President Trump’s Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, authored an opinion piece published in USA Today on Wednesday blaming environmentalists and the lawsuits they file for California’s wildfires, including the ones burning in other areas of the western United States.

In his op-ed, Interior Secretary Zinke made the case for active forest management (which includes logging, prescribed burns, and clearing brush) as the means of reducing the likelihood of wildfires of federal lands. Zinke accused environmentalist groups of exacerbating the problem since their lawsuits halt such handling.

Every year we watch our forests burn, and every year there is a call for action, Zinke wrote.

Yet, when action comes, and we try to thin forests of dead and dying timber, or we try to sustainably harvest timber from dense and fire-prone areas, we are attacked with frivolous litigation from radical environmentalists who would rather see forests and communities burn than see a logger in the woods.

What Secretary Zinke states is correct and needs to be emphasized over and over. Legislation was proposed last year in Congress that would permit forest thinning on federal lands that removes dead trees and brush that are fuel for forest fires. Doing so would reduce incidents like wildfires seen in California. But, not surprisingly, environmentalists opposed such efforts like they have many times before.

As a result of environmentalist opposition to forest management, it lead to massive property damage in The Golden State. Environmentalists would rather people die and their lifestyles destroyed since greens view humans as a plague on the Earth. Californians and people in states whose lives have been ruined by forest fires should direct their scorn at environmentalist organizations, like the Center for Biological Diversity, since they made it all possible.