Earthjustice Responds to ‘Emergency’ Forests Directive That Lays Groundwork for Widespread Industrial Logging

In response to President Trump’s recent executive order calling on federal agencies to ramp up timber harvests across federal forestlands, a Secretarial Memo issued April 3 from the Department of Agriculture has declared 59% of U.S. Forest Service lands, spanning more than 112 million acres across the national forest system, to be in an “emergency situation.” This determination aims to make it easier for the Forest Service to carry out logging of any trees deemed to be hazardous and allow the agency to circumvent and expedite approval processes normally required under federal environmental law.

In addition to the emergency declaration, the memo also says the Forest Service will “increase timber production, decrease the time to offer timber supply,” and “streamline, to the extent allowable by law, all processes related to timber production.” President Trump issued an executive order on March 1 calling for the agency to boost timber production. This emergency determination is an explicit response to Trump’s order.

The following is a quote from Blaine Miller-McFeeley, an expert on this subject with Earthjustice’s Policy and Legislation team:

“This absurdly vast, and poorly justified, emergency determination aims to boost logging and reduce environmental safeguards across most national forestlands in a handout to the logging industry. The Forest Service should focus its energy where it can help the American public: Like protecting communities from fire. Declaring an emergency across 112 million acres achieves little more than greasing the wheels of logging trucks carting away our national forests. This could result in significant harm to forest ecosystems and damage the outdoor recreation economy. Cutting down trees that currently serve as important buffers against climate change is exactly the wrong approach to reduce the threat of wildfires exacerbated by climate change.”