July 24, 2026 HFHC News Round Up
9th Circuit revives controversy over ‘wildland-urban interface’ (Capital Press)
A federal appeals court has revived a legal controversy over whether an Idaho forest project can avoid environmental review because it’s in the “wildland-urban interface” — the transition between wilderness and human development. A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling pertains to the Hanna Flats project, in which the U.S. Forest Service approved 2,350 acres of logging in the Idaho Panhandle National Forests in 2018. Litigation over the project has been ongoing for the past seven years, often centering on whether logging and other forest treatments were subject to environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Oregon logging project clears legal challenge (Courthouse News Service)
A logging project intended to reduce wildfire risk in Southern Oregon may proceed after a federal judge on Thursday declined a pair of conservation groups’ request to halt it. “The public has an interest in not experiencing a heightened risk of severe, uncontrolled wildfires. And [Bureau of Land Management] has an interest in effectively carrying out its forest management plan for the long-term health of the project area,” U.S. District Judge Michael McShane, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote in a 17-page opinion. Applegate Siskiyou Alliance and Klamath Forest Alliance accused the Bureau of Land Management in a March lawsuit of violating environmental law by authorizing logging activities under the Ashland SOS Project that conflicted with its original plan. At oral argument in June, the agency said the project is intended to address safety risks posed by dead and dying conifers near populated areas. Southern Oregon has seen increasing numbers of such trees due to wildfire and past vegetation management practices that produced dense forests. To offset some of the cost of removing those conifers, the Bureau of Land Management approved timber sales. McShane focused on whether the conservation groups could prove the agency had failed to analyze the environmental effects of logging hardwoods sufficiently
USDA distributing loans to Oregon, Nevada sawmills to expand timber production (The Center Square)
Sawmills in Oregon and Nevada will be receiving $80 million in federally guaranteed loans to increase American timber production, the Department of Agriculture shared exclusively with The Center Square Thursday. The loans are part of a Trump administration initiative to increase domestic timber production by 25%, reduce wildfire risk, and reduce American dependence on other nations for lumber products. Tahoe Forest Products of Carson City, Nev., in partnership with MapleMark Bank, is set to receive $50 million to expand its processing capabilities, shifting from purely rough lumber production to finished lumber that can be sold to retailers and large-scale construction markets.
ESA changes return law to previous definitions (Washington Policy Center)
The federal government recently narrowed the definition of “harm” in the Endangered Species Act. Citing the Loper Bright decision, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service have rescinded the “regulatory definition of ‘harm’” and returned to the broader terminology of “take.” “This action restores common sense, respects private property, provides much-needed certainty for landowners and follows the statute Congress actually passed,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said. Opponents of the rule change suggest that it removes protections for critical habitat areas. When a species is listed as endangered, federal agencies list federal and private land where those species exist as “critical habitat.” If a developer seeks a permit to build on land designated as critical habitat, the developer must explain how it will limit or mitigate harm to those areas. According to opponents of the rule change, the removal of “harm” from the ESA eliminates the protections for critical habitat.
California can’t replant its forests fast enough to keep up with wildfires (Cal Matters)
A windowless warehouse on the outskirts of Davis shelters pieces of California’s forests. Icy air swirls and fogs around 42,000 pounds of seeds — the past and the future of these trees, frozen in cardboard boxes. It smells like the woods on a snowy day. “This is like the mothership of forestry in California right here,” said Stewart McMorrow, staff chief for wildfire resilience at Cal Fire, standing outside the heavy metal door of the state seed bank at Cal Fire’s Lewis A. Moran Reforestation Center in Davis. Private landowners especially rely on these seeds — some now more than a half-century old — to reforest property destroyed by wildfire. At the pace California is burning, it’s nowhere near enough. Climate change and more than a century of overzealous fire suppression are now fueling wildfires so severe that they’re wiping out the very forests that need fire to thrive — leaving iconic landscapes at risk of turning into brush and scrub, permanently.
US Wildfires Burn 3.9m Acres as Forest Chief Fronts Congress (Wood Central)
America’s top forester has fronted Congress as US wildfires burn through more than 3.9 million acres, with the 2026 fire season on track to rank among the most severe in recent years. That is according to Dan Newhouse, chairman of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Forestry and Horticulture, who told Wednesday’s hearing with US Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz that crews are battling 72 large fires among more than 40,000 recorded nationwide this year. Newhouse, a Republican whose central Washington district has lost hundreds of homes to fires still burning, used his opening statement to link the crisis to a “generational decline” in the health of the nearly 200-million-acre National Forest System. A fire that started in the north of his district at the end of last week has already grown to nearly 70,000 acres, he said.
Enough with the excuses. Help Vermont’s loggers. (VTDigger)
Since the announcement of the closure of the Finch Paper mill in Glens Falls, New York, on July 17, I’ve received multiple emails, texts and phone calls asking for my take on the situation. Without a doubt, it is one of the most impactful events in my 50-plus-year career as a forester in Vermont. The economic impact on loggers, truckers, landowners and anyone involved in the forest products industry in the Northeast is immense. A facility that has been buying pulpwood from the region’s loggers since 1865 will stop making its own pulp from local logs and will transition to buying it from suppliers outside the area. At a speaking engagement this past winter, I was asked if the tariffs were the biggest single event that I’d been involved in throughout my career. I said then that if Finch Paper ever closed, that would be much bigger and impact more people. Those words have come back to haunt me.
After the Fire — The role of the Burned Area Emergency Response Team on the Pocket Fire (USDA Forest Service)
It’s July 13 and the Pocket Fire has been burning for almost a month but firefighters have finally begun to get a handle on suppression of this 27,000-acre fire. At the same time, the Coconino National Forest has called in a unique group of scientists to begin the assessment process of looking at what the fire did to the landscape-the Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) Team. The BAER program is designed to identify and manage potential risks to resources on National Forest System lands and reduce these threats through appropriate emergency measures to protect human life and safety, property, and critical natural or cultural resources. Every wildfire over 500 acres has some type of BEAR team assessment.
Proposal to create U.S. Wildland Fire Service divides Oregon Congressional lawmakers (KATU)
Oregon’s congressional Democrats are raising concerns about a Trump Administration proposal to reorganize the nation’s federal wildfire response, arguing it could weaken coordination between firefighting and land management even as supporters say it would better support firefighters and improve operations. The proposal would create a standalone U.S. Wildland Fire Service by consolidating federal wildfire response into a single agency. About 70% of the federal wildland firefighting workforce is housed within the U.S. Forest Service, and those firefighters have not yet been moved into the new agency.
Rep. Crane’s North Rim Restoration Act Gains Momentum With Senate Hearing (Crane Press)
On Tuesday, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a legislative hearing on the North Rim Restoration Act of 2025. This marked the first significant Senate action on the bill since it unanimously passed the House of Representatives on March 16, 2026. The hearing follows the devastating Dragon Bravo Fire, which burned nearly 150,000 acres in Northern Arizona and destroyed more than 100 structures, including the historic Grand Canyon Lodge. The fire left park staff, small business owners, and gateway communities grappling with decreased tourism, lost revenue, and long-term uncertainty. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) visited the region to meet with park staff, local officials, and small business owners to craft a federal response. Stakeholders consistently agreed that granting the National Park Service (NPS) emergency contracting authority to cut through red tape and accelerate rebuilding would best serve those impacted. On October 9, 2025, Rep. Crane introduced H.R. 5729, the North Rim Restoration Act of 2025, incorporating that feedback directly into the bill.
Wildfire Smoke Shakes U.S. Policy as Congress Advances FENCES and FIRE Acts (Streamline)
Millions of residents across the American Midwest and Northeast awoke this week to hazardous, sepia-toned skies and scratchy throats, trapped beneath a suffocating blanket of toxic air. The culprit was not a domestic industrial disaster, but rather massive plumes of smoke drifting southward from hundreds of uncontained wildfires raging across Canada. As air quality alerts forced the cancellation of outdoor events, grounded summer camps, and triggered respiratory warnings for vulnerable populations, the crisis has catalyzed a fierce legislative battle in Washington. United States House Republicans are now aggressively pushing two major bills—the FENCES Act and the FIRE Act—aimed at overhauling how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforces the Clean Air Act amid transboundary pollution events.
Opinion: Canada’s wildfire smoke is choking America — Congress must clear the air (Fox News)
This week, millions of Americans woke up to hazy skies and scratchy throats under air quality alerts, not because of anything happening in their own local communities or states, but because smoke from the hundreds of wildfires burning in Canada drifted across the border. Across the Atlantic seaboard to the Midwest, Americans were told to stay indoors. Seniors and people with respiratory conditions faced increased health risks. Kids enjoying their summer break watched their outdoor plans get cancelled. Families on vacation were stuck inside. America’s own regulatory system allows forests to grow dangerously overgrown, letting dead trees and dense underbrush pile up for years while environmental reviews drag on before a single chainsaw ever starts. Meanwhile, drought intensifies conditions and one lightning strike, or a careless spark, can turn into an inferno. This is the opposite of environmental stewardship and neglect dressed up as caution.
Two shaded fuel break projects planned for the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest (Elkhorn)
The Wallowa Mountains Office of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest is planning two shaded fuel break projects along the front range of the Wallowa Mountains to improve wildfire preparedness and reduce risk to nearby communities. The Upper Wallowa Valley Fuel Breaks project would improve fire management around at-risk homes and property from Lostine east to south Wallowa Lake, as well as the divide between Big and Little Sheep Creeks east of Joseph. The Huckleberry to Minam Fuel Breaks project would improve fire management around at-risk homes and property in and around the community of Wallowa.
Climate Commission proposes bigger goals for storing planet-warming gas in Oregon lands, waters (Lincoln County Leader)
As the federal government pushes for more logging and grazing on Oregon’s lands, state climate commissioners are calling for more ambitious goals to protect the state’s land and water so they can capture carbon dioxide. The 13 voting members of the governor-appointed Oregon Climate Action Commission last week called to double goals they set just five years ago for capturing and storing additional carbon dioxide each year in the state’s forest, grass, crop and wetlands. The targets are recommendations meant to guide state land managers and lawmakers and not statutorily enforceable
A high school in Portland, Ore., will be replaced with a 300,000-sf school on the same site (BDC)
Cleveland High School in Oregon’s Portland Public Schools will be replaced with an approximately 300,000-sf high school on the same site. The modernization project, which broke ground in June, will also upgrade the athletics stadium and adjacent city park fields. The new Cleveland High School, designed by Mahlum Architects and constructed by Skanska, will be one of the largest K-12 mass timber projects in the Pacific Northwest, according to Skanska. The project will incorporate almost 870,000 board feet of regionally sourced mass timber. The structure will combine acoustic dowel laminated timber (ALDT) decking, glulam beams and columns, structural steel, and low-carbon concrete. Several building components will be prefabricated, including exterior wall systems, ALDT roof panels, and long-span steel trusses for the gym and theater spaces.
Skagit County residents voice concern over logging on Little Mountain (GoSkagit)
Several Skagit County residents are opposing logging on Little Mountain after a local timber company bought a 10-acre parcel there and filed a forest practice application for harvest and road construction. On June 15, the nonprofit Skagit Habitat for Humanity sold its 10-acre, mostly wooded property just outside the Mount Vernon city limits on the northeastern side of Little Mountain for $70,000 to the Bellingham-based timberland company, the Nielsen Brothers. According to the Skagit County assessor’s website, the property had a market value of about $178,000 during the 2025 tax year.
Sen. Ossoff Working to Expand Market Access for Georgia Forestry and Timber Products (Ossoff Press)
U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff is working to expand market access for Georgia forestry and timber products into Europe. Sen. Ossoff is launching an inquiry with Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Administrator Kelly Moore on the status of trade negotiations with the European Union (EU) that could open a major new market for Georgia forestry and timber products. Sen. Ossoff is encouraging Secretary Rollins and Administrator Moore to help open EU markets to American exporters by supporting EU regulatory approval of US fumigation techniques and working to provide a timeline for EU reviewal of US products.
Forest Service explains glyphosate caution sign after online speculation (Tahoe Daily Tribune)
A photo circulating on social media showing a caution sign referencing glyphosate has prompted confusion among Lake Tahoe residents over whether herbicides are being applied in the basin. The image, shared in a Facebook post on July 9, shows a yellow caution sign with the word “glyphosate” and the date “06/25/26” handwritten in black marker. The photo was allegedly taken near Tallac Point. Comments on the post said the sign had been replaced with a ribbon labeled “Invasive Species.” The controversy surrounding glyphosate has grown in recent months following a Mother Jones investigation examining the herbicide’s potential carcinogenic risks, major lawsuit settlements and ongoing debate over the extent of scientific research on its health effects.
Forest Service to host Forest management field trip in partnership with Western Colorado University (USDA Forest Service)
The Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison (GMUG) National Forests’ Gunnison Ranger District, in partnership with Western Colorado University, will host a public field trip on Tuesday, Aug. 4, highlighting two major forest management projects: the Taylor Park Vegetation Management Project and the Spruce Beetle Epidemic and Aspen Decline Management Response (SBEADMR). Both projects aim to increase the forest’s ability to respond to multiple stressors such as drought, insect attack and disease through active vegetation management while also providing wood products to support the local regional economy. This all-day event will highlight several elements of each project and give attendees the opportunity to interact with Forest Service staff. Participants will tour the Dustin Gulch project area near Spring Creek and receive presentations on forestry, hydrology, soils and other relevant topics.
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