Republican-led policy directives could rewrite forest policies that affect public lands in Oregon and the rest of the West.
New executive orders from the Trump administration last weekend call on federal agencies to fast-track logging projects by circumventing endangered species laws, and to investigate whether lumber imports threaten national security. These directives could influence separate logging policies that are currently in the works.
Among those prospective policies is the Fix Our Forests Act, which is set for hearing in the U.S. Senate on Thursday. The bill would allow agencies to fast-track logging projects that are intended to reduce wildfire fuels.
“Fix Our Forests is a logging bill attempting to disguise itself as a legitimate wildfire strategy,” Lauren Anderson, program manager at the environmental nonprofit Oregon Wild, said. “It’s a very direct attack on the public’s ability to engage in management of public lands, attacking our bedrock environmental laws, and our last remaining mature and old growth forests.”
Trump’s orders also come as the Forest Service is finalizing years of work on amending the Northwest Forest Plan, which broadly outlines when and where logging can occur across 24.5 million acres of federal land in western Oregon, Washington, and northwestern California. Some environmentalists worry the president’s directives will push the Forest Service to pursue a more timber-friendly amendment to the Northwest Forest Plan — particularly if the agency is acting under Trump’s order to circumvent endangered species assessments ahead of timber sales.
“This executive order is a clue, right?” Oregon Wild staff attorney John Persell said. “It tells the agencies to look for any and all ways to unburden themselves in order to ramp up logging.”
An Oregon logging company cuts trees in the Malheur National Forest in 2020.
Brandon Swanson
The "Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production" executive order directs all federal agencies to rescind regulations that “impose an undue burden” on timber production. Citing unspecified emergency powers, Trump calls on forest agencies to sidestep environmental rules meant to protect over 400 threatened and endangered species, including wild salmon, marbled murrelets and spotted owls.
Before proceeding with a timber sale, federal agencies like the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are required to survey forests for critical habitat, like old growth trees that shelter marbled murrelets and spotted owls. Environmental groups fear these orders will speed through that process, or eliminate it entirely.
“If implemented, this directive will have disastrous effects on clean water, salmon and wildlife recovery, and climate stability,” Grace Brahler, wildlands director at the Eugene-based nonprofit Cascadia Wildlands, said in a statement.
Trump’s other directive, called "Addressing The Threat To National Security from Imports of Timber, Lumber," classifies the timber industry as “essential to the national security, economic strength, and industrial resilience of the United States.” It commands the secretary of commerce to evaluate the “national security risks” associated with importing raw logs and timber products from other countries.
Timber groups and many Republican lawmakers immediately applauded Trump’s new directives.
“These executive orders state the obvious but provide the clarity and leadership past administrations have failed to say out loud and prioritize: America’s wood products should come from America,” Travis Joseph, president of the Portland-based timber trade association, American Forest Resource Council, said in a statement.
Some experts say it’s too soon to tell how these presidential directives will affect Oregon’s timber market, particularly Trump’s order on fast-tracking timber sales to benefit logging companies and mills.
“There are a lot of layers in that executive order,” Mindy Crandall, associate professor of forest policy at Oregon State University, said. “It’s going to take a long time before we really see how this is going to play out.”
Crandall said Canadian imports make up a large chunk of the U.S.‘s softwood lumber supply. Oregon also leads the nation as the top softwood lumber-producing state — so in some ways, limiting Canadian imports could benefit Oregon softwood growers.
Still, Crandall suspects any policy changes will likely result in only short-term windfalls for Oregon mills and forest owners.
“Big policy swings right now are perceived as only going to be in place for four years,” Crandall said. “They don’t lead to a lot of business operating stability, right? Businesses make decisions based on lots of factors, including longer-run expectations.”
Crandall also doesn’t think these directives will push federal forest agencies to start chopping down old growth trees, because most mills aren’t equipped to process those large logs.
“Our processing infrastructure isn’t built around them anymore,” Crandall said. Our processing infrastructure is built around really consistent, 40-year-old Douglas fir trees coming off of plantations."
That’s evident in data from the state agency Oregon Forest Resources Institute, which shows that most timber logged in Oregon comes from large, privately owned forestland — not federal or state land.
