Region Archives: United States

President Trump signed two executive orders aimed at ramping up logging on federal lands. The directives prompted polar and predictable reactions from timber industry advocates and environmental groups in the Pacific Northwest. The former have been advocating for more aggressive “management” of federal forests for decades to increase log supplies for local mills and combat increasing wildfire risks. The latter say the orders will prioritize commercial logging over all other uses of public lands and will inevitably result in protracted litigation. …Somewhere in the middle, however, is a group of organizations who say the executive orders could provide an opportunity to go much bigger on necessary forest restoration projects. But, ironically, they say the potential to make that happen likely will be significantly undermined by Trump’s separate push to slash the federal workforce that would oversee the work.

In August 2002 during one of the worst fire seasons to that point in recent history, President George W. Bush launched the Healthy Forests Initiative aimed at reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires. It was a solid, common-sense plan intended to remove wood debris which fuels infernos and rehabilitate diseased, dying, and dead forests. It would generate revenue from wood sales to pay for healthier timberlands. …Bush ran into a buzz saw of well-financed opposition which branded it as front for logging in the public forests. It got scorched by endless bureaucratic federal, state, and local appeals and lawsuits. Little happened while wildfire dangers mounted. Then along came the January’s deadly L.A. fires … where 29 people died and more than 12,000 … structures were destroyed. …Hopefully, President Trump will dust off Bush’s blueprint, cut the bureaucratic red tape and reign in lawsuits. It made sense then and is ready to go now.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders aimed at ramping up logging on federal lands. The directives prompted polar and predictable reactions from timber industry advocates and environmental groups in Oregon. The former have been advocating for more aggressive “management” of federal forests for decades to increase log supplies for local mills and combat increasing wildfire risks in forests choked with flammable fuels. The latter say the orders will prioritize commercial logging over all other uses of public lands and will inevitably result in protracted litigation if federal agencies look to fast-track projects by eliminating existing protections for habitat, clean water and endangered species. [A subscription to the Oregonian is required to read full article]

Alaska’s Tongass National Forest is one of the last great wild places. Spanning nearly 17 million acres, it is the largest national forest in the United States and one of the world’s largest remaining temperate rainforests. …And yet, despite its immense ecological and economic value, the Tongass remains under threat. For decades, the logging industry and its political backers have tried to chip away at the Roadless Rule [claiming] cutting down these ancient trees is an economic necessity. …The timber industry in the Tongass is not only economically unsustainable, it is a drain on the American taxpayer. …on his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order to repeal the Roadless Rule protections for the Tongass National Forest. Nothing has happened yet, but we should expect it. Meanwhile, Trump’s administration is taking a wrecking ball to the Forest Service, which could make administration oversight of any logging and roadbuilding even more difficult. 

President Donald Trump’s March 1 executive order calling for “immediate expansion of American timber production” generated lots of enthusiasm in the Northwest wood products world. But analysts added equal amounts of concern that Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency-driven federal cuts might keep the woods quiet. “It’s going to be a good thing in terms of helping stimulate activity on national forests,” the University of Montana’s Todd Morgan said… but also recognizes the uncertainty spiraling around Washington, D.C. “A lot is going to depend on who’s left in federal agencies at the end of the day, the week, the next four years,” he said. “All this funding- and budget-cutting is going to interfere with the stated goals.” …Trump’s order also calls for timber production targets. That’s something that has been missing from federal land management for a long time, according to Montana Wood Products Association Director Julia Altemus.

Silver City, NM — On March 1, President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled “The Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production,” seeking to rapidly expand domestic timber production. The order was announced before President Trump’s tariffs on Canada took effect under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. …Many public land advocates and conservationists are sounding the alarm on the order’s potential consequences on decades of conservation efforts. Randi Spivak, who serves as the public lands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said this order will have long-term consequences on the health of public lands. …Those within the logging industry see the executive order as an opportunity to boost local economies and revive an industry that has struggled for the last few decades. American Loggers Council Executive Director Scott Dane spoke on the order and what it means for the domestic logging industry.

King County foresters are planting native tree seedlings acquired from warmer, drier climates for a long-term study designed to promote healthy, resilient, and productive local forests. Based on climate modeling that predicts conditions at the end of the century, the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks secured tree seedlings from Southwest Washington, Oregon, and Northern California. Forest specialists selected four planting locations throughout King County that have different site conditions and will monitor the trees’ survival and health multiple times over the next decade. The climate-adaptive tree planting trials are one of the strategies included in King County’s 30-Year Forest Plan launched by Executive Dow Constantine to promote urban and rural tree canopy and improve forest health and productivity for current and future generations.

Wildland firefighters will keep a four-year-old pay hike under a GOP-led spending bill signed by President Donald Trump, but many worry that mass federal worker firings will leave the nation more vulnerable to wildfires. …The permanent pay raise comes as Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has cut about 3,400 workers at the U.S. Forest Service… Many of those workers kept trails free of debris, oversaw prescribed burns, thinned forests and were specially trained to work with firefighters. They say staffing cuts threaten public safety, especially in the West, where drier and hotter conditions linked to climate change have increased the intensity of wildfires. …Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees warned that continued efforts by the Trump administration to cut firefighters and their support personnel “will cripple the workforce and make Americans less safe.”