The recently passed $2 billion budget for Climate Committment Act projects has numerous programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, incentives to increase renewable energy, more charging stations, and help for lower income households to install heat pumps; to just to name a few.
One new program I would like to highlight is $83 million to save 2,000 acres of older trees on state lands from being cut and buying up younger trees for timber. This recognizes that the benefit of older forests is more than the revenue from cutting and selling the trees. Older forests store more carbon in the trees and forest floor than young forests. Their diverse canopy would be more fire resistant. Less carbon and smoke and we can breathe easier.
A big thank you to the Legislature for this new flexibility in managing state forests which acknowledges that forests provide more benefits than just lumber.
Kristi Weir
Bellevue
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