‘Fix Our Forests Act’ Only Fixes for Logging

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on January 23 on the misleadingly named "Fix Our Forests Act," which aims to open public lands to massive logging projects under the guise of preventing wildfires. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR), who has repeatedly introduced legislation intended to rollback bedrock conservation laws.

"This is nothing more than a bill of goods that will do little of anything to combat fires and instead plays favorites with the timber industry which is hungry to consume more of our forests - removing large fire-resilient trees and devastating the lands and species which call them home," said Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations at Defenders of Wildlife. "We urge Congress to reject this sham bill and focus on bills like the Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act that will protect communities in the wildland-urban interface and make meaningful inroads to fighting these devastating fires."

As written, the bill removes science from land management decisions, substantially weakening the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and National Historic Preservation Act. Specifically, it sets unfair standards and frustrates judicial review of land management decisions, removing public accountability in service of short-term interests of extractive industries which will likely exacerbate fires.

Among the most concerning provisions of this bill, it would:

• Provide unprecedented 10,000-acre categorical exclusions from NEPA and National Historic Preservation Act.
• Abuse emergency authorities to delay environmental reviews under NEPA and the ESA until after a project has been completed- allowing forests to be logged before considering the science and impact on wildlife.
• Provide no standards to protect old growth forests or long-term health and resilience.
• Inappropriately interfere with the power of federal courts to review projects, limiting litigants from seeking justice in court, and preventing courts from ordering the review required by law unless the proponents entirely failed to prepare an environmental document.
• Drastically shorten the time allowed for a community to file their opposition to a project, from 6 years to 120 days.
• Gut the ESA by exempting the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management from regulatory requirements of the ESA to reinitiate consultation when new information indicates that implementation of land management plans may harm threatened or endangered species.

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