Environmental activist Bill McKibben, speaking at a recent news briefing, warned that new domestic policy legislation will likely increase problems faced by cities like Chico that are already struggling with the effects of wildfire.
The Trump Administration’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill “will help deepen the spiral of trouble that you’re already in,” McKibben said in responding to a ChicoSol reporter at the briefing. Semi-rural cities like Chico are dealing with larger and hotter wildfires, rising temperatures and poor air quality during increasingly long fire seasons.
“Among other things, the Trump Administration has instructed the National Forest [Service] to greatly increase the timber cut at the expense of all the other kind of planning and work that we should be doing, especially in an era of wildfires,” McKibben said.
