This story first appeared on coloradosun.com.
By Tracy Ross, The Colorado Sun
Environmental groups are sounding the alarm after the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared more than 100 million acres of national forest land “an emergency situation” that can only be helped with chainsaws, wood chippers and the bigger, more destructive tools of industrial logging.
But an attorney specializing in environmental litigation and a longtime forester and policy analyst both say contrary to how bad the memo from USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins may sound, its contents could be a shot in the arm the U.S. needs to ramp up its response to the growing wildfire crisis and continue much-needed work on forest health and restoration where mill infrastructure exists.
The memo Rollins sent Friday follows an executive order President Donald Trump made in March directing federal agencies to explore ways to ramp up timber production, expedite delivery and “decrease timber supply uncertainty” across 280 million acres of national forests and other public lands by bypassing the Endangered Species Act and other environmental regulations.
The order gained significance Monday following reports that the U.S. was preparing to increase tariffs on Canadian lumber, independent of Trump’s new “reciprocal” tariffs. But the commodity was spared when Trump Wednesday authorized a 90-day pause on his reciprocal tariff plans for all countries except China, leaving Mexico and Canada with a baseline 10% global tariff.
Read the full story at The Colorado Sun.
