A haze fell over the Capitol on Friday as smoke from Canadian wildfires stretched farther east, prompting GOP lawmakers to level blame at Canada for forestry practices they said were wrecking U.S. air quality.
Republicans in Congress harangued the Canadian government for failing to remove excess timber and brush that fuels blazes like the ones now burning in northern Ontario. The Carney government, they said, is responsible for the toxic smoke causing dangerous air quality in cities like Chicago, New York and Washington that prompted warnings for millions of Americans to stay indoors.
But while Republicans laid the blame on Canada, climate and public health advocates said increasingly active wildfire seasons are a consequence of climate change, in particular a record-breaking heat wave across North America. Nearly 900 fires are burning across Canada, and more than 150 wildfires are blazing in the U.S., including 15 in Michigan. The fine particulate matter drifting south in wildfire smoke is dangerous, especially for the elderly, children and those with underlying health conditions.
“People want to be able to enjoy this time of year; look up and see that blue sunny sky and certainly not struggle to breathe or look up and see that smoke coming from across the border,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, in a video shared on the social media site X.
Zeldin, like his Republican colleagues on the Hill, criticized Canada’s wildfire control strategy and urged them to not let wildland fires continue to burn. “If they do not change their ways of approaching these fires, this is something that will continue to happen in the future,” Zeldin said.
“We are going to remain continuously engaged with Canadian leadership at the highest levels of their government and strongly encourage them to do everything in their power to extinguish these fires as fast as possible,” he said.
GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio pledged to introduce legislation next week that would “sanction Canada and the responsible Canadian government officials for this atrocity,” he posted on X.
Canada stressed its long-standing partnership with the U.S. in combatting wildfires, which included sending firefighters and supplies to help fight last year’s blazes in Los Angeles.
“This is a shared challenge, and it demands a shared response,” said U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra in a statement Wednesday. “I commend the outstanding cooperation between the United States and Canada as we confront these fires together. Our two governments are monitoring and sharing information in real time — coordination that reflects our partnership at its best.”
But air quality has grown increasingly dangerous across the U.S. Cities as far south as Washington drew a “purple” air quality rating Friday morning — “very unhealthy,” according to EPA’s monitoring tool.
Moreno’s bill would direct the president to impose financial sanctions on Canada — and restrict visas on certain Canadian individuals involved in government or wildfire mitigation — should it be determined that Canada is not adequately curtailing their wildfires.
The smoke hit border-state Michigan earlier this week, prompting backlash from four Republican lawmakers — Reps. Jack Bergman, John James, Lisa McClain and John Moolenaar — who wrote to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney panning Canada’s lack of wildfire mitigation efforts.
“We were told last year that this would be treated with urgency. It was not. We were told the causes, chronic under-investment in forest thinning, fuel reduction, and prescribed burns, along with inadequate enforcement against arson, were being addressed. They were not, or not adequately enough to matter to the people we represent,” the lawmakers wrote in their Wednesday letter.
The lawmakers threatened that should Canada not undertake new forest management practices, American federal agencies could explore “direct involvement in cross-border fuel reduction and firefighting capacity.”
Other Michigan Republicans similarly pitched punitive measures to deal with the wildfire smoke.
Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.) mused on social media that Michigan could delay the opening of the new border-crossing Gordie Howe Bridge until “Canada takes responsibility and gets control of these fires.” And Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) said that Canada should “fully and regularly inform appropriate US agencies such as the EPA as to the status and mitigation action plan regarding the fires.”
Terri Deboer, a Republican candidate running for Congress in Michigan, where air quality remains at dangerous levels, said the state was “again breathing the consequences of Canada’s complete failure to manage their own forests.”
“Canada has refused to responsibly clear underbrush, manage fuel loads and put real, proactive measures in place to keep these fires from exploding,” she said in an X post Thursday. “It’s time to demand action!”
As smoke spread eastward in the later half of the week, Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.) said that he had reached out to Canadian members of parliament and the ambassador, about smoke impacts in New York.
“Canada must take meaningful action to prevent these catastrophic wildfires and protect both Canadians and Americans. If it refuses to do so, there should be consequences,” he wrote on social media.
Record-breaking heat fuels flames
But climate and health experts say climate change is behind the conditions that are making blazes like the ones in Ontario and northern Minnesota more likely and damaging.
The blazes currently raging in eastern Canada and the Midwest are a direct result of a recent record-breaking heat wave in North America that “really dried out the forest and allowed for thunderstorms and lightning strikes,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the California Institute for Water Resources and a research partner at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in a live YouTube talk Wednesday.
Scientists also say the extreme heat North America has experienced from coast to coast this summer has been worsened by climate change.
The blanket of haze has sparked comparisons to another extreme summer in 2023, when record-breaking blazes in Canada sent clouds of smoke billowing over the eastern U.S. That year saw the country’s most destructive wildfire season on record, and studies suggest that climate change significantly increased the likelihood of the weather fueling the flames.
Warming temperatures are also changing where and when blazes occur. Western Canada has historically experienced the country’s largest and most destructive blazes. But research suggests that eastern Canada may also be at greater risk as global temperatures continue to rise.
“We’re not saying that climate change started each individual fire, but that extreme heat, along with the drier conditions that they’re experiencing in Ontario, along with the weather conditions that are becoming more likely — we’re seeing an increase in fire weather days,” said Shel Winkley, chief meteorologist at Climate Central. “All of those things put together allow for that explosive wildfire growth, like we saw early this week.”
An analysis by Climate Central shows that on July 13 — the day the cluster of blazes in Ontario and Minnesota causing most of the haze began — temperatures in the Canadian province were 25.2 degrees Fahrenheit above average.
“These temperatures would be virtually impossible to occur on July 13 in Ontario without the influence of climate change,” he said.
While forest management can mitigate the risk, Winkley said, spiking temperatures virtually guarantee more devastating wildfires prevail in the future.
And Canada is not alone in seeing historically active recent fire seasons.
So far this year, more than5,740 square miles (14,860 square kilometers) of the United States has burned from wildfires, which is 31 percent more than the average of the previous 10 years on this date, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Stay inside
Wildfire smoke presents serious risks to human health.
Particulate matter from wildfire smoke attacks nearly every system in the human body, killing tens of thousands of people a year, numerous medical studies show.
Soot from blazes is linked to spiking asthma cases, heart attacks and other cardiovascular and lung issues, as well as mental health issues. It harms pregnant women, increasing the risk of premature births and low-weight babies who could have breathing problems the rest of their lives. It can also contribute to long-term health impacts, including dementia.
“We know that particle pollution is bad, short-term and long-term,” said Laura Kate Bender, who leads public policy at the American Lung Association.
She said that research has shown that low levels of chronic exposure to particulate pollution contribute to premature death, heart problems, lung problems. But research is continuing on the effects of high levels of PM pollution — like exposure from repeated serious wildfire events.
Bender said ALA recommends controlled burns and other measures to decrease the chances of large wildfires like the ones currently underway. But climate change was creating the conditions for those fires to form, Bender said.
“We know that is happening for wildfires in the U.S. It’s happening for wildfires in Canada and worldwide,” she said. “I mean, the conditions that are creating this are not an accident. This is very much in line with what you would expect to see with the changes from a warming climate.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
