April 17, 2025 HFHC News Round Up
Trump to rescind the Public Lands Rule (High Country News)
At an all-hands meeting of the Department of Interior employees last week, Secretary Doug Burgum stressed that managing and protecting federal public lands “must be held in balance.” “It says in the mission statement the job of Interior is to ‘manage and protect,’” he said. “It doesn’t just say ‘protect,’ it says ‘manage and protect.’” Better balance on public lands was precisely what the Biden administration was after with a rule it finalized last year. The Bureau of Land Management, the nation’s largest land management agency, has a long history of prioritizing drilling and other extraction. Biden’s so-called Public Lands Rule sought to put conservation and ecosystem restoration on equal footing with drilling and other extractive uses, including by offering new leases for improving and recovering federal lands and offsetting development impacts.
Exclusive: Trump Admin Plans Overhaul of Endangered Species Act (RealClearPolitics)
The Trump administration intends to overhaul the Endangered Species Act by changing what it means to harm an endangered or threatened species as part of the larger White House campaign to spur economic growth through deregulation, RealClearPolitics is first to report. The president has long loathed red tape of the green variety, and one White House official predicted that overhauling the act “will have a seismic, real-world effect on the ability to build.” “Environmental is the biggest tool for stopping growth,” Trump said during an interview with Joe Rogan last October, harking back to his New York days as a real estate developer and complaining that rare flora and fauna on a job site could quickly grind even the biggest construction projects to a halt. The candidate called environmental regulations “a weapon,” and later as president-elect, he vowed to expedite the environmental permit and approval process for any company investing at least $1 billion in the United States.
Where Should America’s Wood Come From? (HFHC)
Secretary Rollins’ order calls for a 25 percent increase in federal timber production over the next four to five years. That’s not radical—that’s modest. Based on current harvest levels, a 25 percent increase in timber would be less than what was sold during the first Trump Administration. Right now, the Forest Service sells about 2.9 billion board feet of timber each year, enough to frame 175,000 homes. If the agency fully implemented its forest plans, it could sell enough timber to build more than 385,000 homes annually. On many federal forests in California, Oregon, and Washington, a 25 percent increase in timber harvests would still fall short of the levels federal agencies are already authorized—and expected—to meet under the Northwest Forest Plan.
Greens on edge over rumors Trump may target nonprofit status (E&E News PM)
Environmental groups fear their nonprofit status could soon come under threat from the Trump administration — possibly even on Earth Day next week. Rumors started flying this month inside environmental advocacy circles that President Donald Trump might soon move to revoke green groups’ tax-exempt status. Concerns over the president targeting nonprofits’ status were amplified when Trump suggested this week that Harvard University should lose its tax-exempt status after the school defied the administration’s demands. A forthcoming move to try to revoke green groups’ tax exempt status is the “rumor of the day that is flying around D.C.,” said Brett Hartl, the government affairs director at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. “We are trying to not panic, because we don’t know what it is,” Hartl said. “If it came to pass, it would be painful in the short term,” he said. But environmentalists “would rally together and support each other.” (Subscription Required)
Ways to Rein in the California Coastal Commission (California’s Water & Energy Future with Edward Ring)
There is a growing bipartisan consensus even here in California that environmentalist restrictions have gone too far. It would be a dishonest oversimplification to pretend environmentalists have outlived their usefulness, or that many of the accomplishments of environmentalists over the past 50 years weren’t magnificent and necessary. But when special interests define and exploit environmentalism in order to consolidate industries, destroy small competitors, raise the cost of living, create scarcity for profit, deny upward mobility, and lower the quality of life for everyone apart from themselves and their elite counterparts, a restructuring is in order.
Group maps federal lands the Trump administration could target for development (New Mexico Political Report)
Federal lands near Española and Santa Fe could be sold off as part of an effort to increase affordable housing, according to the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity. Those lands include places near the Ojo Caliente Area of Critical Environmental Concern, where there are Native American cultural sites and mineral springs, and the La Cienega Area of Critical Environmental Concern. The Center for Biological Diversity mapped out Bureau of Land Management parcels within ten miles of municipalities that have at least 5,000 residents. These are lands that the Department of the Interior has indicated may be sold to increase access to affordable housing.
Trump Paves Way for Increased Timber Cutting on Public Lands (Oregon Business)
The lands identified in the president’s April 3 designation order are located primarily in Western states and have a combined size greater than California. Forest land in the Great Lakes region as well as the South and New England are also affected. In Washington, parts of the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie, Gifford Pinchot, Okanogan-Wenatchee, Colville and Umatilla national forests are targeted for increased logging, the Seattle Times reports. The Trump administration cited wildfire danger as the reason for the emergency, though the USDA directive doesn’t mention climate change. The world’s temperature has increased steadily since the 1980s with human activity the leading driver, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Former President Joe Biden also sought to increase logging on public lands to mitigate wildfire danger though Forest Service timber sales declined during his time in office, the Associated Press reports.
New Hampshire timber industry officials say uncertainty around tariffs causing problems (WMUR)
Some New Hampshire businesses, including in the state’s timber industry, are worried about the ongoing effects of tariffs. Northland Forest Products has been in Kingston for over 50 years. It exports hardwood to other countries, such as Vietnam and China, which owner Jameson French said is one of the largest markets for American hardwood. After the wood is exported, it’s remanufactured, and those products are exported to countries around the world, including back to the United States, where the wood was originally from. French said those products couldn’t be made in this country because the United States no longer has the manufacturing infrastructure needed, and creating that can’t happen overnight.
Future foresters confront uncertainty (Utah Statesman)
Imagine you’re a college senior who just landed your dream job working for the U.S. Forest Service — a career that won’t necessarily make you a lot of money but is fueled by a passion for the natural world and protecting our federal land. Then you receive an email terminating you. On Feb. 14, thousands of federal employees received that email. As part of an initiative by President Donald Trump’s administration to shrink the size of the federal workforce, probationary federal employees were terminated from their jobs across different agencies. This initiative affected the whole nation and directly impacted students on Utah State University’s campus. “Just seeing all these jobs go away and science being defunded — I guess I don’t really know what I’m doing with my life at the moment,” said Anna Hansen, sophomore in USU’s forest ecology and management program. “I had these goals to do, and now I’m not really sure if that’s going to work out.”
How DOGE is changing the forestry landscape at UVM (Vermont Cynic)
An anonymous UVM alum ‘24 was one of the Forest Service employees impacted by these cuts. “It was a Sunday morning,” he said. “I wake up to a phone call, and it was my forest supervisor, and she said, ‘I’m calling you because we are terminating you from your position with the Forest Service.’” He worked as a logging systems forester, helping to plan and implement timber sales to enhance the characteristics of forested areas for the health and diversity of the landscape and to benefit wildlife, fish and humans, he said. As an undergraduate at UVM, the Forest Service was presented to him as the model employer by professors, advisors and industry visitors to the classroom. He was excited to enjoy some of the best benefits offered in the public sector, like the most time off, great retirement plans, a pension and, primarily, stability. “When private industry starts to tighten their belt and lay people off, working for the federal government, typically you don’t have to worry about that, right?” he said. “However, in recent times, they have not been going by the playbook.”
Proposal to impose penalties on private utilities delaying wildfire lawsuits quietly moves forward (Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Fred Cuozzo barely made it out of the South Obenchain Fire that burned through his home, barn, pumphouse and garage in Eagle Point, north of Medford, on Sept. 8, 2020. Three years later, PacifiCorp — owner of Oregon private utility Pacific Power — was found by a jury to have been reckless and negligent in causing that fire and three others. In January 2024, a jury ordered the utility company to pay millions in damages to Cuozzo and nine other survivors, among the first group in an ongoing class action lawsuit. Cuozzo still has not seen that settlement money because PacifiCorp is appealing the jury’s verdict. In three months, Cuozzo turns 80. He fears he might not in his lifetime see that money — money he needs to rebuild.
ODF responds to comments and finalizes state forests implementation plans (ODF)
The Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) finalized its Implementation Plans that describe revisions for the Astoria, Forest Grove, Tillamook, North Cascade, West Oregon, and Western Lane (including the Veneta and Southwest units) State Forests districts following a 30-day comment period that concluded March 21. The department received 28 different comments with many addressing multiple issues. The main areas public comments addressed were the draft Western State Forests Habitat Conservation Plan; forest management; forest health; wildlife; carbon storage and climate change; recreation, education and interpretation; and roads.
Community urged to suggest projects for Malheur County wildfire plan (Malheur Enterprise)
Some 16 years ago, county and state officials pulled together a detailed analysis of the wildfire threats to Malheur County. Communities from one end of the county were rated for their risk, with about a half dozen being rated as “high.” Page by page, officials mapped out actions to cut those risks. But the wildfire plan has largely gone ignored since then. Malheur County officials now want the help of communities and landowners to change that.
‘Legion of bark beetles’ expected to gobble Michigan’s ice-damaged trees (Michigan Live)
An invasion of beetles is coming, and it will bring another wave of damage to the already battered Michigan Northwoods. Participants at last week’s annual Michigan Society of American Foresters conference in Bellaire discussed how bark and wood-boring beetles can be expected as the next environmental and economic disaster to strike up north forests. It’s more fallout after a devastating ice storm wreaked havoc on hundreds of square miles of Northern Michigan forests nearly three weeks ago.
Local View: Minnesota schools held hostage by wilderness undervaluations (Duluth News Tribune)
When Congress added a wilderness designation to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, it believed school lands inside the boundary would be obtained by the U.S. Forest Service through normal land exchanges. Some 86,000 acres of affected school lands contain spectacular Canadian Shield landscape and an astonishing 1.7 million feet of untrammeled lakeshore. Minnesota and the Forest Service have attempted several times to negotiate a land swap or sale, but major sticking points have always involved land valuation and artificial limitations placed by the Forest Service. What could have been a straightforward task on behalf of Minnesota schools has become instead a decades-long hostage situation, as the Forest Service and aligned special interests seek to double dip on benefits both inside and outside the wilderness — at the expense of our schools.
‘The missing piece’: Hardwood leaders stress to lawmakers the need for industry coordination in southern Pa. (Lancaster Online)
Lancaster County is home to more jobs in the forest products industry than any other county in Pennsylvania. But unlike 34 counties in a stretch of the state’s northern and central regions, Lancaster lacks a local organization to coordinate forest management, promote hardwood industries and attract workers. That’s largely because the General Assembly hasn’t funded the formation of a Hardwood Utilization Group, colloquially called a HUG, for 33 counties across southern Pennsylvania. Hardwood leaders look to change that in the coming months during state budget negotiations.
Timing is everything: How trees use an inner clock for smarter growth (Earth)
As climate patterns shift and seasons grow less predictable, trees must adapt in ways science is only beginning to understand. Beneath their bark and branches lies a powerful, invisible system: a circadian clock. Much like the one that governs human sleep cycles, the tree’s biological clock regulates daily and seasonal activities. It tells the tree when to grow, when to bud, and when to conserve energy. Now, researchers at Umeå University have unlocked more of this inner world. Their recent study shows how genetic changes to this clock can help trees better align with the rhythm of their environment.
Pando: How one tree makes a forest (Utah Statesman)
All trees start out as a single seed, but not all trees become Pando, a quaking aspen clone in Utah’s Fishlake National Forest. Over thousands of years, it has grown to span over 106 acres with an estimated 47,000 genetically identical trees. “It’s been around a long time — certainly centuries if not millennia,” said Paul Rogers, ecologist and director of the Western Aspen Alliance. According to the United States Forest Service, when the Pando clone was discovered, scientists named it a Latin word that means “I spread.” Pando is an aspen clone that originated from a single seed and spreads by sending up new shoots from the expanding root system. “Pando is believed to be the largest, most dense organism ever found at nearly 13 million pounds,” according to the Forest Service. First recognized by researchers in the 1970s, it has more recently been proven by geneticists.
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