Martin Heinrich

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, released a statement on the U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) proposal to authorize an unprecedented emergency salvage logging project spanning more than five million acres across six national forests in Idaho and Montana. “Time and again, this administration has put the interests of billionaires and powerful industries ahead of America’s public lands and the people who own them. Active wildfire management requires targeted, science-based hazardous fuels treatments—not a blank check for sweeping clearcutting, new road construction, and fewer safeguards for the places that Americans … enjoy. If the Forest Service is going to invoke extraordinary emergency authorities, it owes the public transparency and accountability. Instead, it released an eight-page notice with no maps, no meaningful project details, and no explanation for why this massive proposal qualifies as an emergency, while giving Americans just seven days to weigh in.