SMEA Professor and Associate Director Nives Dolšak and UW Director of the Center for Environmental Politics Aseem Prakash recently wrote an article featured on The Hill titled, “Seattle’s smoky summers are becoming the new normal.” Last summer, Seattle was under a cloud of smoke for several weeks from fires that burned in the Cascade mountains and Eastern Washington. Once again, Seattle and surrounding areas find they are shrouded in smoke, this year from fires in British Columbia, Oregon and California. The smoke poses serious health issues. There have been days when the air quality in the region has been worse than Delhi or Beijing, and in recent weeks the state of Washington has had among the worst air quality in the lower 48 states. Where the blame lies and how to address the problem depends on who you ask. According to the article “Gov. Jay Inslee (D) and Secretary Ryan Zinke are in a slanging match. Inslee blames climate change for the forest fires while Zinke lays the blame on environmental groups that impede active forest management.” Dolšak and Prakash state that we “need to adapt to climate change even as we seek to mitigate it” and offer several suggestions on how to do this, beginning with the Interior Department playing a crucial role in addressing forest fires.