{"id":858,"date":"2025-09-03T11:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T11:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.canoeinstructor.com\/?p=858"},"modified":"2025-09-04T12:05:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T12:05:18","slug":"hidden-in-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-a-mandate-to-strip-big-trees-from-our-national-forests-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.canoeinstructor.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/03\/hidden-in-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-a-mandate-to-strip-big-trees-from-our-national-forests-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"Hidden in Trump\u2019s Big Beautiful Bill \u2014 a mandate to strip big trees from our national forests (Opinion)"},"content":{"rendered":"

It didn\u2019t get much notice, but President Donald Trump has turbocharged logging on public lands in ways that are likely to increase dangerous wildfire. Inside the \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill<\/a>\u201d that became law this summer, a provision directs the U. S. Forest Service to annually increase the timber it sells until the amount almost doubles to 5 million board-feet by 2032.<\/p>\n

Why did few people notice this directive to dramatically increase logging from our public lands? One answer is that it got lost as an engaged public fought selling off millions of acres of public land.<\/p>\n

Final score: We got to keep the land but not the trees.<\/p>\n

Most people support careful logging as part of the smart management of public forests. For instance, a now-irrelevant bill called Fix Our Forests Act had been steadily advancing through Congress, gathering support from both the timber industry and dozens of green groups, ranging from The Nature Conservancy to the Citizens Climate Lobby. By targeting over-abundant small trees while leaving the hardy big ones, that bill would have increased logging while protecting habitat and reducing wildfire.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s new law eliminates those protections, freeing loggers to cut big trees and leave behind the small ones. This will worsen existing tinderbox conditions, particularly in the West.<\/p>\n

The law also essentially outsources some public forest management to corporations. It directs the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to develop at least 45 separate, 20-year contracts with private companies. The contracts would enable companies to log across whole districts — not yet determined — or even entire national forests.<\/p>\n

An approach this broad has a sordid history of inefficiency, waste, and environmental destruction. For example, the Skokomish River on Washington\u2019s Olympic Peninsula suffered decades of damaging floods as a result of the sweeping contract one company had for the so-called Shelton Sustained Yield Unit. That sweetheart timber deal created many bare, flood-prone hillsides and lasted from 1946 until 2022.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s surprising, but even timber interests oppose 20-year contracts. Over 70 logging-related businesses sent a letter to the Forest Service, pointing out that by allowing a single company to tie up publicly owned timber in a national forest, \u201clong-term contracts would harm competition, markets and prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why didn\u2019t industry opposition get heard? One theory is that these contracts can serve as a fig leaf masking the consequences of Trump\u2019s high tariffs on Canadian lumber. As tariffs on Canadian timber raise homebuilding costs, the administration can claim to be offsetting the problem by providing cheaper logs from national forests.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the Forest Service is scrambling to meet an onslaught of new Trump executive orders. In June, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins rescinded \u201cseven agency-specific regulations\u201d that resulted in a 66% reduction of mostly environmental reviews that will offer little opportunity for public comment.<\/p>\n

Last week, Rollins also announced her intent to roll back the 2001 Roadless Area Protection Rule, which protects 60 million acres of wildlands. Until Sept. 19, the U.S. Forest Service is taking public comments for a study on the environmental impacts<\/a> of rescinding the roadless rule, fierce legal and political fights are guaranteed in an effort to preserve the rule.<\/p>\n