May 8, 2025 HFHC News Round Up
Regional environmental organizations divided over pending Fix Our Forests Act (Sopris Sun)
Last month, the United States Senate introduced H.R. 471, the Fix Our Forests Act, for legislative consideration. The bill, cosponsored by Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper (D), passed the House in late January with support from representatives Jeff Crank (R-CD5), Jeff Hurd (R-CD3), Brittany Peterson (D-CD7), and Lauren Boebert (R-CD4) and 275 other congressional members. The legislation has been highly controversial, with different reactions from various environmental stakeholders. According to Hickenlooper’s office, the bill is meant to “strengthen wildfire resilience by improving forest management, supporting fire-safe communities and streamlining approvals for projects that protect communities and ecosystems from extreme wildfires.” He and his co-sponsoring senators claim that it will accelerate forest management projects and response, increase public input capacity and improve collaboration between interest groups.
Klobuchar Addresses Need for Forest Service Resources and Staffing at Senate Agriculture Committee Hearing (Senate AN&F Dems)
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, delivered the following opening statement at the Committee hearing to review the Fix Our Forest Act. In her remarks, Senator Klobuchar acknowledged the importance of Congress acting on the wildfire crisis, addressed the need for increased resources and investment in forest management and wildfire prevention, and urged the Trump Administration to reconsider their proposed cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Forest Service, which oversees wildfire response efforts.
House Republicans approve amendment authorizing the sale of federal lands (NPR)
House Republicans have approved an amendment that authorizes the sale of thousands of acres of federal public land in Nevada and Utah; two states where the federal government owns most of the land that have long been at the forefront of a controversial movement to cede control of it to state or private entities. The House Natural Resources committee approved the amendment late Tuesday night after previously indicating federal land sales wouldn’t be included in a budget reconciliation bill. Most of the proposed land sales or exchanges appear to be aimed at building affordable housing on U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land outside Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada and in fast growing southwestern Utah around the tourist town of St. George, Utah.
Forest Service to reduce comment periods (Moscow Pullman Daily News)
The Washington Office of the U.S. Forest Service has given its regional foresters direction for fast-tracking environmental reviews of logging projects. According to an April 22 letter from Forest Service Acting Deputy Chief Jacqueline Emanuel, the agency that oversees 193 million acres of federal forests and grasslands will minimize public engagement at the front end of designing projects linked to President Donald Trump’s executive order to scale up timber production. In early April, Secretary of Agriculture Brook Rollins declared a wildfire emergency using authorities contained in former President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The geographic scope covers more than 112 million acres and includes much of the federal forest land in Idaho and southeastern Washington.
Republicans press Trump for action ahead of wildfire season (The Hill)
A group of Republicans has asked President Trump in a letter to implement “immediate, decisive action” ahead of wildfire season. Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) is leading the group of GOP lawmakers to request Trump take action as the May-to-November wildfire season begins, noting fires have already impacted communities and the environment across the country. The letter, signed by Sheehy and 16 other Republicans, was first reported by Semafor…They note that federal jurisdiction over wildfire response is spread across federal and state agencies, with “no clear responsibility” for fighting the fires and protecting communities. There are unnecessary “bureaucratic hurdles and redundancies” within the agencies that hamper the ability to respond to wildfires quickly, they said.
Jim Peterson: If I were Forest Service Chief…(Evergreen Magazine)
About a million years ago – when Joe Biden was still President – an old Forest Service retiree I know well – often joked with me about what we’d do if one of us was Chief of the Forest Service. “You’d make I pretty good Chief,” he told me one morning. “That’s crazy,” I replied. “Why would you even think it?” Actually, I thought he’d make a great Chief but I knew he wanted nothing to do with his old outfit. He hardly recognized what it became during the Obama-Biden years. He was over the top angry. And so our running gag ran faster. “Tell you what,” I said one morning. “If it’s offered, I’ll take the Chief’s job if you’ll be my enforcer.” “Done,” he said. “What’s first on our list?” “We’re going to move all Forest Service decision-making down to the Supervisor and District Ranger levels. We’ll clean out the Washington office, leaving a few accountants and lobbyists, but everyone else will accept a field transfer or retire.”
Smoke from climate-fueled wildfires contributed to thousands of US deaths over 15 years, study says (ABC News)
Wildfires driven by climate change contribute to as many as thousands of annual deaths and billions of dollars in economic costs from wildfire smoke in the United States, according to a new study. The paper, published Friday in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment, found that from 2006 to 2020, climate change contributed to about 15,000 deaths from exposure to small particulate matter from wildfires and cost about $160 billion. The annual range of deaths was 130 to 5,100, the study showed, with the highest in states such as Oregon and California. “We’re seeing a lot more of these wildfire smoke events,” said Nicholas Nassikas, a study author and a physician and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. So he and multidisciplinary team of researchers wanted to know: “What does it really mean in a changing environment for things like mortality, which is kind of the worst possible health outcome?”
New tool aims to improve how Colorado funds, plans and invests in wildfire mitigation (CPR News)
As Colorado continues to grapple with the loss of dozens of federal land management and wildfire prevention employees following cuts by the Trump Administration, local scientists are hopeful a new tool will help fill the gaps and shore up funding. The Colorado Forest Tracker was created by the Colorado State Forest Service and the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, both of which are a part of Colorado State University in Fort Collins. The first-of-its-kind project in the state compiles records from across agencies into a publicly accessible online dashboard, creating a central database and reporting system for forest management activities across the state.
CPW, Forest Service stake out a “turf war” over Mad Rabbit trails project above Steamboat Springs (Colorado Sun)
Colorado Parks and Wildlife is reviving a previously settled objection to a U.S. Forest Service plan for trail improvements near Rabbit Ears Pass. CPW and the Colorado Department of Natural Resources first objected to the Forest Service plan for new trails in the fall of 2023, arguing that more singletrack on forest land around Rabbit Ears Pass would stress elk herds and fragment habitat. Wildlife and recreation officials with the state and Routt National Forest spent nearly a year working on a compromise — they called it an Adaptive Management Plan — that would reduce the reach of new trails, rehabilitate unauthorized trails and limit development in critical elk habitat. Now, CPW is resuscitating its objections to the Mad Rabbit project, saying the Forest Service’s “last-minute alterations to the Adaptive Management Plan are significant and unacceptable to Colorado.”
TRCP Applauds Bipartisan Public Land Caucus (Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership)
Today, hunters, anglers, conservationists, and all Americans who value our nation’s public lands celebrate the announcement of the bipartisan Public Lands Caucus led by Representatives Zinke (R-Mont.) and Vasquez (D-N.M.) and co-chaired by Representatives Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.). “On both sides of the aisle, Americans cherish our public lands,” said Joel Pedersen, president and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “From the Northern Rockies of Montana to the Gila Mountains of New Mexico, these lands and waters provide invaluable opportunities to millions of hunters and anglers. The voices of this bipartisan Public Lands Caucus are now more important than ever, and we join our nation’s sportsmen and women in thanking Representatives Zinke and Vasquez for their leadership to safeguard America’s outdoor legacy.”
It’s ‘time to warrior up for trees,’ author says (Salish Current)
In her book, Lynda Mapes describes threats to forests as “an apocalypse of hot drought, fire, bugs, pestilence and death.” Calling for a paradigm shift, she asks readers to recognize the immense capacity for renewal within the lands and waters themselves. “As we confront biological impoverishment and climate catastrophe, this restorative power is what we must unleash,” she writes. “This really is a time to warrior up and defend this place,” she said. People can do things such as hold politicians accountable and work on land restoration. When asked about threats to old-growth forests in National Forests recently announced by the Trump administration, she said the chances of those cuts actually happening are minimal. “It absolutely won’t happen,” she asserted. “It’ll get swatted down or rescinded.”
B.C. premier says softwood lumber accord could build ‘momentum’ for U.S. trade deals (Globe and Mail)
Resolving the softwood lumber dispute could create “momentum” for a larger trade agreement between Canada and the United States, British Columbia Premier David Eby says. Eby said Wednesday in Victoria that he and several other premiers pressed that point during a virtual meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney after his visit with U.S. President Donald Trump this week. He said softwood lumber could present an opportunity to “lead the way in terms of opening the door again to concrete and meaningful discussions that benefit both Americans with cheaper building materials as well as growth in our economy.” The premier said it doesn’t matter if Canada and the United States resolves the softwood lumber dispute before dealing with the overall trade and tariff issue.
Lumber industry suffering from cheap Canadian imports: U.S. Lumber Coalition (Scotsman Guide)
The meet-and-greet Tuesday between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Donald Trump undoubtedly included a discussion of tariffs between the two countries. Earlier in the day, Trump had ruminated on Truth Social about why, from his perspective, America was subsidizing Canada. “We don’t need their Cars, we don’t need their Energy, we don’t need their Lumber, we don’t need ANYTHING they have,” Trump wrote. When it comes to wood imports, that is certainly the position of the U.S. Lumber Coalition, which has maintained that the U.S. timber industry can supply virtually all of the U.S. housing industry’s lumber needs, but it is being crippled by cheap imports from Canada. The coalition, an alliance of softwood lumber producers, argues that Canada has long been dumping softwood lumber on the U.S. market and selling it below the cost of production, or below their home sales market price.
RoyOMartin’s High-Tech Forestry Approach Poised to Meet America’s Housing Crisis (ESRI Blog)
A century-old family business like RoyOMartin survives and succeeds by recognizing risks and opportunities. Right now, as the US faces a critical housing shortage, the company has positioned itself to deliver affordable construction materials grown and manufactured in Louisiana and Texas. “You really start to wonder if the American dream of owning a home has been lost for a whole generation because of affordability and availability,” said Spencer Martin, vice president of Information Systems at RoyOMartin and a fourth-generation family member. But RoyOMartin is doing its part. Approximately 80 percent of the plywood and panels it produces flows directly into multifamily or residential housing.
[Montana] Forestry expo this week (Hungry Horse News)
The Family Forestry Expo is an annual, weeklong event that offers hands-on exposure to the role forests play in our everyday lives. This year the Family Forestry Expo is happening this week through Saturday, with the theme of “Forests-Landscapes of Many Uses.” Over 1,200 local fifth grade students from 28 schools, stretching from Eureka to the Flathead Valley, will visit the Expo this week to learn about natural resource topics. The students visit stations that provide educational presentations about fisheries, aquatic/riparian systems, archaeology, wildlife, fire, backcountry ethics, plant identification, and forest management. The program is curriculum-based, and the field stations complement the students’ classroom study.
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