America's forests need your help. A bill moving rapidly through the House of Representatives would place logging ahead of all other uses of public lands while shifting funding from environmental restoration to timber production.
Please
CALL OR EMAIL YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS TODAY and ask them to oppose harmful forestry provisions included in the House Farm Bill. Ask them
to speak out against the partisan forest provisions during floor debate or in statements on the bill. The House plans to vote on this legislation next week.
Background: The Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018 (House Farm Bill) is replete with attacks on bedrock environmental laws and America's national forests. Specifically, the Bill undermines the National Environmental Policy Act, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, and the Endangered Species Act to promote logging over other uses of public land.
- The bill allows numerous categorical exclusions (CEs) from environmental review and public comment for nearly every land management activity the Forest Service conducts, including road building and logging on up to 6,000 acres-nearly 10 square miles.
- The bill undermines the Roadless Rule by creating a loophole that would allow logging and costly roadbuilding on millions of acres of protected roadless forest.
- The bill weakens Endangered Species Act protections by eliminating expert opinion about whether actions would harm endangered species and critical habitat. This approach has been declared unlawful by the courts.
Timber industry advocates argue that they are hampered from doing large projects under current law. That's not true. If the Forest Service needs to do a 6,000-acre project, it can do that already. But first it must take input from the public about how they'd be affected, and it has to consider how water, soil, and wildlife habitat can be protected. That's what the law requires; but this bill is using wildfire as an excuse to circumvent the law and to give away our public lands to the timber industry.
Congress should stop trying to legislate logging projects and allow the Forest Service to use the many tools it has at its disposal to keep our communities safe from wildfire and protect the priceless values that our national forests provide.
Please ask your member of Congress to oppose the House Farm Bill and speak out against the extreme forest provisions during floor debate or in statements on the bill.
