DOJ defends ESA ‘harm’ rule repeal in court (PoliticoPro)
The Justice Department asked federal judges Wednesday to rule in its favor and end litigation against the Trump administration’s rollback of habitat protections for imperiled plants and animals. DOJ’s Energy and Natural Resources Division filed motions for summary judgment in four cases challenging the rule rescission, which removed habitat modification or destruction from the definition of “harm” in Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service regulations. The repeal took effect last month. Environmental and conservation groups behind the lawsuits in federal court in California and South Carolina have asserted the Trump administration’s rollback undermines the 1973 law and weakens protections for listed species. DOJ has defended the decision. “Regulatory overreach burdens American families and businesses, and these now-rescinded Endangered Species Act regulations are a prime example,” said Adam Gustafson, ENRD’s principal deputy assistant attorney general, in a statement. The harm rule repeal is a key element of the Trump administration’s broader push to weaken safeguards for plants and animals at risk of extinction. Lawsuits against the rollback also target the administration’s new finding that “take” — a term that describes harming or killing protected wildlife — only covers deliberate acts directed at individual animals. The administration has said it is working to get back to the best reading of the ESA. (Subscription Required)
BLM opens comments about 1,600 acres near Eagle Point for northern spotted owl habitat (KDRV)
The Bureau of Land Management has a public comment period open today about thinning vegetation, including timber harvest, near Eagle Point. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is developing a proposal to improve forest habitat on about 1,600 acres near Eagle Point which it says, “is overly dense with vegetation, causing increased competition between trees, limited habitat complexity, and increasing susceptibility to wildfire. The project would include limited timber harvest to speed the development of nesting habitat for the northern spotted owl and maintain healthy streams.”
‘Burn, Scar’ director navigates divided communitites to tell the story of a wildfire’s human toll (Santa Fe New Mexican)
The 2022 Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon wildfire burned for 137 days in Northern New Mexico, consuming 341,471 acres across San Miguel, Taos, Colfax, and Mora counties and destroying 900 structures, more than 400 of them homes. It was the largest and most destructive wildfire in New Mexico’s history and the largest wildfire caused by a prescribed burn in the United States. In April of 2022, the U.S. Forest Service set two controlled fires at the height of the windy season. Prescribed burns are used routinely by the agency for crucial reasons, including to thin overgrowth, protect water sources, strengthen ecosystem resistance, and, most importantly, although ironically in this case, to mitigate the risk of wildfires.
Reducing wildfire fuel (Idaho Ag Today)
As wildfires rage across the western U.S., incinerating hundreds of thousands of acres, destroying entire communities, and polluting the air, Bill Pekny has a message: We need to get more educated on what causes these disasters. It’s the only way we’ll be able to reduce the devastation. “There are a lot of misconceptions around wildfires,” says Pekny, author of A Tale of Two Climates: One Real, One Imaginary (Two Climates LLC, 2021. “One of the biggest is that they are 100 percent preventable. They aren’t, and in fact, prescribed burns are beneficial. Still, we can and should do certain things to lessen their frequency and severity.” For example, says Pekny, we can take the following steps: Use smart, strategic logging. Trees leave the forest in two ways: smoke or lumber. With judicious logging practices, we will also create much needed firebreaks and access roads in the process. Build more dams and reservoirs, especially in drought and fire prone areas. Find ways to trap seasonal floodwater for drought, fire mitigation, and hydropower, rather than simply wasting the water by allowing it to flow unchecked into the oceans. Relax regulations that stymie dam and reservoir construction, forest thinning, and removal of brush that fuel wildfires.
Fighting fire with fire (Deseret)
Sen. John Curtis’ wildfire bill was unanimously passed by the Senate, coming one step closer to implementing more prescribed burns. Sen. Curtis met with officials in Richfield, Utah on Wednesday to see a prescribed fire up close. Proponents say prescribed burns decrease the potential threat posed by large wildfires, but critics argue they can be dangerous. The process of carrying out a prescribed burn is extensive and can vary fire to fire.
9 years since devastating Tubbs Fire, Santa Rosa completes landmark Fountaingrove fire safety project (KTVU)
On the eve of the ninth anniversary of the Tubbs Fire, local officials completed a major wildfire mitigation project in Santa Rosa’s Fountaingrove neighborhood. Funded by a voter-approved 2024 countywide Fire Safety Measure, year-round crews cleared heavy fuel, dead trees, and dense brush to slow fire spread and protect evacuation routes. Residents praised the local funding initiative and defensible space coaching provided by Santa Rosa fire inspectors.
Advocacy Supports USFS Rescission of 2001 Roadless Rule (SBA)
On August 20, 2026, the U.S. Forest Service published a proposed rule to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The Roadless Rule currently prohibits road construction and timber harvesting across roughly 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas inside national forests. If the proposed rule is finalized, the national prohibition will be removed, and decisions about roads and timber harvesting would be made locally through each national forest’s land management plan. Advocacy submitted a comment letter on October 6, 2026, strongly supporting the proposed rescission of the 2001 Roadless Rule. Advocacy supports USFS’ proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule and restore greater flexibility to local Forest Service managers to make management decisions responsive to the conditions and needs of individual national forests. Small business stakeholders have consistently emphasized that the current rule can constrain access to timber resources, limit opportunities for active forest management, and create uncertainty for businesses and rural communities that depend on National Forest System lands.
Governor Dunleavy Enters State of Alaska into Shared Stewardship Agreement with the U.S. Forest Service to Increase Productivity of Alaska’s Forests (Presswire)
Today Governor Dunleavy entered the State of Alaska Division of Forestry and Fire Protection into a shared stewardship agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. The agreement will support coordinating active forest management and increasing economic opportunities for young growth timber while meeting market demand for old growth timber. The agreement stems from President Trump’s Executive Order 14225, “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production,” which identified timber production as critical to the nation’s well-being. The agreement will establish an interagency team to identify priority goals and opportunities and will enable the State of Alaska to carry out forest restoration projects on 300,000 acres of the Tongass National Forest.
County Signs Good Neighbor Agreement with Forest Service for Wildfire Prevention Work (Noozhawk)
Santa Barbara County Fire Chief Garrett Huff recently signed a Good Neighbor Agreement with the U.S. Forest Service, which allows the agencies to coordinate on fuel reduction for wildfire prevention. It will allow County Fire crews to clear vegetation and do other work on federal land and get reimbursed if the USFS is not available to do the work with its own crews, according to the agreement.
Loggers still getting squeezed at the pump (Mesabi Tribune)
At full capacity, Clinton Cook’s logging operations use thousands of gallons of diesel fuel each day. “When we’re running wide open, we can burn 2,000 gallons of fuel a day,” Cook, of rural Bigfork said. “We have 15 trucks and then there’s all the woods equipment.” Minnesota loggers and truckers who haul timber to wood products mills are still getting squeezed at the diesel fuel pump. Despite state and federal actions aimed at providing relief from high diesel fuel prices, logging industry officials say the actions haven’t yet helped loggers and timber truckers. The average price of diesel fuel in Minnesota Wednesday was $6.11 per gallon, according to AAA. That’s down from $6.28 per gallon a week ago, but up from $5.77 a month ago and $3.57 a year ago, according to AAA.
U.S. sawmill capacity utilization jumps 5.7 points in the second quarter (Lesprom)
Capacity utilization at U.S. sawmills and wood preservation plants rose to 76.5% in the second quarter from 70.8% in the previous quarter, according to the Census Bureau. That was the highest since the second quarter of 2025, when it was 77.6%. The Federal Reserve’s industrial production index for sawmills and wood preservation averaged 108.4 in the quarter, up 4.1% from the previous quarter and up 0.7% from a year earlier. Utilization at makers of veneer, plywood and engineered wood products rose to 75.5% from 67.8% in the previous quarter (65.5% a year earlier), while at other wood product manufacturers it rose to 73.3% from 70.1% (67.9% a year earlier).
Alaska Timber and Truss lands $2.5M to retool Falls Creek Road mill (Petersburg Pilot)
Alaska Timber and Truss has secured a $2.5 million financing package to modernize its sawmill on Falls Creek Road, connect it to Petersburg’s hydroelectric grid and install an additional mill built to process young-growth timber. Co-owner Brett Martin said the goal is to have the expanded operation running well by the middle of next summer. “We’re taking a gamble,” Martin said. “We’re obtaining a couple of loans to expand our mill, or essentially retool our mill to bring it up to modern standards, so that we can actually be the most efficient and effective as we possibly can.”
Microsoft And Relae Release New Framework For High-Quality Improved Forest Management (Carbon Herald)
Relae, in partnership with Microsoft, has released a new paper that offers an innovative science-based framework for designing and evaluating high-quality improved forest management (IFM) credits. The framework outlines practices related to baselines and additionality, leakage accounting, and social impacts. Improved forest management refers to managing existing forests so they store more CO2 while continuing to produce timber. It includes practices such as extending harvest rotations, reducing logging intensity, and enhancing riparian buffer protection. The carbon credits generated through IFM are one of the fastest-scaling credit types in the voluntary carbon market. In this regard, since 2008, over 274 million credits have been issued from 1,056 IFM projects, representing 29% of all forestry and land-use credits.
Walmart Settles Its Four-Year Legal Case Over Structurlam’s Collapse (Wood Central)
Walmart has settled its case over more than US$80 million in claims against Structurlam, the Canadian mass timber manufacturer it hired to supply its new head office. That is according to the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, which approved the settlement with the trust representing Structurlam’s creditors in July and closed the case in August. “Disputes arose over the parties’ performance under the contract, ultimately leading to the debtors filing these bankruptcy cases,” US Bankruptcy Judge Craig Goldblatt wrote in April. To service the deal, Structurlam had opened a dedicated plant at Conway, Arkansas, after signing its first supply agreement with Walmart in December 2019.
TimberHP and Weyerhaeuser enter into strategic partnership (Woodworking Network)
TimberHP, manufacturer of wood fiber insulation, announced a strategic commercial partnership with Weyerhaeuser to expand the availability of its wood-based building solutions across the U.S. TimberHP says it is the first and only U.S. manufacturer of wood fiber insulation. Under the agreement, Weyerhaeuser will hold U.S. commercialization and distribution rights for TimberHP’s line of wood fiber insulation products, including TimberBatt and TimberBoard, within the lumber and building materials (LBM) channel. TimberFill blown-in insulation will remain under its current distribution structure. TimberHP’s insulation products are made in the U.S. from renewable softwood residuals, providing sustainable, high-performance insulation solutions that meet today’s evolving building needs and standards and help serve the demand for energy-efficient, low-carbon building materials.
New Charlotte Fire station will be the first mass timber firehouse in the southeast (WCCB)
The City of Charlotte officially broke ground Thursday on the state-of-the-art Firehouse 44. It’ll serve the rapidly growing River District in west Charlotte. The 14,000 square-foot facility is on Dixie River Road. The building will be 100 percent electric, using geothermal climate systems and solar panels to completely eliminate its carbon footprint. Firefighters have been operating out of a temporary station nearby, responding to more than 1,500 calls since early this year. Leaders say the new fire station will help the department grow with the city. Charlotte Fire Department Chief Reginald Johnson says, “When someone calls 911 because their home is on fire, a loved one is experiencing a medical emergency, or they have been involved in a serious crash, they are waiting for help. Firehouse 44 puts them closer to providing that help.” The structure will be the first mass timber firehouse in the southeast. Mass timber is a material known for its strength and sustainability.
Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities
Supporting active, multiple-use management of federal forest lands
