Plans Emerge to Increase Logging on Federal Lands

The Trump Administration has signaled its desire to increase domestic logging, particularly on federal lands. On March 1st, the Trump Administration issued two executive orders concerning domestic timber production. The first, “Addressing The Threat To National Security from Imports of Timber, Lumber,” outlined a theory that foreign countries were artificially undercutting domestic timber production by flooding US markets with cheap wood and wood products. This, Trump claimed, had knock-on effects on our national security by making the US beholden to foreign nations (like Canada) that supply a substantial amount of our timber. 

The second, “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production,” follows up on the earlier executive order and directs the Department of the Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Land Management, and the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, to utilize all of their existing authorities to gin up timber production. Both agencies were directed to return to the White House with detailed plans on how they planned to do so.

On April 3rd, the Department of Agriculture issued an internal memo in response to the executive orders outlining how it could reinterpret existing law to bypass significant environmental safeguards. The memo begins by declaring an emergency, of sorts. Fuel build-up, insects, and disease are creating a “full-blown wildfire and forest health crisis,” according to the memo. (Note, the memo is silent on the role that a warming climate is playing on our forests, including impacts to fire severity and frequency as well as insects.) This “crisis” then justifies declaring an “emergency situation,” under which NEPA regulations are significantly paired back to increase the pace and scale of logging.

While emergency situation determinations are not new, historically they were confined to discrete, individual projects based on the circumstances on the ground. Here, the reach is far broader: 59% of all National Forest lands are included in the “emergency.” A review of the crude map issued by the Forest Service accompanying the memo clearly shows nearly all of California’s National Forests are included. A preliminary analysis shows that even some Wilderness areas are included in the emergency declaration where timber operations are streamlined.

The same day, the Forest Service issued its own memo outlining steps the agency was going to take to adhere to the Department of Agriculture’s memo and other additional tools it would utilize to increase logging by 25% in the next 4-5 years. Included among the measures is an expansion of “designations by prescription” and “designation by description” whereby trees are no longer marked for harvest and instead the loggers choose what trees to remove, theoretically bound by a description either of what trees are allowed to be taken or what the stand condition should look like after logging is complete. The memo also directs lower-level staff, in developing new timber sales, to use “innovative and efficient approaches” to meet the “minimum requirements” of federal environmental laws, including the use of “emergency” authorities to bypass the Endangered Species Act.

The Forest Service’s memo also hinted at a potential issue in achieving its targets: not enough federal workers. While the Forest Service is reducing the amount of work that needs to be done by ordering less-and-less environmental analysis and more discretion to loggers, there still need to be enough employees to plan timber sales. And that’s a concern for the Forest Service. The Forest Service has been hit by staffing reductions, both through voluntary early retirements and D.O.G.E. cuts. In total, EPIC is aware of a significant reduction in force at local Forest Service offices. Perhaps to make up for this lost manpower, the memo outlines a strategy: pay private timber companies to do the work for them. The Forest Service has already agreed to a $75 million dollar contract with Sierra Pacific Industries to build and maintain “fuel breaks” in California and Oregon. Welcome to the Trump world: paying timber companies to log our forests. 

More is to come. To keep up to date on federal forest issues, follow EPIC at wildcalifornia.org.