FINSTAD WHINES ABOUT SMOKE AS HE POURS GAS ON THE  FIRE

Our CD-1 congressman, Brad Finstad, recently took time out of his busy schedule to send a letter to the Canadian Ambassador, complaining about wildfire smoke.  The letter, co-authored by Finstad and three other Republican representatives from Minnesota–along with two from Wisconsin–complains of the “suffocating Canadian wildfire smoke filling the air to begin the summer.” Finstad and his GOP colleagues continued, “Our constituents have been limited in their ability to go outside and safely breathe due to the dangerous air quality the wildfire smoke has created. In our neck of the woods, summer months are the best time of the year to spend time outdoors recreating, enjoying time with family, and creating new memories, but this wildfire smoke makes it difficult to do all those things.” 

Perhaps Finstad and his cohort are unaware that there have been more wildfires in the United States this year than in Canada, despite the fact that Canada is much larger.  Perhaps Finstad did not realize that several of those American wildfires occurred in the district of Minnesota Representative Pete Stauber, who also signed the letter.  Those fires undoubtedly sent smoke into Canadian airspace.  But Finstad should have remembered that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that he and his fellow complainers voted for on July 4th will actually make the air quality situation in the United States much worse.  The OBBBA will, to quote the Center for American Progress, “gut pollution-reduction programs, worsening air quality and public health…[and] increase greenhouse gas emissions, increasing risks associated with climate change such as wildfires and hurricanes.”  So it takes some gall to whine to the Canadians that their wildfires are ruining summer vacation, while simultaneously voting to pour gas on those fires.

The obliviousness of the letter does not end there.  As it turns out, American firefighters are risking their lives to quell these very fires, which have scorched over 14 million acres so far this year and displaced more than 39,000 Canadians.  Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew responded to the GOP complaints:”I have shaken the hands of American firefighters in northern Manitoba who are helping us out, and I would challenge these ambulance chasers in the U.S. Congress to go and do the same, and to hear how much the American firefighting heroes who are here love our province.” 

Premier Kinew added, “This is what turns people off politics–when you’ve got a group of congresspeople trying to trivialize and make hay out of a wildfire season where we’ve lost lives in our province.”