Rachel Martin

Rachel Martin on Need for Super PAC to Save Forests, Wildlife, Ag

By Charmayne Hefley, Associate Editor

Part 1:

This is part one of a three-part series with Rachel Martin, the national chairperson of Homeland Security for the National Federation of Republican Women (NFRW), on the importance of creating a political action committee (super PAC) to save forests, wildlife, and ag suffering from limited water allocations during this extensive drought.

Martin said a super PAC must be created to combat the environmentalists who have been lobbying in Washington and Sacramento for years and to improve conditions for all constituencies. The resulting environmental regulations have prevented forest maintenance, such as logging, thinning of the forests, and controlled burns, which has increased the likelihood and severity of wildfires that burn thousands of acres each year and kill the animals environmentalists are trying to protect.

“I’ve been working with public safety as well as a lot of animal activists since ’99,” Martin said, “and I know that with ag, it’s been a fight for the last 30-plus years with the environmentalists and the Environmental Protection Act. Ag alone is not the only affected group of agencies or businesses. People don’t often think about how the lack of water significantly affects California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), the U.S. Forest Service, and law enforcement agencies as well. We need to come together.”

“Law enforcement agencies and the U.S. Forest Service have told me the environmentalists are actually hurting and killing a lot of the creatures they stand to protect,” Martin said. “Other animals die during those fires, and they’re dying the most horrible deaths—which is death by fire.”