- Backed by lawmakers from California, where hundreds of thousands of acres have been burned in deadly wildfires, the U.S. Senate on Thursday passed a forestry bill that would ease environmental rules and allow more tree-thinning to prevent fires. The bipartisan Senate bill would protect old growth forests on 20 million acres of federal forest land in exchange for limiting judicial appeals of forestry projects. The legislation cleared the Senate on a vote of 80-14. The House passed its version of the Bush administration's so-called "Healthy Forest" legislation in May.