RENO, Nev. (AP) -- Interior Secretary Gale Norton visited tribal lands near Reno to press the case for President Bush's request for $760 million to reduce wildfire risk by thinning national forests and rangelands.
Norton said Saturday that the money would improve forest and rangeland management and create healthier landscapes.
``We want to prevent the devastating wildfires that occurred last fall in Southern California from happening in the Reno area,'' Norton told reporters outside the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony in Hungry Valley, about 10 miles north of Reno.
Bush's request is at least $80 million more than current spending and would allow forest and rangeland managers to treat up to 4 million acres at risk of fire.
The administration is trying to ease environmentalists' concerns by using a community-based decision process, Norton said.
Jay Watson, wildland fire program director for the Wilderness Society, said his group supports fuels reduction around communities but objects to thinning in more remote areas.
``The farther out you go the more sensitive you have to be,'' Watson said. ``Then the goal should be ecological restoration and bringing fire back into the system.''
Other critics have called the so-called ``Healthy Forests'' law passed by Congress last fall a giveaway to the timber industry, but administration officials insist much of the treatment work will be done through prescribed burns, not logging.
