Earthjustice Statement on Senate Fix Our Forests Act

Today, Senators John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Tim Sheehy (D-Mont.), and John Curtis (R-Utah) introduced the Fix Our Forests Act. The bill would stifle citizen voices, remove science from land management decisions, and facilitate a large-scale rollback of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), National Historic Preservation Act, and National Environmental Policy Act on millions of acres of federal land.

“This bill fails to invest in proven wildfire prevention solutions to effectively protect communities and our forests from increasing wildfire threats,” said Earthjustice Senior Legislative Representative Blaine Miller-McFeeley. “Effective wildfire prevention starts by funding and staffing key agencies and investing in proven fire-mitigation techniques like home hardening and science-based forest management. This bill instead would codify the Trump administration’s attacks on our national forests and open the door for the timber industry to recklessly log our forests under the guise of forest management. Congress should support real solutions, like the Community Protection and Wildfire Resiliency Act, that put the safety and needs of communities over the timber industry’s profits.”

The legislation would open millions of acres of federal land to logging without scientific review and community input — potentially increasing the risk of wildfires. It facilitates the logging of large old-growth trees that are naturally fire resilient. Additionally, the bill removes ESA consultation requirements to protect threatened and endangered species and limits the right of citizens to judicial review, effectively silencing communities from holding federal agencies accountable for their decisions.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration issued an executive order seeking to increase timber production on public lands by weakening the Endangered Species Act in the process. Last week, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins issued a Secretarial Memo to begin implementing the executive order, declaring 112 million acres of national forest system land to be an ‘emergency situation,’ easing large-scale logging operations.

House Natural Resources Committee Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) introduced companion legislation that passed the House in January 2025.

Earthjustice and over 100 other groups sent a letter to Senators urging them to oppose the House-passed version of the Fix Our Forests Act and called on them to implement other provisions of the bipartisan Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission’s recommendations.