Update – November 1st: HR 2936 has just passed in the House of Representatives with a vote of 232-188. Please take action (tweet and email) here.
No on #ResilientFederalForestsAct
Please scroll to the bottom of this post for more information and to take action.
Lawmakers in Congress are promoting legislation in the Senate and in the House based on the mythology of catastrophic wildfires that would largely eliminate environmental analysis and public participation for logging projects in our National Forests. This would include removing all or most trees in both mature forests and in ecologically vital post-wildfire habitats — all of which is cynically packaged as “fuel reduction” measures.
The logging industry’s political allies have fully embraced the deceptive “catastrophic wildfire” narrative to promote this giveaway of our National Forests to timber corporations. But this narrative is a scientifically bankrupt smoke screen for rampant commercial logging on our public lands. The American people should not fall for it.
“No We Can’t – And Shouldn’t – Stop Forest Fires”
By Chad Hanson and Mike Garrity
“The American West is burning, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said in his recent Post op-ed. He and officials in the Trump administration have described Western forest fires as catastrophes, promoting congressional action ostensibly to save our National Forests from fire by allowing widespread commercial logging on public lands. This, they claim, will reduce forest density and the fuel for wildfires.
But this position is out of step with current science and is based on several myths promoted by commercial interests.
The first myth is the notion that fire destroys our forests and that we currently have an unnatural excess of fire. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a broad consensus among scientists that we have considerably less fire of all intensities in our Western U.S. forests compared with natural, historical levels, when lightning-caused fires burned without humans trying to put them out.
There is an equally strong consensus among scientists that fire is essential to maintain ecologically healthy forests and native biodiversity. This includes large fires and patches of intense fire, which create an abundance of biologically essential standing dead trees (known as snags) and naturally stimulate regeneration of vigorous new stands of forest. These areas of “snag forest habitat” are ecological treasures, not catastrophes, and many native wildlife species, such as the rare black-backed woodpecker, depend on this habitat to survive.
Fire or drought kills trees, which attracts native beetle species that depend on dead or dying trees. Woodpeckers eat the larvae of the beetles and then create nest cavities in the dead trees, because snags are softer than live trees. The male woodpecker creates two or three nest cavities each year, and the female picks the one she likes the best, which creates homes for dozens of other forest wildlife species that need cavities to survive but cannot create their own, such as bluebirds, chickadees, chipmunks, flying squirrels and many others.
More than 260 scientists wrote to Congress in 2015 opposing legislative proposals that would weaken environmental laws and increase logging on National Forests under the guise of curbing wildfires, noting that snag forests are “quite simply some of the best wildlife habitat in forests.”
That brings us to myth No. 2: that eliminating or weakening environmental laws — and increasing logging — will somehow curb or halt forest fires. In 2016, in the largest analysis ever on this question, scientists found that forests with the fewest environmental protections and the most logging had the highest — not the lowest — levels of fire intensity. Logging removes relatively noncombustible tree trunks and leaves behind flammable “slash debris,” consisting of kindling-like branches and treetops.
This is closely related to myth No. 3: that dead trees, usually removed during logging projects, increase fire intensity in our forests. A comprehensive study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences thoroughly debunked this notion by showing that outbreaks of pine beetles, which can create patches of snag forest habitat, didn’t lead to more intense fires in the area. A more recent study found that forests with high levels of snags actually burn less intensely. This is because flames spread primarily through pine needles and small twigs, which fall to the ground and soon decay into soil shortly after trees die.
Finally, myth No. 4: that we can stop weather-driven forest fires. We can no more suppress forest fires during extreme fire weather than we can stand on a ridgetop and fight the wind. It is hubris and folly to even try. Fires slow and stop when the weather changes. It makes far more sense to focus our resources on protecting rural homes and other structures from fire by creating “defensible space” of about 100 feet between houses and forests. This allows fire to serve its essential ecological role while keeping it away from our communities.
Lawmakers in Congress are promoting legislation in the Senate and in the House based on the mythology of catastrophic wildfires that would largely eliminate environmental analysis and public participation for logging projects in our National Forests. This would include removing all or most trees in both mature forests and in ecologically vital post-wildfire habitats — all of which is cynically packaged as “fuel reduction” measures.
The logging industry’s political allies have fully embraced the deceptive “catastrophic wildfire” narrative to promote this giveaway of our National Forests to timber corporations. But this narrative is a scientifically bankrupt smoke screen for rampant commercial logging on our public lands. The American people should not fall for it.”
Chad Hanson is a research ecologist with the John Muir Project and is co-editor and co-author of “The Ecological Importance of Mixed-Severity Fires: Nature’s Phoenix.” Mike Garrity is executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.
On September 27th the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on solutions to restore health and resiliency to national forests (science was not included) and in June, the House Subcommittee on Natural Resources passed H.R. 2936 out of Committee. This bill may receive floor attention in the House in the near future. Please contact your elected officials in the House of Representatives voicing your opposition to this appalling proposal here or here. Below you will find a sample email which you may utilize as you wish.
Please also sign this petition from Cascadia Wildlands.
And please consider calling your representative; connect with the Capital switchboard at 202-224-3121 or look them up here.
For more information please see this post: Dear Congress: What have you done (scroll to the bottom of the post).
Again, as this has already passed in the House please contact your Senators here. Thank you.
Dear (Your Representatives),
As your constituent, I urge you to vote NO on H.R. 2936 – the Resilient Federal Forests Act when it comes to the floor for a vote.
The bill contains an incredible amount of loopholes and exclusions for environmental, judicial, and public review. Incredibly, this legislation gives away public lands to adjacent private land owners.
H.R. 2936 would devastate forest health and severely undermines the National Environmental Policy Act by exempting harmful activities from environmental review and allows for:
• Unsustainable logging.
• The transferring of endangered species authority away from the expert consulting agencies. The legislation also caps endangered species consultation for environmental issues arbitrarily at 90 days, and grants the Forest Service unilateral authority to forgo Endangered Species Act consultation.
• The elimination of environmental analysis for an enormous number of logging projects.
• The bill also allows unstudied logging, grazing, livestock infrastructure construction, and herbicide application under the guise of wildfire risk mitigation for areas under 10,000 acres.
This proposal would devastate forest health, and by exempting harmful activities from environmental review, including forest clearing for up to 30,000 acres, which is an area nearly 429 times larger than what is currently allowed to take place without review, is a shameful piece of legislation.
The so-called “Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2017 (H.R. 2936) claims to help solve the problem of wildfires in National Forests, but is an obvious move to shift federal funding away from environmental protections on federal lands and allow the logging industry in.
Again, as your constituent, I urge you to vote NO on H.R. 2936 – the Resilient Federal Forests Act when it comes to the floor for a vote.
Thank you for your time and consideration of this extremely important matter.
Regards, (Your name)
Note: Should the Senate version of this bill move forward, or should H.R.2936 pass in the House, we will then address our U.S. Senators.
Read more on this topic:
Chad Hanson: The Big Lie: Logging and Forest Fires
Forests with higher levels of protection have lower levels of fire severity
Steve Daines: The American West is Burning
Kyle Dickman: Five Myths About Wildfires
intheshadowofthewolf 
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