Travis Joseph: The Election Is Over. Now Congress Must Deliver Bipartisan Forest Management Reforms

Elections expose the issues that divide Americans. Governing requires leaders to find the common ground that can bring us back together.

With the midterm election behind us, Congress has an opportunity to show that responsible stewardship of America's federal forests does not have to be a partisan issue.

Republicans and Democrats may disagree on many questions, but they should be able to agree that healthier forests, safer communities, cleaner air and water, thriving wildlife habitat, and strong rural economies are goals worth pursuing together.

The need for action is urgent. Millions of acres of federal forests face growing threats from overcrowded conditions, insects, disease, and catastrophic wildfire. Communities across the West are living with the consequences, including dangerous smoke, damaged watersheds, lost recreational opportunities, destroyed habitat, and increasing wildfire suppression and recovery costs.

Addressing this crisis requires a significant and sustained increase in active forest management. Federal agencies must be able to thin overcrowded forests, reduce hazardous fuels, remove hazard trees, restore watersheds, recover fire-damaged timber, and promptly reforest burned landscapes.

The forest products industry is essential to accomplishing that work. Mills, contractors, loggers, truckdrivers, workers, markets, and equipment provide the infrastructure and expertise federal land managers need to turn forest management plans into results on the ground. They also supply the renewable wood products Americans use every day.

Congress has provided important funding and new authorities to the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management over the last Congresses. But funding alone cannot overcome the environmental reviews, consultations, permitting requirements, and litigation that can delay urgently needed work for years.

Without targeted legislative reforms, federal agencies will continue to struggle to increase the pace and scale of forest restoration. At the same time, forest-products businesses will lack the certainty needed to retain the mills, contractors, workers, and markets that make this work possible.

Congress has already identified substantial areas of bipartisan agreement.

During the 119th Congress, bipartisan forest management and permitting proposals advanced through the House Natural Resources Committee, Senate Agriculture Committee, House Agriculture Committee, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Collectively, these proposals provide a foundation for meaningful reform.

Members of both parties have supported common sense ideas such as:

• Expanding and improving authorities under the Healthy Forests Restoration Act so agencies can complete landscape-scale treatments more efficiently.
• Streamlining hazard-tree removal, utility right-of-way maintenance, post-fire restoration, and reforestation.
• Improving Good Neighbor Authority so states, Tribes, counties, and other partners can more effectively assist with federal forest-management projects.
• Resolving procedural obstacles created by the Cottonwood decision that can require agencies to repeat consultation without improving environmental outcomes.
• Establishing clearer timelines and more focused requirements for reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Historic Preservation Act.
• Accelerating judicial review and agency remands so priority forest-health projects are not stalled for years over procedural disputes.
• Supporting existing and emerging markets for timber, woody biomass, and mill residuals so restoration work is more economically viable and less costly to taxpayers.

These reforms would not eliminate environmental safeguards or public involvement. They would make the federal decision-making process more efficient, predictable, and accountable while helping agencies complete urgently needed work before forests and communities are lost to catastrophic wildfire.

No legislative package will give every member of Congress everything they want. That cannot become an excuse for continued inaction. Complete agreement is not the standard for governing, and it should not be the standard for protecting forests and communities. The election offered Americans a chance to voice their differences. The coming months offer Congress a chance to demonstrate that those differences do not have to prevent progress.

Lawmakers should focus on the provisions that have already earned bipartisan support, resolve the remaining technical differences, and assemble a forest-management and permitting reform package capable of passing both chambers. Doing so would send an important message: Washington can still solve problems, Republicans and Democrats can still work together, and stewardship of our shared public lands can still unite the country.

America's federal forests, rural communities, forest-sector infrastructure, and public safety cannot afford another cycle of delay and gridlock. This is Congress's opportunity to turn bipartisan agreement into durable reform and deliver meaningful results for the American people. The campaign is over. Now it is time to govern.