Association, who likewise blamed “radical environmentalists” for creating a “paralysis” in federal land management agencies that has kept employees from properly managing federal forests.

The reasons that the desert Southwest is having another extreme fire season are complex. They include decades of poor forestry and livestock grazing practices, misguided federal firefighting efforts that have prevented low-intensity fires in Ponderosa pine forests from clearing out underbrush and small trees, and prolonged, exceptional drought caused by climate change.

In April, Gosar voted to overturn the scientific finding that climate pollution threatens public welfare, which cites the “clear risk from the observed increases in wildfires.”

“What we’re seeing today in Arizona and other parts of the south are what our scientists say are the effects of climate change,” U.S. Forest Service chief Tom Tidwell testified before the U.S. Senate last month.

As the Los Angeles Times reported recently, the timber industry and cattle growers deserve much of the blame:

Quote:

---

Experts say the logging of big trees and heavy grazing in the last century helped lay the foundation for the Wallow and the [2002] Rodeo-Chediski conflagrations. Cutting the old ponderosa pines opened the forest floor to dense young growth. Grazing eliminated the grasses that fed the frequent, low-intensity fires to which the pineland vegetation had adapted. Federal policies to quench forest fires as quickly as possible compounded the problem by promoting the buildup of brush and unnaturally thick stands of trees. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/10/nation/la-na-arizona-wildfire-
20110610]

---

Wally Covington, a leading expert on the increasingly dry forests of the Southwest, told the paper, “We need to turn forestry on its head. Leave the old growth alone….focus on harvesting the small-diameter trees. Open the forest to restore more natural conditions and then reintroduce fire.”

That is precisely the approach of a 10-year restoration project on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in Arizona, exactly where the Wallow and Rodeo-Chediski fires took place. So far the project has thinned some 35,000 acres near communities, reinvigorated wood products companies that use small diameter trees and helped save some of those communities from the Wallow fire.

Environmental groups have been supportive of that White Mountain Stewardship Project. Not even the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity – arguably one of the most litigious of environmental groups – has sued or appealed any of the individual thinning projects on the Apache-Sitgreaves in a decade.

Unfortunately, no amount of advanced forestry practices can prevent future epic wildfires in a world with unconstrained greenhouse pollution. http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/07/07/263226/climate-denier-paul-g
osar-blames-arizona-wildfires-on-extreme-environmental-groups/

---

Quote:

---

FEMA spokesman said Monday that the agency had provided assistance with firefighting efforts during the blaze and he noted that aid was still available from a number of other federal agencies. But ultimately, the damage to Yarnell did not rise to the level of a federal disaster, said Dan Watson.

“In this case, based upon the findings of the joint federal, state and local preliminary damage assessment teams, it was determined that the damage to uninsured private residences from this event was not beyond the response and recovery capabilities of the state/local governments, and voluntary agencies,” Watson said in an emailed statement.

---

Quote:

---

Get this through your gorram thick skull !!!
I'm sure you'll just close your eyes, plug your hears and scream " Nah! Nah! Nah! "

---

Quote:

---

Rap: I CAN say ill try to do better, from here on out. Can you do the same?

---

Quote:

---

permits FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) to borrow $9.7 Billion to help pay claims related to the October hurricane/superstorm. The Senate approved the measure by unanimous consent, and it is headed to the President's desk for signature. http://arizonaspolitics.blogspot.com/2013/01/arizona-house-republicans
-vote-as-block.html]

---

Quote:

---

all of the votes against the aid came from Republicans, who have objected that no cuts in other programs had been identified to pay for the measure despite the nation’s long-term deficit problem. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/nyregion/house-passes-9-7-billion-in
-relief-for-hurricane-sandy-victims.html?_r=0

---