16-05-2025
Fix Our Forests Act would destroy forests without protecting communities
A small pond sits near the Twin Rock Trail in the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. (NPS staff/Peterson/Public domain)
Forests are extremely valuable for watersheds, wildlife, carbon storage, recreation and so much more. The deceptively named Fix Our Forests Act, or FOFA, does nothing to conserve forests to retain these values. Instead, it would emphasize logging and otherwise manipulating forests at a scale we haven't seen on public lands for many decades, if ever.
The misguided bill has already passed the House, and its Senate version was recently introduced by Colorado's own U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper and other Western senators. FOFA encourages the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, which manage most of the federal lands in the Western U.S., to avoid a careful examination of impacts from logging and ways to reduce harms under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Under FOFA, projects up to 10,000 acres — over 15 square miles — would be excluded from consideration of possible impacts. The effects to watersheds, wildlife habitat, recreation and scenery would be massive. What's more, the public would have only one chance to provide input for logging projects and could only object in court.
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If Fix Our Forests passes, agencies would no longer need to consult about their management plans with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service if new threatened or endangered species were listed or critical habitat was designated for them, or even if new information surfaced concerning what action was needed for their recovery to secure populations. This provision could lead to further harm to species already on the edge of continued existence.
The use of livestock grazing to reduce the risk of fire would be also encouraged. Grazing can be extremely harmful to fragile ecosystems, especially near streams and lakes. Stock can denude vegetation, leading to invasion by non-native species, such as cheatgrass, which burns easily and readily reestablishes itself after fires. Yet under FOFA, grazing could be used for 'post-fire restoration and recovery,' in spite of adverse impacts.
Under recent direction from its Washington office, the U.S. Forest Service would be encouraged to use two methods of approving logging projects that would basically allow loggers to select which trees they want to cut and sell to mills. The largest trees, the ones most valuable for wildlife and storing carbon, would likely be taken. FOFA would even allow logging for the purpose of 'retaining and expanding forest products infrastructure,' i.e., with no other goal than to benefit the logging industry by giving them logs off public lands at taxpayer expense.
In the bill, 'high priority hazard trees' would be defined as those likely to fall, which could of course mean almost all trees in the forest. Areas up to 6,000 acres containing such trees within 300 feet of Forest Service roads could be cut with no consideration of impacts. Similarly, trees that could fall within 150 feet of a powerline could be cut with no assessment of possible impacts.
Science, much of it researched by the Forest Service, clearly shows the best way to protect houses and other infrastructure is by removing flammable material from the structures and an area no more than 100 feet surrounding them. Cutting our public forests will not protect our communities.
We don't need to degrade and destroy forests to save our homes and infrastructure from fire. Our forests need more protection from harmful activities, not less, in order to retain the great benefits they provide for us and other species as well.
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